Neo-nazis everywhere?
If there really are 300 neo-nazi groups In Canada, why Can’t anyone name them?
For years now, progressives have been warning that neo-fascism represents a growing cancer within Canada. Since the riot at the Capitol, in particular, the Toronto Star has instructed us that “white supremacy” — not just everyday racism, but the real deal — is now an overt presence in public life. The NDP has jumped on board hard as well. under the banner, “Take Action: dismantle White Supremacist and Neo-nazi Groups in Canada,” Jagmeet Singh’s party informs us that “there are 300 active far-right extremist groups operating across the country.”
Think about that. We’ve all heard of the Proud Boys (which many MPS want classified as a terrorist group), and nuts like Paul Fromm. And the 2018 Public report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada identified right-wing extremism driven by “white nationalism” as a major threat, rightly singling out Alexandre Bissonnette’s horrific Quebec City rampage for special condemnation. But 300? Wow.
There’s a silver lining here, however. Since we apparently know the identifying details of these 300 groups — how else could the NDP offer such a precise number? — surely, we can now expose them. even if they haven’t broken any laws, there’s enormous value in warning the public about their identities. After all, Nazis don’t announce themselves with names like “League of right-wing Canadian racists” — much in the way Antifa doesn’t call itself “Guys Who Started Off Pretending to Oppose Fascism But Now Just randomly Wreck Stuff.” Fromm calls one of his groups “The Council of Conservative Citizens.” These names can be very deceptive.
So obviously what we need is a public database that contains all 300 entries, so that when we get invited to a Facebook group, or a local bake-sale fundraiser, or a neighbour asks for help burning an effigy or what not, we’ll be able to check the invitation against a list of known hate groups. In fact, I’m surprised Jagmeet Singh hasn’t already posted the list to Ndp.ca. remember: The forces of white supremacy are massing as we speak. Lives are at stake.
But here’s where it gets awkward. I phoned around, and no one at the NDP offices seems to have that list. Instead, they referred me to Barbara Perry, director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and extremism at Ontario Tech university. The 300 figure appeared in a 2019 interview with Perry published in a sponsored-content outlet funded by the Ontario government and labour unions.
In that interview, Perry claimed that, even by 2015, she’d identified “more than 100 active far-right groups across Canada.” Then in the intervening four years, she apparently discovered another 200. The new 300 estimate is cited in a March, 2019 Star interview
— though, oddly, several months later, Perry was heard telling the CBC that the number is closer to 130. More recently, in August 2020, she repeated the 300 figure to an Oshawa express reporter, and added that these are real groups — not just one-off Twitter or Facebook accounts operated as fanboy relay stations for foreign haters — that (in the reporter’s words) “could range from three or four members up to several hundred.”
I emailed Prof. Perry this week to inquire about where I could find her database. unfortunately, she told me that she wouldn’t be releasing the information till spring, even though she’s been sitting on the list for two years. When I asked why, she explained that releasing the list “wouldn’t make sense” unless the data were couched within a larger published report, such as the one she has planned. (I would like to quote her full response, but she would allow me to do so only if I showed her a draft of this article first, which I declined to do.)
I find it odd that, to my knowledge, I’m the only journalist who’s publicly asked to see this information. The Star and CBC, in particular, now regularly publish articles darkly suggesting that Canada is on the cusp of some kind of full-on white supremacist apocalypse. Given the urgent need to fight off the forces of Nazidom, shouldn’t they be leading the charge for this data rather than just repeating Perry’s bottom-line number?
Or consider the aforementioned NDP petition, which demands “measures to tackle online hate, including regulations to have social media platforms remove hateful and violent content.” But in pursuit of that goal, what resource could be more valuable to regulators and tech workers than a definitive catalogue of the 300 Canadian groups that are actively fomenting white supremacism? Perry’s research is funded by Public Safety Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces. Shouldn’t the NDP, of all parties, be the first to demand that the public receives the benefit of this subsidized outlay?
In a 2018 Critical Criminology article entitled A Climate for Hate? An exploration of the right-wing extremist Landscape in Canada, Perry defines the focus of her research — right-wing extremism, or rwe — as “a loose movement, characterized by a racially, ethnically and sexually defined nationalism … often framed in terms of white power … grounded in xenophobic and exclusionary understandings of the perceived threats posed by such groups as nonwhites, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals and feminists … in the interests of ‘preserving’ heritage and their ‘homeland.’ ” That definition sounds precise. But as I read through Perry’s 20-page journal article, I became progressively more interested in how she applied it.
Perry mentions, in passing, at least a dozen infamous Canadian groups that really do cater to hate-addled whack jobs, such as the Klan and the Aryan Guard. No argument there. But then she glides into a more general discussion of “populist right-wing groups” that promote the “language of ‘borders,’ ‘boundaries,’ ‘transgressions,’ or ‘territory.’” Hate “does not emerge in a vacuum,” she warns, citing Antonio Gramsci’s theories on “the ongoing struggle for hegemonic supremacy,” but rather “is embedded in broader patterns of subjugation.” This kind of language could easily sweep in anyone who expresses concern about, say, immigration levels, or even advocates travel bans to stop the spread of COVID-19.
In her conclusion, Perry writes that “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,” which suggests that the line between hate groups and everyone else is blurry. Approvingly quoting Bell Hooks’ denunciation of the “white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist bloc,” she accuses all of us — “politicians, judges, political lobbyists, and more” — of creating “a climate which bestows ‘permission to hate.’”
In her email to me, Perry justified her decision to withhold the list on the basis that the public doesn’t yet have the “context” to appreciate her methods. That’s a word I came across again in her 2018 journal article, under the heading “Concluding Thoughts.”
“Context is crucial,” she wrote. “That is the key lesson to be drawn from our observations of the landscape of rwe activity in Canada. Hate groups are nourished by diets of public and political sentiments that resist change, and seek to counter the advancement of typically Canadian values of inclusivity, equity, and multiculturalism.”
“Political sentiments that resist change”? That’s literally just a derogatory description of mainstream conservatism, as the movement has existed since edmund Burke polemicized against the French revolution. And if that’s all it takes to get labelled a “right-wing extremist,” you can see why the NDP is happy to cite Perry’s claims without asking inconvenient questions about when we’ll be allowed to scrutinize them. National Post Jonathan Kay is editor of Quillette, and a former managing editor of the National Post.
obviously what we need Is a public database that Contains ALL 300 entries.