Many years ago, when I was still a teenager, I played clarinet for a time with the 48th Highlanders Military Band in Toronto. My Nana Northey lived in an ancient walkup apartment on Main Street at Gerrard that she had occupied since the 1930’s. At the time, the area was a mix of retail, industrial and working-class residential. Beneath her apartment was an old storefront that had been turned into a clubhouse for one of the criminal motorcycle gangs active at the time. Nana proudly described the men downstairs as polite and friendly. She couldn’t understand why people said they were evil. She called them “her boys”. They helped her bring her groceries up the stairs and always greeted her warmly when she came and went.
I stayed with Nana for a week in 1973 while performing with the 48th in the military tattoo at the CNE. One day, she took me down to show me off to the bikers in my scarlet tunic, kilt and feather bonnet.
Not long after, it was reported that they had been arrested for kidnapping and gang-raping a young girl in the clubhouse. From that day forward, Nana refused to engage with them. They moved out shortly thereafter.
Nana’s misplaced perceptions about “her boys downstairs” is not unique. There are a lot of misconceptions about outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMG’s) stemming in part from confusion between them and the 99% of motorcycle riders and clubs that are law-abiding. While they may look alike, with their leather, patches and general appearance, OMG’s are neither benevolent or law-abiding. One of the reasons it is hard for law-enforcement to infiltrate OMG’s is because becoming a member requires the candidate to commit a criminal act before acceptance.
In direct contrast to most criminal organizations which tend to shun the spotlight, OMG’s operate openly, even flaunting their membership through their look, their patches and their mode of transportation. Some clubs go so far as to maintain social media sites they use to promote club expansions and activities.
In my novel, Hollister: The Corridor, one of the main plot points revolves around a fictional OMG called the Road Ninjas. When I sit down to write, I spend a lot of time doing research. Because I was interested in writing about human trafficking and in particular human sex-trafficking, I read everything I could find on the subject, including who the key players are. While virtually every organized criminal organization in Canada devotes at least some of their effort towards prostitution and sexploitation, OMG’s occupy a central role.
There are ten outlaw gangs operating in Ontario with an estimated total membership of 1,000 spread across 73 chapters. It doesn’t sound like a lot of members, but they are among the most active and violent components of organized crime in the province, and their fingerprints are all over drug trafficking, human trafficking, gun smuggling, extortion, white and blue-collar crime, prostitution and the towing industry, among others.
The three largest are Hell’s Angels, the Outlaws and the Banditos.
OMG’s are tightly organized and the larger clubs often align with smaller regional organizations, like the fictional Road Ninjas, to perform specific tasks and control larger territories.
Recently, the OPP Biker Enforcement Task force expressed growing concern about the apparent resurgence of illegal biker activity in the province. Harley Guindon, son of the original founder of Satan’s Choice, relaunched that brand with several reported new chapters springing up across the country. That development should alarm all of us because Satan’s Choice notoriously engaged in large-scale turf battles with other clubs during the 1970’s resulting in significant violence including multiple murders, arson and bombings. What has been a relatively quiet period of inter-club rivalry could be heating up fast.
Although the provincial police laid more charges in 2024 than in the previous two years combined, it remains to be seen whether that was the result of better enforcement or simply increased activity by OMG’s operating in Ontario.