[2] Crate became leader of the Canadian Union of Fascists while a student at York Memorial Collegiate Institute, in a working class suburb of Toronto.
[3] He had contacted the British Union of Fascists, who put him in touch with BUF supporters in Canada organised in the Winnipeg-based CUF.
[1] The party was banned on June 4, 1940, under the Defence of Canada Regulations[6] but Crate avoided internment by signing a declaration severing his connections with the CUF.
[7] However, by 1942, Crate had moved to Winnipeg and was editing The Thunderbolt there, blaming the conditions of the time on Jews, the Roman Catholic Church and the Masonic Order.
Nielsen also expressed concerns that Crate had been given a permit to join the construction crew of the Alaska Highway, a crucial wartime project.