In early 2022, thousands of Canadians descended on Ottawa as part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” in protest of the government’s pandemic-related restrictions. Many were opposed to the government’s power to impose lockdowns, masking and vaccine mandates.
Wittingly or not, they were also taking part in a vast communications effort from various groups and individuals on the far right.
Our new book on the far right in Canada, The Great Right North, shows that events like the Freedom Convoy are representative of where the far right is going, how it is recruiting, how it is communicating internally and with Canadians at large, and how it is progressing in the national political discourse.
Historically, Canada has always had a few active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and Nazis and fascists before the Second World War.
It also saw various semi-successful attempts at federating smaller formations during the 1980s and, in the 1990s, under the umbrella of the Heritage Front, which turned out to be co-founded and led by a CSIS operative.
But that was then. Now, the far right has a different strategy.
(National Archives of Canada/John Boyd)
The evolving far right
Inspired by the widespread Islamophobia that followed the 9/11 attacks, old and new groups, influencers and ideologues have started blending their narratives into broader popular concerns.
New and growing far-right groups have emerged: Pegida Canada, La Meute and others, with tens of thousands of followers. Alongside ordinary Canadians preoccupied with national security, identity and the country’s ability to effectively welcome an influx of immigrants, far-right propagandists were weaving their white-supremacist, anti-government and yes, their old hate for Jewish people, who are accused of being behind it all.
Today, these views are often spread through a relatively sanitized discourse, leaving behind the symbols and the language of the previous generation of extremists and adopting a new populist, average-Joe appearance.
The COVID-19 pandemic further served as a platform to peddle globalist conspiracy theories and cultivate contempt for governments, news media, science, racialized people and any form of speech that might contradict the white supremacist discourse of the far right.
The broad appeal of hard-working truckers, “freedom” and pandemic anxiety was successfully mobilized into a mass movement that inspired far-right groups around the world.
This inspiration is propagated online by ordinary people who like and share snippets of information without necessarily realizing their deeper meaning or their links to extremist groups. Some of the main sources of that inspiration are hyperactive, notorious influencers who carefully cultivate their status as far-right influencers. Others are old-school ideologues, often curating entire online libraries of hate literature.
Usually hidden under a more palatable discourse, sometimes in the form of apparently benign memes, their worldviews are making inroads in our political culture via massive dissemination. The continuous flow of propaganda makes few, if any, direct victims. However, it provides far more traction in public debates on issues such as immigration, security and identity.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
How the far right recruits
Far-right progression is taking place in broad daylight, against a backdrop where the far right is happily riding the wave of populism, geopolitical crises, economic uncertainty and the feeling of neglect that pervades the middle classes in most western countries.
As part of our research, we have interviewed active, deliberate recruiters seeking like-minded people in various sympathetic venues, who told us they approach likely candidates directly, unpack their ideological wares and wait for reactions. But this is not the most worrying form of recruitment; it is high in effort and low in results.
In our research, we found that today “recruitment” is not so much about adding members to groups. It’s about adding adherents to a worldview. Individuals who go from one political problem to the next, in an infinitely changing galaxy of groups, ideas, controversies and people constantly re-inventing themselves with new ideological nuances, special focus on sometimes arcane matters, and adapting as best they can to current events.
Within the general chaos, some overarching, common beliefs can be found. That the state and its institutions, as well as the democratic foundations of western societies, are corrupt, weak or desperately vulnerable to mismanagement. That white Canadians are threatened by replacement and disappearance by scheming elites.
Consequently, cultural, ethnic and social polarization are constantly underlined, and presented in a manner that justifies the repression of various populations deemed to be dangerous. Though very few will engage in physical violence, it is constantly legitimized, and often praised, when described, suggested or committed as the key to achieve political objectives.
Anyone searching online for information on almost any social or political topic is likely to come across multiple rabbit holes leading to the self-sufficient, airtight bubble of the far-right infosphere. This is the realm of incels, white supremacists, neo-nazis, Christian nationalists and the like.
Beside their far-right views, these entities have almost nothing in common, other than the conviction that accessing various public forums is a powerful way to attract public attention and, eventually, approval of their worldview.
This far-right infosphere is a massive supermarket of support groups, and is a powerful infrastructure of organic recruitment. It is led by gurus and influencers but also by ordinary individuals in discussion groups and chat rooms. It is propelled by digital platforms whose operating logic is not to favour quality information but rather content that is better at provoking engagement. One prime driver of engagement is controversy, a far-right specialty.
Paths to the far right
We studied at length the various processes that lead people to engage with far-right rhetoric or with a specific group, and to eventual commitment, i.e. participation in some kind of action, whether illegal or not.
We found different paths for those who spread hate propaganda and symbolic violence, and those who engage in physical violence. Both include lone actors or very small groups.
We divide the physically violent into two categories: small groups who look for trouble as entertainment, often joining together for socializing and for protection; and the explosive, desperate violence of disorganized individuals, most of whom were already vulnerable, living with intense economic, familial, social or psychological stress. The latter, locked in echo chambers, use social media to confirm beliefs that crystallize and, in some cases, lead to violence.
Far-right sentiments are constantly evolving, and appear to be growing in Canada. It is important for governments, institutions and others seeking to address extremism to understand the ways people are being drawn to the far right and its online echo chambers.