Our Man In Ottawa: Who Is Benjamin Dichter?

One Man Who Crossed Paths With Him In 2014 Tells Us His Harrowing Story, Part 2 in a 2 Part series

What follows is an interview with Paul Bell, former Toronto Municipal candidate. I’ve known Paul from Facebook over the years, admired his political writings, and spoken to him on the phone a few times in the past. He sent me a PM on Feb. 16 telling me he had direct knowledge of one of the so-called spokespersons for the Ottawa Freedom Convoy, Benjamin Dichter, and needed urgently to speak to me. Over the weekend, Dichter fled Ottawa, and his corruptness is no longer a story we can “break” here, but we can dig deeper, and learn something about infiltrators and their patterns.

NOTE: Elements of this interview are time-warped, we might say, as it took place before the crackdown in Ottawa, but it provides historical perspective nevertheless, so bear in mind when you read that it was recorded on Feb. 16.

I called Paul back right away, with the intention of having a pre-talk to what was going to become a podcast. Instead, when I began to transcribe it, I realized how rich in history it was, and I wanted to base the article on it.

What follows is a transcript of (most of) that conversation. Pieces of the story that fit with this include this video by Amazing Polly, from Feb. 11, which was the first time most people understood that four of the self-declared Convoy Spokespersons — also central to the GoFundMe scandal, were suspect, and one of them even had Polly taken off Twitter. Yesterday, after Dichter bailed out of Ottawa, leaving this preposterous tweet, things Paul had told me days earlier proved prophetic.

As I write this, Dichter has left additional theatrics his wake, and as a low water mark of our digitized simulation world, Jordan Peterson, one of the smartest people alive, apparently has not yet been alerted that Dichter is not who he thought he was. To wit, this tweet, (still up on Peterson’s Twitter) of Dichter himself a victim and trying, still, to shake people down. I forgive Peterson and anybody else who fell for this guy, and more importantly, Paul Bell does. Our story is about many things, including being conned by people who show up playing a role we don’t think to question.
Dichter was omnipresent, as self-declared “VP and Spokesperson” of the Freedom Convoy, and apparently, as far as I can discern, nobody ever thought to question whether he worked as a professional truck driver. He emerged along with three other dubious characters, who declared that as much as they love freedom of speech, only they would speak for the Convoy, and all media requests should be sent directly to one of them. To wit:

Here’s an old photo of BJ Dichter. Why is he carrying an LGBT flag? We’ll get to that.

808 Freedom Fighters @808freedom

@xnb73 BJ Dichter, head of the movement

Here’s what Paul told me, about B.J. Dichter, and so much more.

Recorded on Feb. 16, 2022

Q: Let’s first identify the individual we are talking about, who you have history with. 
Paul: His name is Benjamin Dichter, he goes mostly by “B.J.” Other key people are Karim Jivrav, and Mawube Hargoe. It’s fair to say BJ was the ringleader.

I first encountered him in 2014, when he was running for Toronto City Council in downtown, against leftist Kristin Wong-Tam, who has incredible power in Toronto. It was the 2014 municipal election. I was a candidate in North York. I was Rob Ford’s candidate— former Mayor of Toronto. I was running on his banner in North York so there were a lot of people who wanted access to Rob. It was something I dealt with on a daily basis and it was never a problem. Rob was a very accessible guy. I would actually be able to say to people look if you want to talk to the Mayor, call him on his fridge magnet number, he will call you back. And he did. He was a one of a kind politician in the history of the planet. The guy was just a gem. Of course they had to destroy him.

A: Yes, of course they had to. Ok, so tell me about meeting Dichter.

Paul: So, In 2014, I was invited went to attend a debate at the Masonic Temple with Dichter and Wong-Tam. I remember I liked all the notes he was sounding, and we agreed to meet and talk. He calls me up, tells me he has an event at Woody’s, a gay bar in the village in Toronto.  He was a fish out of water. He was a spokesman for LGBTory which was a faction of the Progressive Conservative party. In other words, he founded an identity politics organization. (Note: He told Jordan Peterson he has never had anything to do with identity politics.)

So, I’m seeing my friends, I’m dancing, I’m saying to B.J. “Come on dance, for God’s sake, it’s the Pet Shop Boys.”

Q: Tell me about the others.

A: I really never had a problem with Karim, he actually spilled the beans for me. He was a little drunk at a Christmas party.  What he was trying to do, BJ, was infiltrate into the party. He was dishonest. He’s not a trucker, he was running a printing company. I’ve been dying to tell this to somebody who might be able to do something with it.  These are dangerous people.

I think BJ's being protected. I think the ones who are being named are the patsies. I think FOX, and whoever else is interviewing Dichter, is being hoodwinked. I was hoodwinked by the guy.
There was a period of time when he and his gang decided to turn on me, started doxxing me and what have you. They started recording all their phone calls with me, and then they would splice and edit the content so that it would sound like I was saying things I would never say. And then they were creating fake imposter pages on social media of me, on social media sites I didn’t even know existed. And then also sending links to all of these broadcasts that they created, to prominent conservatives and people in government and influential people. In 2015, I did try to alert the police—they wouldn’t touch it. 

I had never wanted to be a lawmaker. I was told if I were considering that, don’t do it, there’s no way the leader will take you now, not after this. It’s all what they did.
All I can say by way of proof is that Karim admitted it to me. BJ ran under Harper. When he ran, he was the replacement candidate. Because somehow the original candidate…there was some old video that emerged from when he was a teenager, that made it seem he was making fun of developmentally challenged people. He was punted as candidate and then Benjamin stepped in. 

Q: Is this guy is some kind of Canadian intelligence operative, do you think?
A: I do. Now you got it. He’s Ray Epps. 
Q: Perfect analogy.
A: This whole idea that this is about what the trucker-organizers want.. Who gives a fat rat’s ass? The Charter is what’s at stake here.
Q: Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jordan Peterson and Mikhaila Peterson are some of the interviews I’ve seen.
A: He’s everywhere. This is why I think the movement is in danger. The whole thing is controlled opposition. I’m not alone in thinking this thing is all a Charter scam from the beginning… the “Plandemic,” whatever people want to nickname it. It’s deadly serious when you’re taking our rights and thinking that they belong to the government, not to the individual. And that’s what’s happened. That’s the narrative that’s been spun. You get people complaining, complaining and the government refuses to listen. The political class and the media. Before we continue, let me state this: The movement itself is organic, genuine, and sincere. Now I want to detail what I see as the planned elements.

My first trigger was: Why did these truckers who drive $250,000 work vehicles, who object to this, who drive as a convoy to Ottawa, that makes sense, but why the hell would they need BJ Dichter’s handouts and GoFundMe? These are not Antifa thugs that are protesting. The GoFundMe angle, it was immediately weird. 

I believe it was a controlled opposition that got out of control because the whole thing was scripted except for that the rest of Canada joined in as extras. They’re still sticking to the terrorist narrative when it’s all of Canada! 

Q: So it quickly morphed into a real people’s uprising?
A: Yes but it’s not over yet. It’s still only where Trudeau wanted it to be. He needed the Emergency’s Act. This was never about the protests. He could have ignored the trucker protest forever. This trucker protest was never going to turn into anything other than a small trucker protest, it could easily have been ignored, suppressed or dealt with, but they wanted it to go big. They created the narrative that it’s bigger. Trudeau needed the false narrative to get the Emergencies Act so he could go after the bank accounts. Now his problem is that because it did become a real organic movement of Canadians who can’t stand these mandates and want their Charter rights recognized, he had to keep playing up this Nazi narrative. They tried infiltrators on the first night. Everybody called them out.

Editor’s note: Paul wrote a letter to Jordan Peterson, as we developed this story, and I’d like to insert two passages from that letter here:
Dichter’s interest in me was entirely focused on gaining access to Rob Ford or information on him. That was not unusual. Other candidates befriended me when it became known that my candidacy was ‘connected’. Opportunism doesn’t really offend me when its sincere. Dichter did not seem insincere, just arrogant. When the election ended and Dichter approached me along with Hargoe and Karim Jivraj asking to join the PC riding association where I served on the executive, I was happy to vouch for them. I arranged a special meeting and they were voted in as Directors. I had no idea that Dichter was also helping found LGBTory at the same time. The level of dishonesty and corruption that the three of them engaged in during my experience with them was outrageous. They worked very closely with Lisa McLeod throughout. 

I was targeted and brutally discredited by the group, including McLeod, but the level of sophistication, volume, severity and momentum of the attacks was far in excess of anything necessary to take me out, if that was the goal. I’ve never been motivated to a career in politics so anything their efforts might have denied me, I didn’t miss. They were an organization, not just pals. I was not their objective.   

Karim won the nomination as federal Conservative candidate for University-Rosedale later that year. He seemed the least involved in the attacks. I was able to get him alone at a Tory Christmas function and after a few Jack Daniels, he told me everything.

He confessed that under Dichter’s direction, they had recorded phone calls with me, which they spliced and edited, to make me look bad. They also created and posted fake, imposter social media pages and posts claiming to be mine, forwarding all of it to every Federal and Provincial caucus member and bureaucrat. I was basically ruined by an inexplicably vicious bullying campaign.
B.J. Dichter is very dangerous.

Second outtake:

Benjamin was an exceptionally bad actor in my experience but he wasn’t the only one around that time so the profile I created satisfied me to forget about the guy entirely. Then he surfaced as a trucker and the leader of the resistance at that. No way.

During Dichter’s time as LGBTory spokesman and before his Federal run under Harper, Benjamin made a splash in the alt-right community by fomenting anti-Muslim hysteria. He was careful in his choice of words but reckless from the perspective of retaining credibility as a moderate with progressive views on LGBTTQQ2SA issues. Benjamin was very opposed to Boycott Israel initiatives and I share that sensible perspective. The anti-Muslim stuff is pure propaganda. Engaging in that rhetoric while hoping for a Conservative nomination doesn’t add up. Benjamin Dichter is not a radical yet he attaches himself to initiatives that have the potential to be conflated as radical or extremist quite a lot. How has media ignored a former Harper candidate, ostensibly leading an insurrection? They can’t not know this. They’re holding the story back.     

Here, we return to the transcript of the recorded conversation:

A: By the way, they renamed the War Measures Act. This is the first time this new (newly renamed) Act has been deployed. What Pierre Trudeau did in 1970—the October Crisis—what he did to suppresses the Quebec Crisis, everybody agreed, it was justified. He used the authority of the War Measures Act to raid his political opponents’ offices from coast to coast, for intel. 

Justin is going to keep this up. He’s going to bankrupt his political opponents. That’s why he’s screaming ‘Oh everybody’s a Nazi!” It’s totally untrue. But they need that to be true to justify using the Emergencies Act, to get the money. Justin will let this last for another week or two until he’s exhausted the Emergency. Until he’s taken everybody’s money.

Benjamin’s job is not to go there and make actual trouble. There will be some patsies who get arrested in the meantime— he won’t be one of them. He’ll just disappear. What’s happened here that’s different is that there are so many Canadians coming on board.

[BJ Dichter far left, Paul Bell, fourth from Left]
 

Q: So what’s gone wrong, for them?

A: It was just magnificent what went wrong for them. Justin Trudeau is arrogant. He called an election last year expecting a majority and he barely hung on. That’s arrogance. It was an “I-want-more-power election.”
Q: He seems genuinely insane.
A: He is insane. There’s no doubt about it. No question. Consider what the man’s rhetoric has been about. It’s… genocidal ideation. He’s talking to reporters and he’s calling unvaccinated people racist and misogynist, science deniers. 

Then what he said was just the most despicable thing.  He said “Do we tolerate these people?” After describing them as sub- humans. There’s only two ways he could mean that. The least severe thing he could have in mind would be concentration camps, and genocide would be the other. There’s no context you could look at that and say “well what he really meant was…” What he really meant was what he said. Every Build Back Better has to start with a good demolition, so it’s pretty obvious. They’re trying to destroy our institutions including our social ones. Trudeau must have promised them, in his arrogance, that he would deliver Canada to the New World Order on a silver platter. We’re so compliant. We’re so used to not mattering. The last time Canada mattered in the world was when Mulroney took a stand against Apartheid, and battled Thatcher. Since then we’ve been irrelevant. Here we are now, relevant again, and it’s a massive human rights thing, and this has got to be driving the Globalists nuts. They would have looked at him and they would have believed him. He was thinking, ok I’ll just do this false flag thing, I’ll stage this, I’ll get Benjamin to back the truckers, we’ll take this probably real organic trucker movement that was small and easy, and let’s give them some money and let’s jack em up a bit. But by the time the overpasses were crowded with Canadians cheering and singing and yelling “Freedom!” that’s when he went into panic mode. The day before the convoy arrived in Ottawa, he went into hiding. The supply chain nonsense? Sorry, no. 

I’ve been reticent to talk about this. Doug Ford is a guy I would call a friend and he thinks he owns my rights right now, There’s something wonky there. 

Trudeau’s always wanted this. His father, when he declared Martial Law said “Just watch me.” Trudeau wanted his just watch me moment. [Discussion of Justin’s father. Paul has checked the timeline and does not believe Justin Trudeau is Castro’s son, nor that it is important.] 

It would seem that Justin was induced so that he would be born on Christmas, by the way. 

The half brother strikes me as controlled opposition. He’s flaky as all hell. 
The real show is that the rest of Canada showed up as uninvited extras because they liked what they saw of the script and it’s like ‘no no you don’t understand, this thing ends with the Nazis being oppressed by the good government.’ And the extras are saying “no that’s a stupid ending. Go back to the drawing board we want a better ending where we get our rights restored and you recognize them. And government goes away tail between their legs, and Justin resigns over his genocidal ideation.” And no we don’t have to overthrow the government, that’s idiotic.”

It’s not even a technical possibility in Canada. 

Q: What an incredible take on it all. I can’t wait to share this with my readers. I listened to Owen Benjamin at the outset, who was insistent this was controlled opposition with globalist end goals. I turned away from it, perhaps for reasons of emotional despair or maybe because I just wanted to let the thing unfurl, but I took the position this was what we call “real.” My readers in Canada beautifully supported that, with text, photos and videos.

It’s likely, as you say, that it started fake and then exploded real. Or started real and the fake elements were quickly put into place. Owen Benjamin is smart and funny but…it was too dark, for me.  The signal I got was “It is real, and the part that is real is overtaking the fake parts. Let’s keep going.”

A: Yeah, yeah! So…Benjamin they tried to bring out at the beginning. [Note, I think Paul thought I was referencing Benjamin Dichter here, not Owen Benjamin] when they thought they could end this thing quick. And then he disappeared for two weeks. Where was Benjamin? And now Benjamin’s back again? Ok so they’re bringing this guy out, because he’s going to be the guy in the bunker, and then when he disappears again, we’ll give him some clout. He’s going to be the guy, when Trudeau’s finished raiding the bank accounts, when they don’t need the smoke screen anymore, Benjamin’s gone.  
Q: So what’s our play?
A: It’s all his move right now. This is showdown at Little Potato. That’s what the CCP nicknamed him and he hates it. They nicknamed him their Little Potato. Apparently of all things, Justin hates that the most. They did that a few years ago. It was Chrystia Freeland, when she was… minister of something important.. she was on a visit to China and I saw an interview with her…she was bubbling, and praising Trudeau and praising the Communists and she said “oh and they love him here they call him their little potato!” I thought oh God, Justin’s not going to like that. I don’t think they mean that the way you did Chrystia. So Little Potato, he wanted his little showdown, and he figured he’d end it, be all triumphant. The problem is, like it’s still his move. He’s doing all these peripheral moves but he hasn’t directly done anything to address the fundamental issue which is: “What are you going to do about the mandates?”
My own MPP, I actually know the guy, and like him. His office won’t even let me call him anymore. They can’t provide me with any information. I said: Do you have any data that says that these vaccination passports stop the spread of “infection?”
If you don’t then they’re illegal! Can you prove to me that they’re working? I’m allowed to ask. They accused me of yelling at them and swearing. The checklist of reasons why we don’t have to take your call anymore.
A: The way I see it, it’s the political class waging war with the working class. Tucker Carlson nailed that pretty well.

Q: I have to go back to this Paul: About BJ, are you telling me he’s not even really a trucker?
A: No, Christ! He was running a print shop near Ryreson University when I knew him in 2014. Sean Hannity introduced him as a trucker and BJ didn’t correct him. 
Q: That’s our smoking gun. 
A: And he refers to himself as “we” when addressed as “the truckers.”
Q: He’s not a professional truck driver.
A: All I can say is he was not in 2014-2015.
Q: So in 2015 he was not a professional truck driver.
A: 100%
Q: He’s not that young. I don’t see how he suddenly is a truck driver so late in life.
A: Here’s what I can tell you. My Progressive Conservative Riding Association hired Dichter to make business cards for our executive, in 2014. Incidentally, none of us ever got our business cards.

He wanted me to come work for his print shop. Benjamin ran a small printing shop near Ryerson University. A high-rent area. I’m not a brand type (unless it’s notable like Jaguar/Rolls) but I had two rides with him. One from a coffee shop on the Danforth that I lived near and was his client to his printing shop, the other was from a PC leadership event in Scarborough when he dropped me off and others along the way back into the core. Nice luxury car. The man was no trucker and made no mention of owning any trucks, even when discussing his business with me in hopes that I’d come to work for him. For the size of his business, a cube van would have been excessive. He printed pamphlets, essays and small signage for small businesses and students. Any van would have met his needs. 

So yeah, he ran a print shop. Here’s a guy who wasn't a trucker, who was a federal conservative candidate in 2015, for the governing party. He ran for the governing party.
Q: Did Peterson know that?
A: I don’t know what Peterson knows. I know Dichter knows how to sound all the right notes. The guy conned me very well. I thought he was a friend.And I thought Karim was a friend. Karim ended up being so weak that after a few Jack Daniels, he told me…he spilled the beans completely. 
Q: What did he tell you?
A: How they were recording all my phone calls and creating all these fake pages to try to undermine me. Yeah, they were trying to destroy me. It was a doxx and destroy smear campaign. They just wanted me out of the picture. 

[Inserted note: Mikhaila Peterson, Jordan’s daughter, had also interviewed Dichter. I watched the interviews, and noticed what I would, but for Paul, probably never have noticed. For example, when Mikhaila asked him: “Who are you?” He said, with an uncomfortable laugh: “I’m just a guy who owns a truck.” 

”Owns a truck?”

He did not say he was a professional truck driver.]

 
A:If you want to know about BJ Dichter and you’re Canadian media, you should be asking Lisa McCloud who is an important minister in the Ontario government right now. They were tied at the hip when he was LGBTory. She encouraged social media accusing me of promoting violence against women because I’d written columns saying that Hillary’s campaign against Trump was crap. I was just saying it was the worst campaign I’d ever seen. 
And I had the history of being a lieutenant to Rob Ford who was the beta-test for how they attacked Trump. 
What they did to Rob Ford was identical to what they did to Trump. They even dragged Kentucky Fried Chicken into it. “Oh he was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on the plane with a knife and fork because he’s not a man of the people.”
He was so bullied, they made him stand on a [expletive] scale every time he went to work in the morning. Bloody disgusting.

Link to article about Dichter’s crusade against “Islamisization.”

My experiences with the guy [BJ Dichter] were so negative, I will never trust him, I dislike him intensely. When I saw that he was involved with this, I thought: Ok this must be some nefarious thing because he’s incapable in my estimation of doing anything honest or on the level. It’s not going to dissuade me, at all, from loving the whole movement.

[Note: THAT was my objection to the Owen Benjamin position. Seemed loveless.]

A: I don’t think any of these people who are there, in Ottawa, who are supporting this movement know or care who this guy is or what he wants. He’s not a leader of anything. That’s what they’re trying to paint him as, because that’s easy to dispose of. You can’t pin this on an individual. There’s nobody to negotiate with. The rights belong to all Canadians. Benjamin Dichter doesn’t own my rights any more than Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford does. Those rights are inherent. They can’t be negotiated by any GoFundme people, or the Prime Minister. Either you suspend them for the crisis and do this and justify it under the Charter, or you can’t. The rest is all red herrings. I think Trudeau set the whole thing up because he figured, “I’ll get a bunch of rubes, easy to demonize…they’re not that bright these Justin types. He didn’t realize it would take off as big as it did. This is the political class. These are people who live in condos, who are used to hitting Uber Eats and food shows up at their door. They really don’t have an understanding other than an intellectual one. The farmers and the people who drive the trucks and the packers…if they really get their xenophobic way…because when I saw the counter-protesters, mostly white civil servants yelling “Go home! You don’t belong here!”…to fellow Canadians with a more diverse background than themselves. Terrible. These are your fellow Canadians who have come to say, “Hey it may have been really easy for you these last two years not missing a paycheck..not being able to watch your kid swim because of vaccine passports…all of it…we’ve had enough. And you can’t justify it anymore.“ [Globalist leaders reply] “Well we kind of like it this way, because it’s easy to manage you this way.”
“Well we’re not cattle.”
“Yes you are.”
“No we’re not.”
“Yes you are.”

All of a sudden, let’s make it about Nazis and GoFundMe? I don’t think so. That’s not a natural fit with the truckers. That would be a natural fit if it were an Antifa movement… 

Q: Exactly.
A: I think I have it figured out. Any time I think I know something or have an angle I try to attack it, to defeat it. I can’t defeat this. The only way to defeat it would be to accept the possibility that Benjamin Dichter is reformed. I don’t buy that. I can’t. The guy conned me so I’m not going to start pretending that I’m as good a con as he is. I’m not going to go to Jordan Peterson and say ‘Hey Jordan, believe me, not this guy.’ 
I’m not afraid of attention for this but I’m definitely not after any. I’m just really worried that something I deeply believe in is compromised.
Q: The movement depends upon morale. That’s delicate.
A: That’s my biggest fear. 
Q: Mine too. That’s why we’re going to handle it right. What you are saying takes nothing away from the movement, or its authenticity, or power. Quite the opposite. 
You think he’s an intelligence agent. And I do too. So do many others.
A: I do too, yes, because why the hell is anybody directing the government to negotiate my rights with this clown? Who elected him?
I’ve been calling my MPP, and my MP and all that but they won’t answer my questions. Somebody with a voice loud enough and a horn was able to get their attention. The rest of us tried, we’ve been ignored for two years. So now these guys got some attention. Except Trudeau knew that we were all trying and I think he did this because he thought, “Ok, I got to do something. I want my Emergencies Act. [Paul’s views on Covid/Virus are his own.] Sadly the virus that we threw in to nature, Mother Nature took one look at this and said “what? Why the hell did you spike all these proteins? We’re gonna fix you in a hurry. So now the virus is mutated back to something we can live with. And these guys are going “Uh oh, our pandemic is over. What are we gonna do, Canada’s got to get on board. Unlike China we can’t just put the national pass in here, you got to con us, right? So they don’t have it yet. So they’re dragging it out. Trudeau’s desperate—calling everybody Nazis. He wanted to use it not just for 2030 but for his own political gain. To get the bank accounts. Bankrupt his opponents, and discourage donors. So he’s pushed this agenda to deliver that and to retain the QR for everyone, because now, everybody’s not paying attention to the QR, they’re saying “Oh good, I don’t have to wear a mask maybe. Maybe the government will give me my rights back. So it’s Stockholm now, they’re sympathizing with the government, right? “Ooooh! They were right to keep us inside!” No they weren’t. Follow the science if you will. When they realize that Trudeau created it, the insurrection illusion, that drama, this theater, to advance his agenda even further, to say “Look, I got to put a name on this, I got to put some people, I got to have an enemy, I can’t make all Canadians my enemy, I got to make it racists and Nazis and bad people. Anti-vaxxers. But even that starts to wear off. With the first breakthrough infections*, the anti-vaxxer slur took on a lot less meaning. 
[* PCR does not establish any kind of infection.]
Q: There’s no organic biological virus. It’s a biotech reality, a digital life form. In the end, sickness is induced many ways. Both in the case of AIDS and Covid. 
Q: When people hear that they say, “Oh you’re saying it was all a lie? but what about the dead people” No, she’s not saying that…
A: It’s interlocking presumptions and deceptions and technology creating the lens through which we think we see phenomena that are not biologically occurring outside those technologies and manipulations. Does that make sense?
A: Yes, absolutely is does. That’s not crazy talk. 

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