Long pandemic could add to extremism, report warns

OTTAWA • A new research report by the Department of National Defence suggests the longer the COVID-19 pandemic rages, the stronger extremism and other threats in Canada and around the world are likely to become.

The report prepared by the Defence Department's research arm lays out a range of political, economic and security challenges that could emerge — or become more prominent — depending on how long the pandemic remains.

To that end, it looks at what may happen in a bestcase scenario that would see COVID-19 brought under control by the end of this year, as well as the potential ramifications should the pandemic last past 2023 and — as a worst case — 2025.

The best-case scenario would see effective vaccines rolled out quickly, which would not only kick-start a strong economic recovery but also boost trust in the governments, international institutions and science that ended the pandemic.

Yet even if that happens, reads the Defence Research and Development Canada report, “we can expect that the adversarial states will remain those already identified as such prior to the pandemic, including China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.”

The same is true for rightwing extremism, which the report prepared in October for NATO planners says is already on the rise around the world — and is likely to continue to rise, particularly the longer COVID-19 remains out of control.

The federal Liberal government has identified the rise of right-wing extremism and hate as a major threat to Canada, while the Canadian Armed Forces has started working to weed out such behaviour and ideology from the ranks.

“The pandemic has acted to accelerate existing global trends so it follows that the longer and more severely it plays out, the greater the impact will be on international security,” the report said.

“Military planners would be wise to keep this metric in mind as they consider the challenges that their nations and the NATO alliance faces.”