Abstract
Canada has often been seen as a progressive country that is welcoming to immigrants, promotes multiculturalism, and generally as a kind and tolerant society. This study used a two-month close examination of Canada’s RWE online presence surrounding the 2019 federal election. Using social network analysis, this study fills a needed empirical gap in current understanding of this network that are known to produce and sustain domestic terrorism and extremist hate crimes in Canada. Then using both discourse and correspondence analysis, we find that Canada’s Right-Wing Extremists (RWEs) galvanize around the following key ideas: leftist-propensities towards violence, projecting especially views against the Antifa, anti-immigration, media corruption and dishonesty, anti-elite and anti-establishment values, anti-liberalism, populism, anti-LGBT, anti-environmentalism, biological determinism, white victimization, and anti-consumerism. By determining Canadian RWE’s ties, location and ideas our findings reveal that many RWE leaders are seen as authoritative for their views in the network and create content and community, potentially inciting active participation. As social contagion theory reminds us, these authorities in the RWE network may inspire others into concrete violent action and are of great concern to public safety.
Highlights
Canada has a resilient and long-standing international reputation for being progressive and inclusive, but there is clearly growing right-wing extremist (RWE) movements in Canada, those espousing white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and anti-authority views
We found that some RWE individuals and their movements fill ‘structural holes’ in the Canadian landscape of hate speech
We find that RWEs self-identify with political parties or actively link themselves to prominent political figures and groups and ‘citizen journalist’ pundits as springboards for their ideas
Summary
Canada has a resilient and long-standing international reputation for being progressive and inclusive, but there is clearly growing right-wing extremist (RWE) movements in Canada, those espousing white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and anti-authority views. Several of these RWEs have captured global headlines with their acts of terrorism. Alexandre Bissonnette killed six people and injured 19 others and was highly influenced by anti-Muslim, anti-feminist, and white supremacist hate speech, primarily found on ‘jock shock’ talk radio shows in Quebec (see Mahrouse, 2018). The murder outraged the country, and the incident again challenged the international reputation of Canada as a progressive and inclusive country
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