Two people named in an investigation into a neo-Nazi and white nationalist group accosted journalist Rachel Gilmore at a concert the day after Gilmore’s article was published.
On March 3, 2026, The Tyee published an investigation by Gilmore which revealed that the group had trained and taken propaganda photos at a Montreal-area gym.
The investigation named Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, a self-described Nazi, as a member of the group. The investigation also found that Giulio Zardo, a boxing coach who had worked at the gym, appeared to be a member of the group. Zardo was fired after Gilmore made the gym aware of the investigation’s findings.
The day after the article was published, Beauvais-MacDonald and Zardo appeared at a music venue where Gilmore was attending a concert played by her boyfriend, Gilmore reported.
The two “silently stared” until Gilmore acknowledged them, she wrote in The Tyee. Gilmore wrote that Beauvais-MacDonald asked whether she was “working with ‘the feds’” and mentioned the name of a gym she had previously attended, “suggesting they’d show up there as well to intimidate me,” she wrote. The two left after this conversation.
Gilmore filed a report with Montreal police shortly after the incident.
After the incident, the founder of the violent extremist group Diagolon, which the RCMP has described as “militia-like,” suggested in a group chat that Gilmore’s home address could be shared online, according to a screenshot shared by Gilmore.
Gilmore, who reports on the far right and violent extremism, has been frequently targeted by online and real-life harassment. In 2022, she was targeted by online harassment after Pierre Poilievre, then an MP and now leader of the federal Conservative Party, posted a statement on social media describing Gilmore, who was then working for Global News, as an “unprofessional journalist” and her publication as a “Liberal mouthpiece.”
In 2023, people associated with violent extremist group Diagolon followed Gilmore in downtown Ottawa. In 2025, she was targeted by a campaign of online harassment and death threats when her name and social media details were published by a doxxing website after the death of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk; Conservative MP Andrew Scheer also shared a post naming her, which appeared to generate additional harassment.
In a statement about the March 2026 incident, Canadian Association of Journalists president Brent Jolly described it as an “abhorrent act of intimidation,” and wrote that “Threatening any journalist for reporting fearlessly, and in the public’s interest, is a threat to freedom itself.” CAJ asked police to fully investigate the incident.
The Canadian Freelance Union wrote that the incident was “a direct assault on press freedom,” which happened “against an alarming backdrop of a rise in racism, misogyny, and white nationalist extremist activity across Canada.”
PEN Canada wrote that the organization was “profoundly disturbed” by the incident, and added in a statement: “Our democratic freedoms depend upon an independent press and upon the willingness of journalists to follow stories wherever they lead, without fear of harm in any form.”