Canada is not Immune to Trumpism
With the recent news of a convoy of trucks making its way across Canada to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates got me thinking about something I had written a little over a year ago.
It seems that much of the right-wing frustration that’s crept up over the years, from Yellow Vests to United We Roll to Wexit, has now all coalesced into something new. It’s scary, but not entirely unsurprising that mainstream politicians in Canada’s right are now using this, much like they did with outrages in the past, to stoke anger, fear, and resentment with their base. Conservative politicians are partaking in increasingly dangerous conspiracy theories, promoting false narratives that Canada’s shelves are empty, calling Canada’s vaccine mandate fascist and authoritarian. It’s gotten to the point where organizers of this so called “Freedom Convoy” are hoping that this will result in Canada’s version of the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6th. They’ve given voice to a group and a movement steeped in Trumpism, so much so that Donald Trump Jr. is now paying attention, calling this genius and saying that we need more of this in the U.S.
The article below was written three days after the January 6th U.S. Capitol insurrection, and for a number of reasons I decided to hold off on publishing this publicly, instead choosing to share this privately with my friends and family. The threat of Trumpsim, and consequently the very real threat of movements such as this that are steeped in white nationalism and supremacy, being very much alive and well in Canada, and unless we do something, it will only continue to get worse.
One incredibly small action that I can take is to not silence myself and share my thoughts on this.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the United States Congress gathered at the US Capitol to officially certify the electoral college victory of Joe Biden as President of the United States. This process, normally uneventful, was disrupted when a large mob, at the behest of outgoing President Trump, staged an attempted insurrection aimed at overturning the results of a legitimate election.
This insurrection was not spontaneous. It was inspired and incited by Trump, was planned out in the open, and was the result of the last four years of his lies, delusions, and authoritarian impulses. While the events of this week were shocking and something that I never thought I would witness in my lifetime, it was entirely predictable as they were the direct result of Trump sowing the seeds of discontent, distrust, and sedition throughout the 2020 election period.
And what’s scary is that Canada is not immune from something like happening within our borders.
Canadians like to believe in the global perception that we are nice and polite almost to a fault. And while to an extent, that self perception may be true, our own history is also mired in hatred and racism. Just look at our history of residential schools for Indigenous youth and internment camps during WWII for citizens of Japanese descent. We can no longer present that white nationalism stops at the 49th parallel and then pole vaults up to Alaska without casting its dark shadow across our country.
Here’s why.
After the 2018 Ontario provincial election, Proud Boys Canada posted a photo to their Facebook group posing with the newly elected Premier, Doug Ford, calling him their “Proud Boy of the Month,” that he would make Ontario great again, and that his victory was a victory for white nationalists. One of the co-hosts of This Hour Has 88 Minutes (88 being a white supremacist numerical code for Heil Hitler) even stated that Ford has sent them cover signals of approval, stating, “All it takes is someone like a Doug Ford or a Trump to activate those impulses in people.” This is the same group that Ontario NDP leader Andrew Horwath and federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh have called on all provincial and federal leaders to denounce and have designated as a terrorist organization.
In February 2019, former federal Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer attended a United We Roll rally in Alberta. Scheer knew that for many, this rally was less about legitimate pipelines grievances and was more about espousing racist and xenophobic rhetoric, so much so that Scheer stood on the same stage as known white nationalist Faith Goldy, who bemoaned the erosion of “white identity.” This is the same United We Roll group that has ties to far-right extremism, has issued death threats to the Prime Minister, and that Scheer has pandered to during the 2019 Canadian federal election, going as far to say, “we’re standing with you,” something that Trump would echo to his base during the insurrection of 2021.
And in June 2020, a 46 year-old member of the Canadian military (with a history of posting QAnon content) rammed his truck through a pedestrian gate at Rideau Hall, close to the residences of both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General Julie Payette. The RCMP discovered him shortly thereafter armed, uttering threats, and sneaking around the premises in search of the Prime Minister with the intent to cause harm. Shortly after this incident, the Green Party called for an inquiry into the into possible white supremacist infiltration of Canadian law enforcement agencies, something that has been well documented in the US and the UK.
These are just three examples of countless that clearly demonstrate that Canada is not immune to the plague of white supremacy and white nationalism. Which is probably why the Canadian Conservative Party thought it was a good idea to keep a page up on their website using the exact same rhetoric Trump and his soulless cronies used to incite violence this last week.
What’s frustrating is that this page is about Bill C-76, also known as the Elections Modernization Act, which aims to ban all parties (not just the opposition) from engaging in campaign behaviour before a writ is dropped. Now, there are some understandable grievances to be had with Bill C-76, such as it leaving open technicalities in that the governing body may be able to slip in early campaigning under the guise of actual governing, but to frame it as election rigging is outright false, wrong, and an exercise in scaremongering.
The CPC here is deliberately conflating governance, and communication about governance, with campaigning. While ruling parties of all colours have always found ways to conflate their political message with PSAs and the like, no other party has radicalized their base into being ready and eager to do violence to their political enemies (and could push them to actually act on these impulses) like the CPC.
In fact, a 2020 study found that Canadians are active on more than 6,000 online channels linked to hateful content, and make up as much as 6% of all users on a specific 4chan board that is known to be one of the Internet’s biggest clearing houses for far-right extremist content.
What’s happening in the US can very well happen in Canada, and in many cases, already is. You can see this in the Stormfront user writing policy for Alberta’s Independence party, and a youth group sharing Hitler quotes pushing for the separation of Alberta to create a New Nationalist West. While we are not innocent, every single Canadian should be absolutely appalled by this callous, reckless, and thoughtless behaviour. Conservative media and the CPC have increasingly begun to act and sound like their Republican counterparts south of the border, and that’s genuinely terrifying.
Rhetoric like this is what fans the flames of discontent among the far-right, and could spark something similar in Canada. It doesn’t help that former Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has forcefully defended Trump in the past, and that one of his speech writers actually wrote an opinion column for the Washington Post titled, “Why Canadians Should Root For Another Trump Term.” It also doesn’t help that according to a September 2020 poll, approximately 15% of Canadians said that if they could vote in the US election, they would vote for Donald Trump. So, when the current Conservative Party leader, Erin O’toole says, “Join our fight, let’s take back Canada,” he’s not only co-opting and stealing a slogan used by Indigenous climate activists, he’s willfully mirroring the language that Republicans have used to incite an insurrection and cheer on the violence that took at the US Capitol. And when he says that his “Canada First” policy is no different than Trump’s “America First” policy, you know exactly what he means.
We can’t keep pretending that because we live in Canada, something like this could never happen here because, and here’s a fun fact, some of the most influential figures in this modern neo-fascist hate movement - Gavin McInnes, Jordan Peterson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux, Ezra Levant, Maxime Bernier, Faith Goldy, Steven Crower, and countless others - are Canadian.
We are not immune to white supremacy, white nationalism, and unfounded dangerous conspiracy theories. In fact, in many ways we’re already sick, and if groups like the CPC aren’t held accountable for their actions, something like what happened on January 6, 2021, could very well happen in Canada.
