Southern Alberta city grappling with white supremacist graffiti, decals

BROOKS, ALTA. – Mounties are investigating a string of white supremacist phrases and symbols, including a crudely drawn swastika on a large flower pot, spray-painted across a community in southern Alberta.

Police are asking for the public’s help to find those behind the nine cases of “hateful” comments, messages and symbols in Brooks, a city of about 14,600 residents, since the beginning of October.

Photos shared by the RCMP show “Make Brooks White Again” written in black paint across cement on a park spray pad and other symbols linked to white supremacy sketched on city infrastructure.

RCMP say stickers have also been placed across the city promoting the White Lives Matter movement and websites, which share anti-immigration sentiments.

Cpl. Sharon McCready with the Brooks RCMP said it’s believed a small group or an individual are behind the markings.

“It’s concerning to us, because we live in such a diverse community here in Brooks, and everybody deserves a safe community for them to live in,” said McCready.

The 2021 census says about 37 per cent of the city’s residents are immigrants, largely from the Philippines and across Africa. About two-thirds of residents who immigrated had arrived in the previous decade.

“Lots of kids come from all over the place, all over the world, to Brooks to have a better life. And we don’t want them, while they’re out playing with their friends, to be reading things about how one race is better than another,” said McCready.

“We want them to learn that that’s wrong.”

She encouraged people to report any further graffiti to police.

Mohammed Idriss, a first-generation immigrant from Ethiopia and a Brooks city councillor, said he hasn’t experienced anti-immigrant sentiment personally but has seen pictures of the recent graffiti.

“In general, our newcomers feel that they belong here and they are welcome here. So when you hear stories like this, it is disappointing,” he said.

Brooks previously published a four-year plan, beginning in 2021, with the goal of welcoming more newcomers to the city.

Idriss also works as a manager with Brooks and County Immigration Services, which aids newcomers in the region. He said he believes anti-immigrant sentiment has grown across Canada.

“I actually think whatever is happening now is influenced by factors beyond our community in terms of that general sentiment,” Idriss said, adding there has been political scapegoating of immigrants, nationally and internationally.

Statistics Canada data show police-reported hate crimes by race or ethnicity has risen across Canada. 

In Alberta, such crimes doubled to 213 cases in 2020 from 106 the previous year. The reported crimes have slowly decreased, with 181 in 2024. There was no available data specifically for Brooks.

McCready said that in 2024 bags of rice and White Lives Matter literature were left at doorsteps, but she can’t recall a time when cases have been this concentrated.

The recent vandalism would likely result in a mischief charge, said McCready, but the hate messaging could be an aggravating factor in front of a judge.

The House of Commons is currently considering a bill that would amend the Criminal Code to include hate symbols — including the Nazi Hakenkreuz, commonly known as the Nazi swastika — as hate propaganda.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2025.

— By Dayne Patterson in Calgary