A Climate for Hate? An Exploration of the Right-Wing Extremist Landscape in Canada

Abstract

This article highlights the social, cultural, and political landscape in which organized hate groups emerge, drawing from a 3-year study of the right-wing extremist movement in Canada. Through extensive interviews with law enforcement, community activists and hate group activists, as well as open source intelligence, we examined the factors that are associated with the emergence of right-wing extremist groups and right-wing inspired violence in Canada in the early to mid 2010s. Here, our focus is on the social contexts that enable such groups to flourish. We first lay out the theoretical frame to understand how broader social, cultural and political patterns render “permission to hate”. We consider the environmental factors that we identified, during our fieldwork, as particularly important in facilitating right-wing extremism.

Full text

Crit Crim
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9394-y
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A Climate forHate? AnExploration oftheRight‑Wing
Extremist Landscape inCanada
BarbaraPerry1· RyanScrivens2
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract This article highlights the social, cultural, and political landscape in which
organized hate groups emerge, drawing from a 3-year study of the right-wing extremist
movement in Canada. Through extensive interviews with law enforcement, community
activists and hate group activists, as well as open source intelligence, we examined the
factors that are associated with the emergence of right-wing extremist groups and right-
wing inspired violence in Canada in the early to mid 2010s. Here, our focus is on the social
contexts that enable such groups to flourish. We first lay out the theoretical frame to under-
stand how broader social, cultural and political patterns render “permission to hate”. We
consider the environmental factors that we identified, during our fieldwork, as particularly
important in facilitating right-wing extremism.
Introduction
On the evening of January 29, 2017, six Muslim men were struck down and 19 injured
while praying in the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec in Ste. Foy, Quebec (Perreaux
and Freeze 2017). Amidst the shock and heartbreak, there also arose a conversation about
the contexts that conditioned or perhaps enabled the killer to come to the conclusion that
peaceful Muslims warranted death. That such a tragic event occurred in Quebec has led to
a national dialogue on how a wider context of “cultural xenophobia” can give rise to paral-
lel acts of violence, but also how it can give rise to the emboldening of right-wing extrem-
ists. For us, this was not a new consideration. As early as 2001, Perry (2001) described
* Barbara Perry
barbara.perry@uoit.ca
Ryan Scrivens
rscriven@sfu.ca
1 Faculty ofSocial Science andHumanities, University ofOntario Institute ofTechnology, 325-55
Bond Street East, Oshawa, ON, Canada
2 School ofCriminology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
the ways in which popular, political and media imagery shaped hate in all its forms. More
recently, Perry and Scrivens’s (2015) study of right-wing extremism (RWE) uncovered
these connections in the Canadian context. Based on that study, this paper examines the
exogenous factors that seem to enable the emergence of RWE groups, and right-wing
inspired violence.
There is a lengthy if often neglected history of white supremacy in Canada (Barrett
1987). Yet in spite of the historical and contemporary patterns of RWE activity in Canada
(see Perry and Scrivens 2015), one which has been defined by Canadian Security Intel-
ligence Service (CSIS) as a growing threat nationwide (Boutilier 2015), our understanding
of the Canadian movement is dated. In other words, we have little contemporary social
science scholarship on RWE organizations in Canada and fewer efforts to methodically and
systematically analyze their ideologies and activities on a national level. The latest such
effort was Warren Kinsella’s Web of Hate, last updated in 2001. There can be little doubt,
then, that a contemporary assessment was needed, and so the project from which this paper
is derived was launched.
This is not to say that there is not a rich literature focusing on RWE globally. Espe-
cially relevant here are those analyses connecting the recent rise in RWE to its contexts,
embedded as it is within reactions to globalization (e.g., King 2014), multiculturalism
(e.g., Wigerfelt and Wigerfelt 2014), and immigration (e.g., Hogan and Haltinner 2015).
In the short period of time since the Brexit vote and the election of Trump, we are already
beginning to see scholarship exploring the ways in which these particular currents have
further mobilized the movement (e.g., Huber 2016; Inglehart and Norris 2016; Komaromi
and Singh 2016). This is an extension of a lengthy history of the parallels between “main-
stream” xenophobia and “extreme” versions of the same discourse. Indeed, in the current
climate considerable attention has been drawn to the ways in which mainstream political
and public discourse have paved the way for the re-emergence of a viable RWE movement.
It is not, however, a simple linear relationship between politics and extremism. Heitmeyer
(2005) observes that both “underreaction and overreaction” to RWE movements can con-
dition their growth and escalation to violence. Failure to respond to RWE can be read as
enabling (Perry and Scrivens 2015), while punitive responses can further marginalize and
thus embitter adherents, resulting in more rather than less targeted violence.
At the outset of the project, information on Canadian RWE activity was fragmented,
as it oftentimes depended on local resources and capacities for data gathering. Those who
were assigned with the task of responding to extremist activity, particularly law enforce-
ment officials, viewed the domestic threat through a narrow lens—i.e., the threat being
radical Muslims. To begin to close this gap, we deployed a mixed-methods approach that
combined archival research with primary research to triangulate our findings on RWE:
(1) Interviews with law enforcement and intelligence We interviewed more than 40 per-
sonnel associated with the Alberta Hate Crime Committee, the British Columbia Hate
Crime Team, CSIS, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Extremism and Hate Crime
section, and police officers from communities in which there has been white suprema-
cist activity. These interviews uncovered additional data on activities, membership,
and ideologies associated with the groups.
(2) Interviews with community activists There are a number of national, regional and local
community organizations in Canada—like Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and
Anti-Racist Canada—that have set themselves the task of monitoring RWE activity in
this country. Their publications, along with interviews provided additional information

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about the distribution, membership, activities, ideologies, and threats associated with
relevant groups. In all, we interviewed more than 30 individuals from such groups.
(3) Interviews with hate group activists We were able to conduct six interviews with for-
mer/current members of Canadian hate groups who had either been involved or were
currently involved in the movement for over 5years. These interviews provided the
most direct access to the motivations for engaging in RWE activities. All of their
names, as well as the hate group they were affiliated with, were assigned with pseudo-
nyms to protect their anonymity.
(4) Open source intelligence First, we conducted website analysis, identifying and profil-
ing the websites established by Canadian hate groups (e.g., Blood and Honour, and
Canadian Nationalist Front), as well as those that contain Canadian content but might
be on domains outside of Canada (e.g., Stormfront.org). The online environment was
rife with insights into the ideologies and belief systems of the groups. Second, we
reviewed court transcripts of those who were prosecuted as hate activists under s. 318
and s. 319(1) of the Canadian Criminal Code. Some of the accused have indeed been
affiliated with organized extremist groups. Again, review of court transcripts associ-
ated with those cases provided direct insight into the motives and beliefs associated
with right-wing terror. Additionally, however, they also revealed knowledge about the
impacts of their acts on community members. Lastly, we conducted a media scan, as
too were valuable sources of information on community impacts of extremist activities
through reporting on reactions to the initial offence and subsequent legal proceedings.
They often included detailed descriptions of the alleged events, and sometimes pro-
vided background details as well.
The study was conducted between 2012 and 2015. The core research questions that
guided the study were: (1) which groups are amenable to violent activity; (2) what is the
nature of such activities (e.g., recurrent, covert/overt, severity of violence); (3) which
endogenous variables are most closely associated with group development, sustainability
and violence; and (4) which exogenous variables are most closely associated with group
development, sustainability and violence? It is latter question that is the focus of the cur-
rent paper. In what follows, we lay out the theoretical frame that helps to understand how
broader social, cultural and political patterns render “permission to hate,” followed by con-
sideration of the environmental factors that we were able to identify in the fieldwork as
particularly important in facilitating RWE—in short, conditions that bestow “permission
to hate.”
Before proceeding, however, it is necessary to outline how we conceptualize RWE
and hate in Canada. We define RWE in Canada as a loose movement, characterized by a
racially, ethnically and sexually defined nationalism. This nationalism is often framed in
terms of white power and is grounded in xenophobic and exclusionary understandings of
the perceived threats posed by such groups as non-Whites, Jews, immigrants, homosexu-
als and feminists. As a pawn of the Jews, the state is perceived to be an illegitimate power
serving the interests of all but the White man. To this end, extremists are willing to assume
both an offensive and defensive stance in the interests of “preserving” their heritage and
their “homeland.”
As an extension, then, hate is not to be understood as a simple emotive state associated
with individuals. Rather, it reflects the assertion of identity and belongingness over and
above others—in short, about power. It reflects much more than the perpetrator’s state of
mind. In fact, it reflects the taken for granted, popular notions of identity and hierarchy. We

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
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must look beyond individual motives to unpack the “cultures of racism” or of heterosex-
ism, or of ableism, for example, that condition the possibility of RWE groups (Ray and
Smith 2002, p. 89). The groups we are referring to aspire to social power by which white,
heterosexual males in particular assert a particular version of hegemonic whiteness and/
or masculinity. The verbal and physical violence that they perpetrate represents a “will to
power” by which the very threat of otherwise unprovoked acts of violence deprive the vic-
tims of personal security, and therefore of freedom of movement and engagement.
Permission toHate
Hate does not emerge in a vacuum. Scholars have written often about the fact that hate can
only grow in an enabling environment (e.g., Burnett 2017; Perry 2001; Poynting 2006). We
need only observe recent developments in the US and Europe to discern the importance
of context for the emergence and strength of a viable RWE movement (e.g., Huber 2016;
Inglehart and Norris 2016; Komaromi and Singh 2016; Wigerfelt and Wigerfelt 2014). In
those parts of the world, populist right-wing groups have exploited a dismal economic situ-
ation and rapidly shifting demographics to foment hostility toward Others increasingly in
their midst: immigrants, people of colour, and Muslims in particular. To assume that the
sentiments that inspire those groups is anomalous ignores the fact that they are embedded
in a broader cultural ethos that bestows “permission to hate” (Bowling 1993; Young 1990).
To the extent that hate groups define their collective identity as the norm, they neces-
sarily engage in a politics of difference which seeks to negate, exclude and repress those
groups that are outside the norm (e.g., non-whites, non-Christians, non-heterosexual, even
non-male). They do so by invoking ideological claims to superiority and power that repre-
sent the ongoing struggle on the part of supremacists for the right to define the limits and
boundaries of inclusion. But those “boundaries of inclusion” are informed by the broader
cultural and political arrangements which “allocate rights, privilege and prestige according
to biological or social characteristics” (Sheffield 1995, p. 438). RWE adherents attempt to
reaffirm their dominant identity, their access to resources and privilege, while at the same
time limiting the opportunities of others to express their own needs. The performance of
hate activism, then, confirms the “natural” relations of superiority/inferiority.
Right-wing activism is also, however, grounded in notions of space and place. Hate
groups are situationally located; they have a spatial element that is often overlooked,
although just as often implied by the language of “borders,” “boundaries,” “transgres-
sions,” or “territory” RWE groups are concerned with policing the appropriate “spaces for
races” (Perry and Blazak 2010) Rhetorical and physical assaults are often invoked when
victims are perceived to threaten the racialized boundaries which are meant to separate
“us” from “them”. And all of this occurs within the institutional contexts of what is known
to be the appropriate place of victim and victimizer. There is—as many black or Asian or
Native or Hispanic people know—danger in non-conformity and in challenging borders.
Far-right violence and vilification becomes justifiable as a punishment for transgressions
of institutionalized codes of conduct, for crossing the boundaries of race. Reactionary vio-
lence to such border crossings ensures that white people and people of colour, Christians
and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants will inhabit their appropriate places in
physical and cultural terms. The boundaries are preserved.
The sort of sociological and cultural analysis of hate groups suggested herein allows us
to recognize that they reside in a structural complex of relations of power. As noted earlier,

A Climate forHate? AnExploration oftheRight‑Wing Extremist…
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hate does not emerge or operate in a vacuum. Rather, it is embedded in broader patterns of
subjugation and oppression. It is conditioned by structural and cultural practices that leave
its subjects vulnerable to victimization. It is more than the outcome of the conscious acts of
bigoted individuals. It is systematic. It represents a network of norms, assumptions, behav-
iours and policies which are structurally connected in such a way as to reproduce the racial-
ized and gendered hierarchies which characterize the society in question. Our exploration
of the contexts in which RWE groups ebb and flow in Canada suggests three core structural
patterns that seem to enable the growth and sustainability of such groups here: historical
normativity of racism, political climates of intolerance, and weak law enforcement frame-
works. This is very much in line with Heitmeyer’s (2005) identification of core enabling
factors: resonance with broader sentiments; the complicity of the “political elite”; and the
lack of sanctions, as reflected in police engagement.
Normativity/History ofRacism
According to Welliver (2004, p. 251), “Communities have histories of hate”. It is these
histories, and their contemporary remnants, that lay the foundations for the emergence and
growth of a racist RWE movement. In short, the persistence of RWE in Canada is gener-
ally indicative of the broader normativity of racism and other related patterns of exclusion
extant in the communities infected with a RWE presence. Moreover, the RWE movement
itself has been a part of that normative history of hate. The Klan is not new to Saskatch-
ewan; the Aryan Guard is not new to Alberta; and neo-Nazi skinheads are not new to
Quebec.
It is striking that recent years have seen such a clustering of RWE activity in just a
few areas: Quebec, Western Ontario, Alberta, and the lower mainland of British Columbia
(BC). We have had several conversations about these concentrations over the course of this
project, and the consensus seems to be that there is something about these areas that makes
them fertile ground for the cultivation of organized RWE activity. Indeed, one anti-racist
activist argued that racism was endemic in the culture, especially in Western provinces, and
was evident at all levels of society, across institutions. It is “simply an organized form of
what lies under the surface—barely,” he claimed.
There are both historical and contemporary foundations for the observable patterns of
RWE today. This is probably most evident in the “histories of hate” experienced by Abo-
riginal people, grounded as they are in the legacy of colonialism. In fact, it is impossi-
ble to understand the current strains of anti-Native organizing outside of its connection
with colonialism (Perry 2008). The broader history of oppression lends itself to modern
iterations that continue to privilege the place of straight, White, Christian males. As one
Alberta community activist noted, the “prevailing sentiment” in many Canadian commu-
nities remains deeply racist, and in many places, deeply religious in a way that also has
implications for views on abortion and homosexuality, for example. People still have “hate
in their hearts” in a way that enables and encourages conservative values to dominate.
Degradation of the Other is on fertile ground in a culture with a history of—and indeed
origins in—a worldview which saw non-Whites as heathen savages, for example. Canada
is itself a legacy of centuries of persecution of minorities, whether they are First Nations,
immigrants, women, or “sexual deviants”. Such a history normalizes mistreatment of those
who do not appropriately conform to the preconceived hierarchies. That leaves us with
a culture reflected in bitter letters to the editor in local and national media, and opinion
polls (described below) that seem to tap deep divisions and resentment—fodder for the
hate movement. These are the sorts of attitudes that provide fruitful ground for the rhetoric

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
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of hate groups. They enable these groups to play on public sentiment, exploiting fears and
stereotypes. In short, like other social movement, RWE groups are dependent on the reso-
nance of their claims, that is, the extent to which their messaging is salient and meaningful
to the intended audience (Benford and Snow 2000).
In some of the areas most affected by the presence of RWE organizing, there are readily
manipulable processes under way. Western Ontario, for example, is undergoing dramatic
demographic shifts. Some of the cities in the region, which have been homogeneously
White and Christian, are currently experiencing large influxes of non-White immi-
grants. For example, one city that has long been host to RWE activity, London, ON has
seen growth in visible minorities from 8% to over 15% in just over a decade; it is home
to approximately 15,000 newly arrived Latin Americans, and about the same number of
Muslims (Statistics Canada 2011). Southern Alberta has also seen considerable change in
the early years of the twenty-first century. The increase in the visible minority population,
between 1996 and 2006, increased at triple the rate of overall population growth. Over the
course of the decade, the proportion of visible minorities there rose from 10% to almost
14%. A significant portion of this increase is accounted for by the dramatic growth in the
number of Asian and African immigrants, rising by 44%, from 14,000 in 1996 to over
20,000 in 2006. This has had a particular impact on the town’s largest cities, Edmonton and
Calgary, resulting in high concentrations of visible minorities in both cities (Government
of Alberta 2011). While the bulk of the population in these communities is generally either
neutral/indifferent or welcoming, there is nonetheless a narrow slice of the population dis-
turbed by these changes. One informant referred to the “lack of preparedness for demo-
graphic change” as a key factor in laying the foundation for the emergence of reactionary
extreme-right movements. Newcomers are especially likely to be singled out as scapegoats
for young, unemployed and under-employed youth drawn to RWE, as they tend to bear
the brunt of the hostility of far-right groups who see the historical homogeneity of their
communities challenged. Like this white nationalist on Stormfront Canada noted, many
adherents
…firmly agree with this post (if the message is to stop immigrants from coming into
our beautiful country) […] They seek to make our beautiful Homeland into another
Afghanistan, Africa, and/or Mexico (JIX, 2007-06-24).1
Antonio Gramsci (1971), the noted Italian Marxist, asserted that, in the on-going strug-
gle for hegemonic supremacy, the appeal of any rhetorical formation depends upon “pre-
viously germinated ideologies… [which] come into confrontation and conflict, until only
one of them, or at least a single combination of them, tends to prevail” (pp. 181–182).
This applies to the ability of hate groups to extend their ideologies of hate and intoler-
ance to the broader public and to thus recruit into the movement. In other words, in order
to have an impact on the actions of others, hate groups must strike a chord in the broader
community; their messages must resonate with their audiences and potential recruits. The
message of hate disseminated by RWE groups speaks to existing popular concerns—this is
at the heart of the legitimacy of their rhetoric. For example, a Maclean’s poll report issued
during the course of the project (Geddes 2009) underscores the persistence of widespread
antipathy toward Muslims, finding that 54% of Canadians held an unfavourable view of
Islam, up sharply from 46% in 2009. To put this in perspective, 39% held an unfavourable
1 All author names were assigned with pseudonyms to protect user anonymity. All online posts were quoted
verbatim.

A Climate forHate? AnExploration oftheRight‑Wing Extremist…
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opinion of Sikhism; all of the other religions were regarded unfavourably by less than 30%
of Canadians (see Geddes 2009). The sentiment reached its highest rating in Quebec—a
province with extensive Skinhead activity in particular. A 2015 EKOS poll highlighted “an
erosion” in support for immigration, revealing that opposition to immigration had doubled
since 2005, to 46%. In the same poll, 41% of respondents indicated that they felt there
were “too many” visible minorities immigrating to Canada (Graves 2015). An Environics
poll, published the same year, indicated that this sentiment that was highest in Alberta, BC
and Quebec. Albertans were especially likely to think that immigrants were taking “their”
jobs away. Moreover, respondents in these same provinces were least likely to agree with
the notion that multiculturalism was an important Canadian value (see Environics Institute
2015).
In light of such polling trends, the vitriol of the hate groups is not so much an aberration
as it is an albeit extreme reflection of racialist views that permeate society. The sentiments
reflected above are exploitable by RWE groups. It is not at all uncommon for them to target
immigrants generally and Muslims specifically in both word and deed, and to challenge the
very principles of multiculturalism, which they see as the foundation of the ills associated
with these changing demographics. On the National Socialist Party of Canada website,
for example, it proclaims that “multiculturalism is the displacement, marginalization, and
eventual destruction of the host population—The White Race!!!”2 An online post associ-
ated with the Canadian Action Party (CAP) found on Stormfront Canada captures the ways
in which RWE adherents collapse the threats of multiculturalism, immigration and Islam:
We are all in agreement that multiculturalism needs to end in this country and in
those platforms, the multiculturalism act will be scrapped. It is changing the dynam-
ics of our country and destabilizing the peace in our country. It is not right for any
political party to gamble the safety of our current and future citizens by trying to
bring in cultures/races/religions that historically have had major anomosity towards
each other. We all know what multiculturalism and excess immigration is doing to
our country and we’re going to try and fix those problems […] I need everyone to
phone or email the members of the Canadian Action Party and say your beefs about
immigration and cultural issues i.e. language law protection, full face burka bans etc.
(VH, 2012-10-25)
Immigration Watch Canada (IWC), which is especially active in the Greater Toronto area,
has long been attuned to the public fears of what they see as the negative effects of immi-
gration. The IWC website offers a daily diet of “news” and “bulletins” that selectively
highlights those threats. Their mission statement reads as follows:
Immigration Watch Canada is an organization of Canadians who believe that immi-
gration has to serve the needs and interests of Canada’s own citizens. It cannot be
turned into a social assistance/job-finding program for people from other countries. It
should not be a method to suppress wages and provide employers with an unending
supply of low-wage labour. It should never be a social engineering experiment that is
conducted on Canada’s mainstream population in order to make it a minority.3
Tapping into prevailing sentiments is a standard strategy for garnering support. It is
important to note too that, even if a community may not see itself as a “hateful” place,
2 See http://nspca nada.nfsho st.com.
3 See https ://immig ratio nwatc hcana da.org.

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
its reputation as such is still important. An online post on Stormfront Canada reveals
that one white nationalist, for example, views Quebec through this lens, seeing it as an
appealing option for adherents like himself:
To be honest, from what I have seen Quebec is the only province in Canada stand-
ing up to this immigrant flood. Seen they have the power and political power to
protect French culture and they seem to be following the trend in France. There
have been days recently that I have started to think about moving to Quebec and
learning French […] I am planning a business trip there in the fall and might take
a look around while I am there. But Quebec is the only place so far in Canada I
have heard of standing up to the Muslims and making them follow the rules and
laws of this country. (Delta, 2015-03-10)
Several participants suggested that Alberta also appears hospitable to RWE activity. It is
that province’s reputation that lures extreme-right groups and individuals there. Former
RWE adherents corroborated this, indicating that it was precisely this image that spurred
several neo-Nazis and skinheads to leave Ontario for Alberta. Ontario had become “too
hot” for them in terms of police surveillance, so they ventured to what they saw as the
“promised land” in Alberta, assuming that it would provide a more welcoming environ-
ment for their brand of racism and xenophobia. Lund (2006, p. 181) notes that Alberta
is “infamous” in that “from the settler colonizing of the West through its history of rac-
ist extremism in both fringe and mainstream political movements, Alberta has long been
a comfortable place for many who hold negative views on its ever-increasing diversity.”
Political/Rhetorical Climate ofIntolerance
Across Western nations, a “climate of hate” has historically been conditioned by the
activity—and inactivity—of the state. State practices, policy and rhetoric have often
provided the formal framework within which hate and hate groups can emerge. Practices
within the state, at an individual and institutional level, which stigmatize, demonize or
marginalize traditionally oppressed groups legitimate parallel sentiments elsewhere,
including among RWE groups. We are concerned, in this paper, with the ways in which
the state, for one, supports the “hegemonic bloc” associated with white, heterosexual
male dominance—also the purview of RWEs. Indeed, the state infuses civil society with
ideals representative of this core identity, referred to by bell Hooks (1994, 1995) as
the “white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist” bloc. To the extent that this is so, there
emerges a climate which bestows “permission to hate,” through such mechanisms as
rhetoric, legislation, policy, the arbitrary use of “legitimate violence,” and secondary
victimization. The demonization of minority groups is reinforced by the racialized and
gendered discourse of politicians, judges, political lobbyists, and more. And the targets
are diverse: immigrants, gay men and women, Muslims, to name a few—in other words,
the very targets of RWE groups. As Perliger (2012, p. 146) expresses it,
a contentious political climate and ideological political empowerment play impor-
tant roles in increasing the volume of violence; thus, it is not only feelings of dep-
rivation which motivate those involved in far right violence, but also the sense of
empowerment which emerges when the political system is perceived to be increas-
ingly open to far right ideas.

A Climate forHate? AnExploration oftheRight‑Wing Extremist…
1 3
In short, RWEs benefit from—or are at least informed by—a political culture of possibili-
ties. Much can be learned in this respect from recent European politics. There, reactionary
rhetoric is rampant in viable political parties, some of which are explicitly tied to violent
RWE groups. In these cases, fervent nationalism and xenophobic ideologies freely circulate
in the public marketplace of ideas, while also coalescing in the ideologies of the far-right.
What is worrying is that, in some regions of Canada, there appear to be traces of similar
trends emerging. At the federal level, the 2010s saw a turn to the far-right unlike any we
have seen since at least the early 1900s. Several participants in our study pointed to the
impact of recent conservative politics on the potential for RWE activity, suggesting that it
has an empowering effect. Anti-democratic and anti-immigrant rhetoric and practice, and
a retreat from the discourse of rights, for example, lend legitimacy to similar strains within
the movement. References by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the threat of “Islami-
zation” and to the wearing of hijabs as “offensive” stoke the flames of Islamophobia. The
anti-immigrant website, IWC, echoed Harper’s sentiment, suggesting that British trends
were making their way to Canada, wherein “This Islamization programme is in accord-
ance with the duties of Muslims to proselytize.”4 A Facebook post by Patriotic Europeans
Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) Canada included a picture of Harper, over-
laid with the comment that “If I were still PM, thousands of possible extremists wouldn’t
be arriving right now.” Among the favourable responses: “Can’t believe, how stupid people
could be to trade Harper for childish inexperienced Narciss. How all will regret later on!
But the harm for our country might be not curable;” and “Harper was 1000 times better
than Trudeau.”5 Yet another of his fans—on the Golden Dawn international blogspot—cel-
ebrated the observation that
Canadians traditionally wanted to accept anyone and everyone, but I do see a tide
turning. At least the Conservative government has become a little more hardline on
immigration and even revoked some citizenships. People weren’t even living in Can-
ada and were receiving government payments…. (Anonymous, 2013-01-20)
Harper’s thwarted efforts to ban face-coverings during citizenship ceremonies were also
taken as evidence by RWE adherents that he was in their corner, or as one white nationalist
on Stormfront Canada expressed:
Lot’s of folks are speaking out against the recent ruling on niqabs and burkas for
example (being granted the right to vote, with a veil concealing your identity). It
would appear that average, everyday people are beginning to wake up to the real-
ity we face as western nation, and let’s not forget: Germany, and especially Berlin,
became a den of communist leftist debauchery following the first world war, argu-
ably much worse than our current situation, before the people eventually woke up
and decided enough is enough. Hang in there. (Magna, 2015-10-16)
Admittedly, during the period of the study, Canada did not see the sort of success of far-
right political parties that were so evident in Europe. Nonetheless, the 2014 election year
in Ontario was unusual for the slate of right-wing actors that had entered the race. The
Greater Toronto Area, for example, had such candidates as Jeff Goodall, formerly of the
Edmund Burke Society, running for Oshawa City Council, and former Nazi leader John
4 See https ://immig ratio nwatc hcana da.org/bulle tins/bulle tins-since -2010/page/9/.
5 See https ://www.faceb ook.com/Pegid a.canad a/photo s/a.15345 18543 49188 2.10737 41828 .15334 11596
93591 0/16636 26637 24773 8/?type=3&theat er.

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
Beattie vying for municipal office in Minden. Even Don Andrews, founder and current
leader of the Nationalist Party of Canada, threw his hat in the ring for Toronto’s mayoralty.
Incredibly, Christopher Brosky, a former skinhead thought to have current connections to
Don Andrews, ran for Toronto city council. Brosky was convicted in 1993, in Texas, for the
murder of a black man. Bob Smith is another candidate, running for Toronto mayor on an
explicitly racist platform, as his web site makes obvious:
Who else is standing up for things that our cities and towns need: restoring white
community standards and services, now reduced not just in Toronto, but in other cit-
ies, to Third World levels, with potholes everywhere, infrastructure crumbling and
no support from provincial and federal governments blowing billions on foreign aid,
multicultural programs, and immigrant aid programs, to name just a few stupidities,
as Canadians deal with unacceptably low levels of support for the needy and disa-
bled, rising nonwhite crime, years of race-mixer/leftist civic neglect and the deeper
digging into our wallets to line their pockets.6
While the electoral success of these extremists was limited, they nonetheless made their
mark at the level of political discourse. They injected a note of intolerance into political
debate or, as Stern (1992, p. 11) explained it “any success pushes mainstream candidates
to imitate them […] If [they] win even a minor election, they gain credibility, access to the
system, and the ability to do better by raising funds from other extremists and those across
the country who are too easily taken in by scapegoating.”
As part of the official political apparatus, such extremists have the appearance of
legitimate actors with valid interpretations of the state of economic and cultural relations
throughout the country. They are the visible and audible presence of RWE and intoler-
ance within the machinery of the state. They bring their ideals to “the people” in hopes of
spreading the word. Consequently, as more than one key informant stated in our study, the
politics of fear mongering creates spaces where it is acceptable to hate. In an environment
that has seen the shrinking of funding for human rights groups, the elimination of s. 13
of the Canadian Criminal Code (i.e., hate speech protections), increasing restrictions on
immigrants and refugees, and much more, the RWE movement finds its positions increas-
ingly reflected in public policy (Mallea 2011; McDonald 2011).
One of the consequences of the demonization of minority groups on the part of politi-
cians is that it finds its way into policies and practices that further stigmatize them. This
has been readily apparent in Canada, for example, with respect to Muslims since the Sep-
tember 11 attacks. Fast on the heels of the attacks, Canada joined the US and UK in an
ill-considered flurry of legislative activity intended to strengthen anti-terrorism legislation.
These revisions allow for an unprecedented extension of intrusive law enforcement activi-
ties on the one hand, and contraction of individual and collective rights on the other. A
2005 Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) report documents
extensive experiences in which law enforcement agents ‘approached’ or ‘contacted’ Arabs
and Muslims, often with no explanation for the contact. Of the 467 respondents, 8% had
been contacted—the bulk of whom (84%) were Canadian citizens. Moreover, 19% of those
who had been contacted indicated that this was not a single event, but one among many.
The effect of such patterns is to draw a line between “law abiding” Canadians and “ter-
rorist” Muslims. It reinforces the public perception that Muslims are questionable with
6 See http://www.natpa rty.com/bobsb eat.htm.

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respect to their loyalty to Canada, and with respect to their knowledge of if not involve-
ment in terrorism. However unfounded the police attention may be, it nonetheless leaves
a lingering sense of doubt; the pattern of state badgering of Muslims “makes people feel
comfortable with their prejudices and grants those who hold pre-existing racist attitudes
permission to express those attitudes and expect them to be taken seriously. It empowers
individual prejudices and fuels popular fears” (Bahdi 2003, p. 314). And it empowers RWE
to direct similarly exclusionary language and action toward those Others whom they per-
ceive as a “threat” to Canadian ways of being, as in the following post found on the Golden
Dawn international blogspot:
I am rabidly anti-multiculti, not because is weakens my race…but because, by defini-
tion, it weakens my culture. A culture I believe superior to those that would hack the
genitals off young girls, sell their children into sex-slavery, force women to cover up,
allow polygamous families, encourage a culture of taking from society and not giv-
ing, spread desease and filth, punish by death, those that wish not to believe in their
so-called ‘faith’, issue ‘fatwas’, death orders against cartoonists, authors, singers,
movie directors… There is NOTHING from any other cultures that we, as western
civilization need to import…nothing! A mad-as-hell Canadian. (Anonymous, posted
2013-05-03)7
Recent politics in Quebec probably provides the richest illustration of the link between
public rhetoric and RWE ideologies, particularly with respect to Islamophobic sentiment.
Quebec has been the “epicentre” for institutional challenges to Muslim identity. There is a
lengthening history in that province that would restrict Muslim markers of identity. In the
mid-1990s, for example, there was considerable controversy over schools barring women
and girls from wearing the hijab in school. Such targeted restrictions, however, reached
their zenith under then-Premier Pauline Marois, who first proposed her “Charter of Values”
(originally Charter of Secularism) in 2013. The provision would have banned the wearing
or display of religious symbols among public sector institutions. That the Christian crucifix
would nonetheless still be allowed in public buildings highlights the selective nature of
the proposal (Montpetit 2016a). The rhetoric surrounding the Charter was “dressed in the
guise of narratives of gender equality and secular values” (Ameli and Merali 2014, p. 39).
However, it was also clear from the outset that it was targeted at Muslims and their “fail-
ure” to have assimilated into the “distinct society” that is Quebec.
It is no coincidence, then, that RWE groups informed by cultural nationalism are prob-
ably most visible in Quebec. More so than segments of the movement elsewhere in the
country, Quebec hate groups define themselves through the lens of culture rather than race
per se, and specifically Québécoise culture (Tanner and Campana 2014). Their rhetoric
parallels that of Marois, focusing on the “threat” posed to the French language and cul-
ture by the increasing presence of immigrants and especially Muslims. There are countless
illustrations of this on Canadian white nationalist sites, including the following posts on
Stormfront Canada:
However, all the French speaking immigrants to Quebec include tons of black Afri-
cans, LOTS of Muslims from North Africa and Haitians. You can’t spend a minute
in Montreal without spotting a dozen of women covered from head to tow (sic) with
like 4–5 babies yet to be brainwashed. (MTL1488, 2012-11-18)
7 See http://golde n-dawn-inter natio nal-newsr oom.blogs pot.ca/p/our-ident ity.html.

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
Disappointed are you, well the garbage they chose to bring to this Country is sicken-
ing, looking for work, good luck. If your English forget it, if your black or Muslim
its wonderful, I’m sick and tired of hearing how wonderful Montreal is… In any case
if your black, Muslim or lord forbid a Jew then you’ll fit right in with the rest of the
garbage. (Brind, 2013-09-24)
Quebec is also the province in which a German-based Islamophobic group known as
PEGIDA first made its appearance in Canada (Woods 2015). One of the Quebec group’s
members told the Toronto Star that “the incompatibility of Islam with the West is flagrant
and that’s the reason that PEGIDA and the Western patriots are rising up. It’s not just to
counter Islam but to say that if Islam doesn’t reform itself, Islam needs to get out of the
West” (Woods 2015). Other RWE groups, including the Soldiers of Odin, have made their
presence known in Quebec and in other cities across Canada, patrolling Muslim parts of
the city and protecting residents from what they refer to as the “threat” to Canadian values
and culture—i.e., Muslim immigrants (Montpetit 2016b). Indeed, these are tell-tale signs
of the undercurrent in Canada, one that opposes the integration of the Muslim community,
for example.
Weak Law Enforcement
When asked what they saw as the key factors enabling the emergence and sustainability of
RWE groups, the majority of key informants in our study claimed that the most obvious
factor was a weak law enforcement response. This was the sentiment even among police
officers, regardless of whether or not they deemed their own department to be vigilant in
acknowledging and confronting RWE activity. Members of community-based organiza-
tions were also critical of what they saw as police blindness in this respect. They feared
that law enforcement were neither well trained nor motivated to confront the movement
where it had a presence.
This corresponds more generally to trends in the policing of hate crime. There is a
growing body of literature on the role of law enforcement in policing hate crime (Hall
2012), although little that addresses their engagement with RWE specifically. Consider-
able attention has been paid to ways in which racialized communities, in particular, are
both over- and under-policed in this country (CAIR-CAN 2005; Comack 2012). Particu-
larly important in the context of the sort of targeted violence that might be perpetrated by
RWE adherents are the ways in which perceived police hostility toward such communities
manifests is under-policing (Perry 2009). Selective enforcement is evident in police failure
to protect diverse communities from hate crime (Perry 2009), in that police are thought to
take less seriously the victimization of minority groups—less seriously than their offend-
ing, and less seriously than the victimization of white people. Police officers set the stage
for bias motivated violence by acts of omission, or failure to act on behalf of minority
victims. Such violence is explicitly condoned when police fail to investigate or lay charges
when victims report assaults motivated by bias (Hall 2012; Perry 2009).
Joshua Freilich, Steven Chermak and their colleagues have focused some attention on
policing RWE in the US. A pair of related papers revealed that police tend to underestimate
the threat of RWE (Chermak etal. 2010b), and that law enforcement training in the field of
terrorism likewise minimizes RWE (Chermak etal. 2010a). Kundnani (2012) and Lehr’s
(2013) assessments in Europe reach similar conclusions, both referring to “blind spots”
with respect to how law enforcement and intelligence agencies focus their attention. Our
observations in Canada confirm this trend. That terrorism associated with RWEs is largely

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1 3
absent from the public agenda here is evident from even a cursory review of the Integrated
Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) website, for example. The list of Terrorist Incidents,
while international in scope, includes only one right-wing terrorist incident: Anders Brei-
vik’s horrific attacks in Norway in 2011. Justin Bourque’s 2014 murder of three RCMP
officers, for example, was not included, nor was Alexandre Bissonnete’s slaying of six
men at an Islamic cultural centre in Quebec City. The list of Terrorist Entities does not
include any reference to RWEs or white supremacist organizations. Nor do the publica-
tions included on the site mention these extremist elements. Rather, the focus tends to be
on global, and especially Islamist extremism. Public Safety’s (2013) 2013 Public Report
on the Terrorist Threat to Canada stated that no attacks by Muslim extremists occurred
in Canada in 2012, nor had any Canadians been killed on domestic soil by al-Qaida or
similar extremists until the two 2015 incidents (Zehaf-Bibeau’s long gun attack on Parlia-
ment Hill, and Couture-Rouleau’s vehicular attack on armed forces personnel in Quebec).
Nonetheless, the report warned that “homegrown violent extremists still pose a threat of
terrorist attack in North America.” The report also goes on to say the “homegrown vio-
lent extremism can be based on other causes”—aside from the al-Qaida influences—“but
is more limited in scope and scale than the activities of terrorist entities listed under the
Criminal Code.”8
That most police services share this apathy toward the RWE threat was apparent in our
interviews. This is probably most evident in rural areas, where officers suggest that “no one
knows” the risk because no one is monitoring activity. But even in urban communities with
demonstrable levels of RWE activity, there was a tendency to deny the presence and threat
of activists in the community. An officer in one Ontario city that is a known “hot spot”
for the RWE activity worried that “we’re not doing enough” to confront the known activ-
ists. Another officer in the same community stated outright that “until something happens,
we’re not looking at them”. They also shared an example that illustrates the lack of respon-
siveness. There had been a gathering of 20–25 neo-Nazis, marching en masse through the
streets, replete with White Pride flags and chants. However, there was no police presence
to monitor the situation. In fact, neither the officer responsible for hate crime nor the one
responsible for diversity was aware of the event, suggesting that they did not have their ears
to the ground.
In addition to the neglect paid to any known RWE presence, some police personnel
deny—at least publicly—that there is any risk associated with the extreme-right. They
trivialized their potential for growth and violence. Even in cities where officers admitted to
RWE membership numbering in the 100s, the threat was downplayed. Rather, they were
much more interested in left-wing extremism, or more likely, Islamist-inspired extrem-
ism. Militant groups such as al-Shabaab are considered terrorist entities, but violent RWE
groups such as Aryan Nations or Blood and Honour are not. At best, RWE groups are
deemed “three man wrecking crews” or “losers without a cause”, thereby minimizing the
relative threat posed by the latter (Perry and Scrivens 2015). Recent reports from CSIS,
however, reveal that more “lone wolf” attacks have come from RWEs than from radical
Islamists (Boutilier 2015). Moreover, the list of incidents that we generated during the
project, one which was in the hundreds between 1985 and 2015, is testament to the fact
8 Following our 3-year study, Public Safety Canada has—in some respects—begun to acknowledge the
threat posed by RWEs in Canada, nothing in their 2017 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada
that radical right-wing ideology can fuel terrorism in Canada.

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
that these groups are active and are violent. Yet many of those responsible for policing the
movement dismissed them as a minor nuisance (Perry and Scrivens 2015).
The possible exception to this lack of attention revolves around the Sovereign Citizen or
Freemen-on-the-Land movement, which is even less organized, and less likely to be violent
than racist skinhead activists, for example (Perry et al. 2017). Nearly every officer with
whom we spoke explicitly stated that the element of the movement was what concerned
them the most. Many stated that it was “only a matter of time” before the movement would
incubate violent adherents. It was also an area in which they had been most recently and
widely trained. Again, there is an indication of misplaced priorities in some communities,
away from violence that is occurring to violence that might occur.
This disavowal of the risk posed by RWE is attributable to a number of factors. As noted
above, it reflects the narrow training around terrorism and extremism. Yet there are other
factors at play as well. Lehr (2013) attributes such trends, first, to the presumptive targets
of RWEs, relative to other extremists, such as left-wing or Islamist-inspired extremists.
Leftists and Islamists, he argues, are thought to represent a threat to highly symbolic tar-
gets such as the state and state (or other) elites. RWEs, in contrast, largely target those “at
the fringes” (Lehr 2013, p. 201). On the one hand “we” are threatened; on the other, “they”
are threatened. This is also embedded in the way in which terrorism is defined by security
agencies. We saw this in the frequent binary offered by officers we interviewed, who drew
a distinction between the “national security threat” posed by Islamist-inspired extremists
and the “public order” threat they attributed to RWE. For many, this was the crux of their
obsession with the former. This neglects the extent to which targeted violence is intended
to terrorize minority groups, and in fact results in a distinct sense of insecurity and fear
among those communities (Perry and Alvi 2011). As a result, it is also a threat to national
values such as inclusion and respect.
More broadly, Kundnani (2012) traces the blindness to the correspondence between
prevailing “security narratives” and those of the far-right extremists. The subject of those
narratives, in the post-9/11 climate run parallel in many respects. The “stories” embed-
ded in contemporary counter-terrorism discourse, according to Kundnani (2012), may well
resonate with RWE groups who exploit the same messaging to lend legitimacy to their own
claims. The nature of those narratives in Canada are not so far off from those described by
Kundnani in the British context. The “values-identity” narrative he describes is present
in both Canadian counter-terror rhetoric and the positions of the far-right. In particular,
both set up “us” versus “them” postulates that enable anti-Muslim constructs in particular.
Whether from the state or the right-wing group, the narrative
…introduces three protagonists (us, moderate Muslims and extremist Muslims),
whose identities are defined in specific ways (whether or not they share our values),
a disturbance (terrorist violence), an explanation for the cause of the disturbance
(extremism) and a suggested resolution (rejecting multiculturalism and asserting our
values more forcefully) (Kundnani 2012, p. 13).
To the extent that Canadian law enforcement are primarily focused on Islamist-inspired
extremism, they reproduce tropes of the “dangerous Muslim,” just as RWE take up the
same refrain. The following post on Stormfront Canada is especially telling in this respect,
as it stresses the “terrorist threat” that the poster sees as inherently connected to current
patterns of immigration: “As we know the government is flooding this country with them
just for votes. And they would not want to upset the voting apple cart. They don’t care
if they blow a up or kill a few hundred Canadians, as long as they get the vote and hold
power” (Delta, 2015-03-10).

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Failure to attend to a RWE presence sends a dangerous message of tolerance. It empow-
ers and emboldens groups and individuals who begin to think that they are under the radar
and thus untouchable. Whether this is the reality or the perception is immaterial. If mem-
bers believe that they can act with impunity, they will be drawn to particular locales. As
rational beings, they flee communities where they are under surveillance for those in which
they believe they will go unnoticed and unbothered.
Concluding Thoughts
Context is crucial. That is the key lesson to be drawn from our observations of the land-
scape of RWE activity in Canada. Hate groups are nourished by diets of public and politi-
cal sentiments that resist change, and seek to counter the advancement of typically Cana-
dian values of inclusivity, equity and multiculturalism. However, the reverse is also true.
That a strong and visible law enforcement response, grounded in community support, is
vital to resisting that growth was also an opinion shared across the interviews. It is perhaps
no coincidence that some of the areas with the most visible and active elements of the
right-wing movement were also areas in which the most effective police responses were
beginning to emerge. BC and Alberta, for example, were forced to come to terms with
their histories and cultures of exclusion in light of the very patterns noted throughout this
paper. Consequently, they have developed teams grounded in collaborative, multi-sectoral
approaches to hate crime and extremism province-wide. These are intended to facilitate
a systematic and coordinated response in both reactive and proactive contexts. This is
accomplished by integrating breadth of expertise (e.g., police, policy makers, victim ser-
vice providers, community organizations), and of reach with respect to audience and cli-
ents (e.g., equity seeking groups, police, policy makers).
With respect to RWE specifically, police officers who were associated with these teams
described very proactive approaches. They were among the only police services to freely
acknowledge the presence of RWE activity, and to demonstrate awareness of the risk they
posed. Members of the BC team, for example, suggested that simply by virtue of their
visibility, members of hate groups might be deterred from violent action. Just knowing
that there is a “specialized team” mandated to deal with hate crime and extremism, it was
argued, made adherents “think twice about crossing the line.” Officers in both provinces
described the strategies they used to intervene with the groups, including direct contact.
Often acting on tips from law enforcement elsewhere, Edmonton and Calgary police would
learn that RWE adherents from Ontario, for example, were planning to move to Alberta.
They would use existing contacts to discover their location and pay these “newcomers”
visits to let them know that they were aware of their presence. They would certainly attend
planned RWE “protests” and “rallies,” ready to intervene in the event that they stepped over
the line to hate speech or hate motivated violence. Finally, given that many of the group
members had lengthy histories of violence, drug related arrests, etc., police here were often
able to weaken the groups through arrests of key members for non-bias related crimes.
In addition, an important source of support for law enforcement initiatives are commu-
nity partners engaged in anti-racism/anti-fascism work. One police officer in our study sug-
gested that rights activists are crucial to counter-extremism initiatives because they “fill in
the gaps where police can’t go”. Law enforcement agencies across Canada have learned
this lesson and rely very heavily on their community partners for intelligence as well as
counter-extremism organizing and activity. The community reaction to the Immigration
Watch Canada (IWC) anti-immigrant pamphletting in Brampton in 2013 and 2014 lends

B.Perry, R.Scrivens
1 3
some credence to this proposition. There was zero tolerance shown for this; representa-
tives from an array of faith communities, and from different ethno-racial communities were
united in their very public condemnation of IWC’s activities (Seth 2014). The show of soli-
darity sent a very loud message that such sentiments would not go unchallenged. A similar
fate befell PEGIDA on the occasion of their first planned march in Quebec in March of
2015. The protestors so far outnumbered the PEGIDA contingency that police encouraged
them to cancel the event, and in fact, escorted them safely out of the area (Lindeman 2015).
Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and Anti-Racist Canada (ARC) also represent direct challenges
to the rhetoric and activities of racist RWE groups. They engage in ongoing monitoring
and “outing” of RWE individuals and groups, as well as directly confronting them in pub-
lic. This is especially the case for ARA which often gathers members and supporters when
RWE marches or demonstrations are planned. Both make it very difficult for groups to fly
under the radar, and for them to gain traction at public events.
Together, then, resisting the spread of RWE groups cannot be seen as only the responsi-
bility of law enforcement, or equity seeking groups. Rather, it should be recognized as the
collective responsibility of all elements of the community. Here communities must respond
by virtue of a widely shared commitment to address broad problems associated with rac-
ism. Participants in our study, for example, described their community in Lethbridge, AB
as a “really committed cadre” of people addressing the issue in both proactive and reactive
ways. This pledge was shared across sectors and layers of the community, from community
activists, to a prior mayor, to the chief of police, to individual citizens, all in an effort to
face racism head on and run it out of town.
We could not have known when we started, or even when we finished the project, that
our emphasis on the “climate of hate” would be so prescient. As we noted above, RWE
was not on the agenda. It had not been a topic of political or popular concern. All that
changed in the months leading up to and following the election of Donald Trump in the
US. The 2016 US presidential election capped off a year in which the politics of hate was
mainstreamed. Republican nominee, billionaire and former reality TV star, Donald Trump
ran an explicitly racist, sexist and xenophobic campaign. Fashioning himself as a right-
wing populist man of white, conservative, Christian and working-class US-borne Ameri-
can “people,” Trump’s campaign constructed minorities, liberals, Muslims, professionals
and immigrants as un-American “others” and blamed these “people” for a number of social
problems they did not cause. Trump’s campaign resonated with white supremacists. Key
figures like David Duke, Andrew Anglin, and Richard Spencer rallied around Trump, hop-
ing that if elected Trump would use his power to “make America great again” by making it
all white. When Trump won the election to become president, white supremacists rejoiced.
He helped to engender a climate “where ‘difference’ is being highlighted, the ‘Other’ fur-
ther entrenched with outsider status, and fear and loathing promoted as part of the main-
stream of media and political debate” (White and Perrone 2001, pp. 162–163). Dubbed the
“Trump Effect”, this resurgent white supremacy is real and violent: in the weeks following
Trump’s win, hate crimes in the US surged to a level not seen since the days immediately
after 9/11.
The Trump Effect has been widely discussed in the US context. But it has also garnered
significant interest in Canada. Between us, we have conducted more than two hundred
media interviews, including CBC News Canada, the Toronto Star, the New York Times,
the LA Times, and BBC News. As a favourite maxim goes, when the US sneezes, Canada
catches a cold. Thus, it has become apparent that the American politics of hate unleashed
by Trump’s right-wing populist posturing has also galvanized Canadian white supremacist
ideologies, identities, movements and practices. Following Trump’s win, posters plastered

A Climate forHate? AnExploration oftheRight‑Wing Extremist…
1 3
on telephone poles in Canadian cities invited “white people” to visit alt-right websites.
Neo-Nazis spray painted swastikas on a mosque, a synagogue and a church with a black
pastor. Online, a reactionary white supremacist subculture violated hate speech laws with
impunity while stereotyping and demonizing non-white people. Most strikingly, in Janu-
ary 2017, Canada witnessed its most deadly homegrown terrorist incident: Alexandre Bis-
sonnete, a RWE and Trump supporter, murdered six men at the Islamic cultural centre of
Quebec City.
What distinguishes the current Canadian context from that of the US has been the
resolve shown by Canadian media and politicians to counter the hatred—a very different
trend than that which prevailed during the time of our study. Federal and provincial govern-
ments are actively promoting anti-hate initiatives and programming. We have quite literally
said “not in our town.” Politicians, businesses, private individuals have shared this message
on billboards, protest signs, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds—anywhere they can. Perhaps
most powerful have been explicit statements condemning the acts of hatred we have seen
across the country. The province of Ontario has passed a motion which affirms its con-
demnation “against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance; rebuke
the notable growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments; denounce hate-attacks,
threats of violence and hate crimes against people of the Muslim faith; condemn all forms
of Islamophobia.” At the federal level, MP Iqra Khalid introduced a similar motion:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) recognize the need to
quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear; (b) condemn Islamophobia and
all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of
Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it.
Public statements like these send a powerful message. They hint at an empowering climate
of inclusion rather than a destructive climate of hate.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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