CALEB NICKERSON

BRISTOL June 28, 2019

A charity music festival planned for later this month had the majority of their acts pull out over the weekend after concerns were raised about one of the promoter’s ties to ultra-nationalist groups, as well as where the proceeds would be donated.

The Musicfest4vets was planned for the July 20 weekend in Bristol, and featured mud racing and 21 different local acts, with singer Bif Naked as the headliner.

One of the promoters, Eric Brazeau of Aylmer, said that he hosted a similar festival in Low, Que. last year and approached Lee Marrazzo of Luskville to host the event at Marrazzo’s property in Bristol, in conjunction with his mud races. The two said they met several years ago while volunteering to feed the homeless in Ottawa.

Brazeau is a former member of the ultra-nationalist group Soldiers of Odin (SoO) and served briefly as the Quebec vice-president for the Northern Guard (NG), another ultra-nationalist group that was formed after a split with the SoO’s Quebec chapter. While NG portrays itself as a “patriot” group, several prominent members, including the former vice-president of the Saskatchewan chapter, are overt white nationalists or neo-Nazis.

On June 28, the Twitter account “Yellow Vests Canada Exposed”, made a series of posts that detailed Brazeau’s past affiliations, as well as the fact that another far-right “patriot” group, the Canadian Combat Coalition (C3), would be holding a rally on Parliament Hill July 20. Several members, including C3’s President Dan Dubois said they would be attending both events and camping at the site in Bristol. Last year’s version of the “Canadians for Canada” rally, as it is named, reportedly had a poor turnout, but still prompted a counter-protest.

Later that day, Bif Naked posted a statement that she would no longer be appearing or performing at the event, and urged her fans to donate to organizations that help veterans or their families. Following that announcement, several other bands announced that they would be pulling out as well.

In a phone interview with THE EQUITY on July 1, Brazeau said that only six of the original 21 remain.

Marrazzo, in a phone interview on June 28 prior to these developments, said that he has no affiliations with ultra-nationalist groups, and said they weren’t welcome. He said that Brazeau was added solely for his contacts with the bands.

“I want nothing to do with that,” he said. “I made it strictly clear that I don’t want any of those affiliations at all. To tell you the truth, unless something goes drastically different, this will be the last year that I involve Musicfest4vets at all, just because of all the negative feedback I started hearing once I started to put this on, but at that point it was too late.”

“It’s come up a few times, it even came up when I had the meeting at the municipality, of his affiliation with these groups,” Marrazzo continued. “It’s my festival, it was a mud run. I included Eric to bring in the music because he had a lot of contacts from last year when he did it.”

Brazeau denied any current affiliation with any groups, and claimed he never invited them to attend.

“I’ve been out of anything remotely political for the last two years,” he said on June 28.

In November 2018, the Musicfest4vets Twitter account posted a picture showing Brazeau posing with People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier and holding a flag bearing the event’s name. The caption read, “#MadMax. a leader that cares.” The account has since been deactivated.

In the interview on July 1, he also claimed he isn’t “social-media savvy”, despite actively promoting the event on several Facebook pages, including Yellow Vests Canada, a protest movement that has been criticized for its association with far-right extremists.

“I’m starting to see that [with] social media, you have to be careful,” Brazeau said.

On June 30, Brazeau appeared in a Facebook live video with NG member Duke Willis to discuss the situation with the festival. In a stilted, rambling conversation interspersed with conspiracy theories – like that the 2012 massacre of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax, or that the prime minister was on the verge of declaring martial law – the two blamed Anti-Racist Canada, a collective that the Yellow Vests Canada Exposed Twitter account is associated with, for the cancellation of the event.

Another concern raised on social media was where the proceeds of the event would be donated. Marrazzo, on June 28, said that some of the funds would be split between the Quyon Legion, the Quyon Family Centre and the Municipalty of Pontiac Fire Department, but that the lion’s share would go to Trevor Sanderson, a veteran that is looking to start a Winnipeg drop-in centre for fellow vets. Sanderson’s project is still in the planning stages and Marrazzo said that they would wait until it is further along before handing over the cash.

“When he’s ready to purchase the building and get it set up, we’ll give him the donations,” he said. “Until he’s properly set up, we’re not just going to throw money at a random person.”

In the video with Willis, Brazeau responded to allegations about misappropriating the funds from the previous year’s Musicfest4vets event, claiming that the festival put him tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

The Equity reached Marrazzo on July 1, and he said he had cut ties with Brazeau and Musicfest4vets.

“In light of the information I heard, I’m going to be totally pulling Eric and the Musicfest4vets from the festival completely,” he said.

Marrazzo said that while the two didn’t extensively discuss Brazeau’s involvement with SoO and NG, Brazeau played down his role in the groups.

“I had no idea the amount of involvement he had in any of this stuff,” he said. “I won’t stand for it and I want nothing to do with it.”

He also added that he didn’t intend for the event to be billed as a fundraiser, saying that he preferred to donate a portion of the proceeds discretely once the event was over. Marrazzo noted that this was a point of contention between him and Brazeau.

“In my beliefs, when you help people, you don’t take credit for it,” he said. “I don’t need the credit for it.”

Marrazzo, on July 1, reiterated that he has never been associated with extremist movements and wants nothing to do with them.

“I have no involvement in any of that crap,” he said. “Frankly, it disgusts me completely and goes against everything I believe in … This is something I’ve been planning to do for years to come to this community, to be able to help people in this community, I can’t take the chance of having people like that around me.”

He said the mud races were still on and that he might bring in some bands for entertainment, but the event would be much smaller than previously planned.

“I’m going to search out some bands, still have a beer tent or whatever, but it won’t be on the scale that it was before,” he said.