Founded 1968 Territory Western Canada | Years active 1968-2004 Allies Hells Angels | |
Founding location Red Deer, Alberta, Canada Rivals Canadian Airborne Regiment, EPS, RCMP | ||
The Rebels MC (motorcycle club) was an outlaw motorcycle club based in Western Canada that was founded in Red Deer, Alberta in 1968.
Along with the Grim Reapers, the Warlords, and King's Crew, the Rebels became one of the four dominant outlaw motorcycle clubs operating in Alberta prior to 1997. By 1997, when the Grim Reapers became part of the Hells Angels in a patch-over ceremony held in Red Deer, Alberta, and after merging with the Loners of Saskatchewan, the Rebels had become a support club of the Hells Angels with four chapters: Edmonton, Calgary, Moose Jaw, and Saskatoon.
In 1976, the Rebels gained a certain level of notoriety, or respect in some circles, due to their much publicized altercations with the Canadian Airborne Regiment when about 40 members of the Airborne showed up with nunchaku, steel bars, baseball bats, and blackjacks, and ambushed 23 Rebels at the club bar in Edmonton, the Kingsway Motor Inn, during a performance by Seattle rock band Raving Onus. After a skirmish, the bruised and battered paratroopers retreated and the Rebels went back to their business.
In the 1970s and early 1980s (the golden era in Canada for independent one-percenter clubs), the Rebels were the dominant club in the Edmonton area, while the Reapers were the alpha club in Red Deer and Calgary. In the early eighties, as the Reapers grew more powerful and the Rebels less so, the Rebels were warned by the Reapers not to fly the “Alberta” lower rocker on threat of club warfare, so members of the Rebel’s Calgary chapter used “Southern Alberta” for the lower rocker and Edmonton members flew “Northern Alberta”. King’s Crew, meanwhile, were tolerated in their use of “Calgary” as the lower rocker, while the Saskatchewan Rebels, at that point being the dominant club in that province, flew “Saskatchewan” as their lower rocker. In September 1998, the Saskatoon Rebels were patched over to the Hells Angels and the Apollos of Saskatoon became the primary Hells Angels support club there.
The Edmonton chapter of the Rebels folded in 1997, soon after the arrest of then secretary-treasurer Scott Jamieson. In 2004, Joey "Crazy Horse" Morin, a.k.a. Joey Campbell, a former associate of the Edmonton chapter of the Rebels, and Robert Charles Simpson were gunned down outside an Edmonton strip club. At the time of the murders, the Bandidos website identified Morin as a probationary member and Simpson as a hangaround. Sources close to the investigation speculated at the time that Morin and Simpson were in Edmonton to set up shop and the murders were committed by a group opposed to that happening. To date no arrests have been made and the file is still officially open and active.
The Rebels were listed as an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.