Angry Protests showcase just how far the pendulum can swing to the right even in Canada?

The images of angry protestors hurling rocks, racial slurs and mysonginist comments at Liberal Party campaign stops and at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular have shocked many viewers of  mainstream channels. From city to city the Liberal leader has been followed and tormented by large crowds of rowdy anti-vaxxers and white supremacists who want their presence and anger to be known.  Legacy media stations often give many Canadians a sense of security,  that our politics is more mature and sanitized, then our neighbors to the south, that something like the January 6th capitol riots in Washington DC led by conspiracy theorists and white supremacists could never happen in the nation that is internationally famous for being diverse and very polite.

If you have been paying attention to online chatter in YouTube comments, Facebook groups and imageboards like ‘4 chan’s Politically Incorrect’ a different image of the Canadian electorate emerges. Reading through the vitriol on these sites it becomes apparent that there is a strong and not so fringe part of country consumed by rage and paranoia. Rage about issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, the lockdowns that have killed small business, the vaccines that are seen as a dangerous , and the passports system that is being introduced  to implement ” a new world order”.  Paranoia comes from deep anxieties and prejudices held in parts of Canada. The anxieties of a white population being overrun by something the People’s Party of Canada leader Maxine Bernier calls “Mass Immigration.”   That “Globalization’ is not an inevitable part of technological advancement but an international Jewish conspiracy to weaken and then destroy the white race with the darker races from the “Third World” who are seen as anything from parasitic leeches to violent subhumans prone to rape and other forms of criminality.  Prejudices and tropes are used to explain the changing world around them.

Anti-Semitism has always been an aspect of the far right from even long before the rise of Nazis in Germany and so has xenophobia and white supremacist Ideology.   What makes the movement so insidious is its ability to take the modern news cycle and use it to grease the wheels of the far right. The Covid 19 pandemic and current election campaign has allowed for an opportunity to recruit more disaffected Canadians to their rallies, protests and online groups. In an era of uncertainty, confusion and distrust a simple answer of us vs them is very appealing. The attraction of being part of the good guys by having the right skin colour and political stance may give a purpose to a group who may be losing their relevance in a constantly changing Canada.

In order to combat this problem seriously,  Canadian media figures and politicians have to take a different track then they have taken in the past. The conspiracy theories and disinformation spread online needs to be addressed with strong facts and the real explanations for what the populace is confused about.  News outlets need to do more to investigate the ties with these groups and people who want to have a more mainstream appeal like the PPC leader Maxine Bernier.  Dog whistle politics needs to be condemned strongly.  If both the media and politicians continue the same process of luke warm condemnations and overall dismissing the claims of the far right, it will continue to nourish the underground growth we are seeing.   If this growth is not curtailed, be prepared for these groups to be part of the Canadian political discourse for at least the foreseeable future.

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