Let’s hope the Proud Boys’ days are over

So what are the limits of political protest in Canada today? That vile band of extremists known as the Proud Boys found out Wednesday when the federal government declared them to be a terrorist organization. While some people might wonder if this is a needless infringement on our collective civil liberties, Public Safety Canada was fully justified in taking this action.

Broadly speaking, terrorism involves the use or threat of violence against civilians, governments or property to achieve a political, ideological or religious goal. According to Canada’s criminal code, a group may be designated as a terrorist entity if the authorities have “reasonable grounds” to conclude it has “knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity.”

Based on this standard and the evidence from last month’s insurrection in Washington D.C., the Proud Boys are, indeed, terrorists. According to Public Safety Canada’s website, the Proud Boys played a “pivotal role” in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. In the midst of that violent and terrifying mayhem, Proud Boys leaders were issuing directions, and several were arrested afterwards.

Long before that, the Proud Boys used force to disrupt Black Lives Matter as well as Indigenous protests in the United States. No wonder Canada’s public safety department describes the group as a “neo-fascist organization that engages in political violence.”

Co-founded in 2016 by Canadian Gavin Mcinnes, the Proud Boys are active on this side of the border, too. And Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says “there has been a growing body of evidence we’ve collected here in Canada and among our international partners … of the escalating violence that” the group “has been involved in.”

It’s a given that most Canadians want no part of the Proud Boys’ white supremacist, misogynistic, antiimmigrant, anti-semitic and anti-muslim ideology. But it’s important to remember that declaring the Proud Boys to be terrorists was about security, not politics. It happened after a lengthy due process which involved security intelligence reports and assessments by the justice and public safety departments. The Proud Boys are entitled to challenge Public Safety Canada’s decision, too.

The government is not attacking Canada’s constitutional freedoms, it’s pursing people who threaten those freedoms. By taking this step, the government can start excising a cancerous tumour from the Canadian Armed Forces which has been infiltrated by the Proud Boys.

In addition to the Proud Boys, the federal government this week declared Atomwaffen Division, the Base and Russian Imperial Movement as terrorist groups. Together, these four organizations represent “the most significant threat to domestic security” in Canada, Blair says. And lest anyone think only one kind of extremist is being targeted, the federal government also added three al-qaida affiliates and five Islamic State affiliates to its terrorist list.

What happened this week goes beyond symbolism. Listing these groups as terrorist organizations can make it easier to launch criminal investigations or lay charges. Financial institutions can freeze assets.

Perhaps the Proud Boys will now go underground and pursue their malign agenda in the shadows. Maybe they’ll resurface under a new name but with the same sinister ideology. Those are real possibilities. Yet they offer no argument against what happened this week. Whenever our federal government sees an engine of hate powering terrorist violence, it should pour sand on it. And make it stop. So long, Proud Boys.