Notice

In early 2022, thousands of Canadians descended on Ottawa as part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” to protest government restrictions related to the pandemic. Many opposed the government’s power to impose lockdowns, mask wearing and vaccination measures.

Voluntarily or not, they were also participating in a vast communications effort on the part of various far-right groups and individuals.

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 recruits, how it communicates internally and with Canadians in general. and how it is progressing in the national political discourse.

Historically, Canada has had some active far-right groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, as well as the Nazis and fascists before World War II.

It also saw various semi-successful attempts to federate smaller outfits during the 1980s and, in the 1990s, under the aegis of the Heritage Front, which turned out to be co-founded and led by a CSIS agent.

But that was then. Now the far right has a different strategy.

The evolving far right

Inspired by the widespread Islamophobia that followed the September 11 attacks, groups old and new, influencers and ideologues began to integrate their discourses 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 concerned about national security, identity and the country’s ability to effectively accommodate an influx of immigrants, far-right propagandists were weaving their white supremacy, anti-government and, of course, old hatred towards the Jewish people, accused of being behind all this.

Today, these views are often spread through relatively sanitized discourse, leaving behind the symbols and language of the previous generation of extremists and adopting a new populist guise of the average Joe.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further served as a platform to peddle globalist conspiracy theories and cultivate contempt for governments, media, science, racialized people, and any form of speech that may contradict the white supremacist discourse from 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 spread online by ordinary people who like and share bits of information without necessarily realizing their deeper meaning or their links to extremist groups. Some of the main sources of this inspiration are hyperactive and notorious influencers who carefully cultivate their status as far-right influencers. Others are old-school ideologues, often running entire online libraries of hate literature.

Usually hidden beneath more palatable discourse, sometimes in the form of seemingly innocuous memes, their worldviews are making inroads into our political culture through mass dissemination. The continuous flow of propaganda causes few, if any, direct victims. However, it brings much more weight to public debates on issues such as immigration, security and identity.

How the far right recruits

The progression of the far right is taking place in broad daylight, in a context where the far right is happily riding the wave of populism, geopolitical crises, economic uncertainty and the feeling of abandonment which permeates the middle classes of most Western countries.

As part of our research, we interviewed active and deliberate recruiters, looking for like-minded people in various friendly venues, who told us they speak directly to potential candidates, unpack their ideological wares and awaited their reactions. But this is not the most worrying form of recruitment; it requires a lot of effort and little results.

In our research, we’ve found that today, “recruitment” isn’t so much about adding members to groups. It’s about adding adherents to a worldview. Individuals who move from one political issue to another, in a galaxy of ever-changing groups, ideas, controversies and people, constantly reinventing themselves with new ideological nuances, placing particular emphasis on topics sometimes obscure, and adapting as best they can to current realities. events.

In the general chaos, we can find certain common and primordial beliefs. That the state and its institutions, as well as the democratic foundations of Western societies, are corrupt, weak or desperately vulnerable to mismanagement. White Canadians are threatened with replacement and extinction by scheming elites.

Thus, cultural, ethnic and social polarizations are constantly highlighted and presented in such a way as to justify the repression of various populations deemed dangerous. Although very few people engage in physical violence, it is constantly legitimized and often praised when it is described, suggested or committed as key to achieving political goals.

Anyone searching online for information on almost any social or political topic is likely to stumble down multiple rabbit holes leading to the self-sufficient, airtight bubble of the far-right infosphere. This is the domain of incels, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists and others.

Beyond their far-right views, these entities have almost nothing in common except the belief that access to various public forums is a powerful way to attract public attention and, ultimately, to obtain approval for their worldview.

This far-right infosphere is a huge supermarket of support groups and a powerful organic recruiting infrastructure. It is run 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 favor quality information but rather content more likely to generate engagement. One of the main drivers of engagement is controversy, a specialty of the far right.

Paths on the far right

We have studied at length the different processes that lead people to engage in far-right discourse or in a specific group, and ultimately to engage, that is, to participate in some kind of action , illegal or not.

We found different pathways for those who spread hate propaganda and symbolic violence, and for those who engage in physical violence. Both include single actors or very small groups.

We divide physically violent people into two categories: small groups who seek trouble as entertainment, often coming together to socialize and protect each other; and the explosive and desperate violence of disorganized individuals, most of them already vulnerable, living under intense economic, family, social or psychological stress. The latter, locked in echo chambers, use social networks to confirm beliefs which crystallize and, in some cases, lead to violence.

Far-right sentiments are constantly evolving and appear to be growing in Canada. It is important that governments, institutions and all those seeking to combat extremism understand the ways in which people are drawn to the far right and its online echo chambers.

» Stéphane Leman-Langlois is a professor at the School of Social Work and Criminology at Laval University. Aurélie Campana is professor of political science (and specialist in extremism at Laval University. Samuel Tanner is professor and department director at the School of Criminology at the University of Montreal.

» This column was originally published on The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca