Metzger Seized by Canadian Authorities After Speech : Racists: He and his son are arrested after addressing a white supremacist group in Toronto. They face deportation. Travel to Canada violated terms of Metzger’s probation.

White supremacist Tom Metzger and his son, John, have been arrested and jailed in Canada on suspicion of violating an immigration law that bars anyone likely to incite racial hatred from entering the country, Canadian officials said.

When he returns to California, Tom Metzger, 54, may also face a jail sentence for leaving the country without permission--flouting probation terms set after a 1991 hate-crime conviction in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

A hearing will be held today to determine if the Metzgers broke Canadian law and should be deported. They could return to the United States as early as tonight, said Milton Best, a spokesman for Immigration Canada in Toronto, where the arrest took place early Sunday morning.

The Metzgers went to Toronto to address several hundred members of the white supremacist group Heritage Front on Saturday night and were arrested after they left the event, Tom Metzger’s daughter, Lynn, said.

Best said the arrest, carried out by city, provincial and federal police at 12:50 a.m. Sunday, was peaceful.

“They are known to law enforcement agencies in Canada, including immigration,” Best said of the Metzgers.

“Once we became aware that they were in Canada, we were naturally concerned, because it is our contention that they should not have been admitted. They are persons who are likely to commit an indictable offense--inciting racial intolerance.”

The offense carries no penalty besides deportation, said Detective Sgt. Robert Shirlow of the Toronto Metropolitan Police. “We have reasonable grounds to believe that they came to Canada to incite racial hatred,” Shirlow said.

Tom Metzger and two co-defendants were sentenced to six months in jail last December for their role in a 1983 cross-burning in a racially mixed neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. Metzger was granted an early release in February by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J. D. Smith to be with his critically ill wife, who has since died of lung cancer.

Metzger is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in California and founder of the White Aryan Resistance group. His 24-year-old son, John, is co-founder of the so-called skinhead movement.

In order to leave the country, all probationers must seek permission from a judge in the form of a court order, said Arlene Smith, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County Probation Department, which supervises Metzger for its Los Angeles County counterpart. “Basically we told him he was not allowed to leave the country,” said Smith. “We know he didn’t (get a court order).”

Smith said her office has provided the Los Angeles County Probation Department with information about the Canada arrest. “It will be up to the county of jurisdiction to go back to court in order to increase sanctions or lengthen probation,” she said.

A spokeswoman in the Los Angeles department said Monday that a decision about Metzger had not yet been made.

Lynn Metzger, who talked to her father Monday afternoon, said she had no advance notice that he was planning a trip to Canada. A phone message of the White Aryan Resistance group dated June 20, however, appeals to “white activists” near the Canadian border to “flood Canada--by whatever methods you might devise-with pro-Aryan information.”

Heritage Front members protested Monday in front of the Toronto jail where the men are being held and plan another demonstration for today’s hearing.

Lynn Metzger, 23, said her father has been hounded unfairly.

“It’s ludicrous. It’s so blatant it’s disgusting,” she said of the arrest. “He could have blown his nose and offended someone.” He did, however, violate his probation terms, she said.

“It’s highly probable that they’ll nab him when he comes back into the country. If they have anything on him, I’m sure they’ll use it,” she said. “They have tried for several decades to get this man on something illegal. . . . He’s going to be talking until he dies. And he has that right.”

Best, of Immigration Canada, said a suspect does not need to commit or incite an act of racial intolerance to be in violation of immigration law.

“The Metzgers have not been charged,” he said. “Because they are people who are likely to commit that offense, that would render them inadmissible.

“The other part is that they entered unlawfully, since, if they told us who they were and what they were here for, they wouldn’t have been admitted.”

Smith, San Diego County’s Probation Department spokeswoman, said the possible consequences for Tom Metzger--jail time or an increased probation period--would be worse if he is charged with a hate crime in Canada rather than only being deported. The extent of the charges won’t be known until after the hearing, she said.

Wolfgang Droege, a spokesman for Heritage Front, said Canadian officials may have grounds to charge Tom Metzger with a hate crime.

“In Canada, we have hate laws that you don’t have there, so as a consequence there are certain things we can’t mention. Speakers from the United States tend to be a bit more vocal, which could tend to get you into trouble here,” Droege said.

A group member with a legal background reviewed a video of Saturday night’s speeches, Droege said. “In John’s speech, there was no trouble, but in Tom’s there was a couple of things. Let’s just say it was touch and go.”

Either way, “Los Angeles County will actually decide” Metzger’s fate, Smith said.

Tom Metzger was investigated by probation officials earlier this month for possibly violating his probation terms by producing an anti-Semitic documentary that aired on a local public access cable channel. At that time, Metzger made light of the possibility that he would be returned to jail.

“That’s really a laugh. If they want to put me back in jail for 40 days, let them do it,” he told a reporter. “That’s all I’ve got left on the sentence anyway.”

Metzger began serving his six-month sentence in Los Angeles County Jail on Jan. 6, but was granted an early release Feb. 21.

Both Metzgers were held liable in a civil suit in 1990 for the beating death of an Ethiopian immigrant killed by skinheads in Oregon. Metzger was forced to sell his Fallbrook home to help pay the $12.5-million judgment.