Hamilton police say a venue that had rented space to an anti-immigration group for its national conference later this week has cancelled the booking.
Dominion Society of Canada’s website says its DomCon conference featuring Canadian and international speakers is taking place Aug. 29 in the “Hamilton area.” On Aug. 13, the group said a venue in Hamilton had been booked.
Police didn’t share additional information about the venue, such as its location, or when and why it cancelled the booking.
A coalition of Hamilton groups, including the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre (HARRC), had warned venues not to book the event, and HARRC produced a guide to help identify white nationalist groups before any bookings are made.
Hamilton’s mayor also sent out a letter warning venues and businesses.
On Tuesday, HARRC said it was “aware of ongoing efforts by the Dominion Society to secure a venue” in the Hamilton area for its event.
Group maintains event is moving forward
HARRC once again asked venue owners, businesses and community facilities to carefully review bookings and inquiries for this Saturday, and to be aware the group may make plans under a different names, including Ridgeway Media.
Director Lyndon George said HARRC isn’t disclosing more about the cancellation to ensure the privacy of the venue.
The Dominion Society of Canada, a group advocating for the deportation of millions of immigrants, says it’s hosting a conference in the Hamilton area Aug. 29. Local anti-racist organizations are asking businesses not to host them. They’ve also produced a guide on how to avoid accidentally renting to groups they say promote hate.
CBC Hamilton asked Dominion Society to confirm if its booking had been cancelled, whether it still plans to go ahead with the conference and if it has been requesting bookings under fake names.
“Despite the best efforts of the anti-Canadian media, irrelevant politicians and angry activists who hate Canada and everything it stands for — DOMCON26 is moving forward exactly as planned,” the group’s co-founder and chair, Daniel Tyrie, said in an email.
He said the Hamilton-area event this Saturday is sold out.
Tyrie, a former People’s Party of Canada (PPC) executive director, co-founded Dominion Society in 2025. It’s a federally registered non-profit corporation with an office listed in Ottawa. The self-proclaimed nationalist club says it has thousands of members, and is focused on promoting Canadian heritage and immigration reform.
As shown on its website, that reform means “remigration” or deporting immigrants back to their homelands. The group promotes a plan to deport five million to nine million people, including temporary foreign workers, permanent residents and people born in Canada to non-Canadian citizens.
Multiple community groups and politicians have condemned Dominion Society, saying the group is actually promoting fear and hate, something Tyrie denies.
Experts in hate and extremism have told CBC Hamilton that Dominion Society is a racist group focused on making Canada white and blaming problems on immigrants. According to a new report from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network that was released Aug. 25, Tyrie was originally attracted to the PPC for its anti-immigration views.
Evan Balgord of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network previously said Dominion Society has “neo-Nazi members” and shares members with “more openly extreme” white nationalist groups, including Diagolon and Second Sons.
Tyrie told CBC that his group has members “from a wide variety of political backgrounds and associations.”
For months, Dominion Society has promoted a conference in the Hamilton area.
The ticketed event website lists speakers like Austrian white nationalist Martin Sellner, who is permanently banned from the U.K. Dominion Society, and hasn’t publicly said where the event will be, telling CBC it was keeping that private to protect members from being targeted by people who oppose it.
On Tuesday, HARRC said it urges venues “to explicitly ask” if an event they’ve been asked to rent to is associated with DomCon.
It said anyone who may have received an inquiry or thinks they could have unknowingly booked space for the event should get in touch for help to determine next steps.
On Sunday, B’nai Brith Canada shared a statement about DomCon, urging federal officials “to block foreign extremists” from entering the country to attend as speakers. It said it alerted Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to the situation and was “engaging with local law enforcement.”
“Such events serve only to normalize hatred and extremism in Canadian society,” said the Jewish human rights organization’s director, Richard Robertson. “Our government cannot allow foreign agitators to enter Canada to indoctrinate Canadians and spread their hateful vitriol.”
No policing plans provided
CBC Hamilton asked CBSA for comment and whether it planned to deny anyone entry.
In an email, CBSA spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is responsible for issuing travel documents and does so on a case-by-case basis.
“A person cannot be denied entry to Canada because of their personal beliefs or political views,” Purdy said, but people can be denied on security grounds.
CBC Hamilton also asked the Hamilton Police Service whether it was in touch with the venue that cancelled the DomCon booking regarding any security concerns, and asked whether police had finished an operational plan that the service previously said it was developing to “respond to any risks, disruptions or criminal activity” associated with DomCon 2026.
“We continue to work closely with our partners,” police service spokesperson Jackie Penman said in an email. “For operational reasons, we will not be providing details regarding any policing plans.”
