Canada’s Far Right Is Having a Moment…
It’s been a rough couple of years for everyone, since the Coronavirus hit the world and began spreading like… well the plague (especially under Omnicron). Everyone is kinda fed up with masks, restrictions, supply shortages, and everything. So how about we talk about what we can do about…
I was talking about living with things and how as a society we can adapt and make changes to have a better …
So it’s going to be like that huh?
Well then, lets talk about how Canada’s Far Right is Having a Moment right now and what’s going on, because lord knows they won’t shut up about it and we need to have a talk. Because this isn’t just a story about Canada, its a story about the way the world is changing, polarization, conspiracy theories, and yes, Canada’s Far Right and its US-based supporters. We also need to look at the foremost of Canada’s right-aligned parties because part of this moment is that.
The Freedom Convoy began talking about the new regulations passed in the US and Canada requiring essential workers that crossed the border (like Truck Drivers) to be vaccinated. There was months of notice about this, but the fundraising for the Convoy began on January 14th. It wasn’t a trucker who began raising funds for it — because like a lot of this, despite the imagery and what you see it’s not really about truckers. The person who set up the GoFundMe campaign was Maverick Party Secretary Tamara Lich.
If you don’t know the Maverick Party, I don’t blame you as they were relatively niche before this whole series of events. You might have heard of their old name though because of its wince-inducingness — the Wexit Party. Ms Lich had ties to the Alberta Provincial version of the Wexit party (which was separate from the federal one) which was part of the groups that merged to become Wild Rose (and now are part of the Alberta United Conservative Party. It’s been a bit crazy there.)
The Truck Protest isn’t about trucks.
For a lot of the people involved in this, it’s not even about vaccine mandates. It’s a far-right power grab right now pushing taking advantage of what I can only call people’s frustration with mandates and the first real pandemic in over a century. Not everyone who is protesting is far right — some people are misguided, some are there on other causes (some Aboriginals are protesting about the cover-up of the graves in residential schools), and I’m sure some are safety officers trying to rein in things. But, EVERYONE WHO IS FAR RIGHT is involved here — if they can get in on it directly or indirectly they are there.
We’ve had a laundry list of who’s who on the far right show up with names like Romana Didulo (the self appointed ‘Queen of Canada’ and QAnon supporter — by the way Romana we have a Queen, her name is Elizabeth), Patrick King (a Wexit co-founder and tied to the Yellow Vests who have ironically enough attacked people striking from oil refineries), Benjamin Dichter (failed People’s Party Candiate who has claimed ‘political Islam’ has infiltrated multiple Canadian parties), and of course Rebel Media (Canada’s answer to Breitbart). This is only a few of the many of them, and we’ve seen how some parts of the protest are acting with things like urinating on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, and defacing Terry Fox’s statue.
They defaced Terry Fox’s statue. That has nothing to do with god damn vaccines, or anything. There’s no call for that and yet it happened, because there are extremist elements in the protest, including in prominent positions. We have seen Swastika’s, defaced Canadian flags, confederate flags, and just about everything short of KKK hoods from some of the people around in some spots.
Beyond Ottawa, another protest has occupied a small town in Alberta near the border. For all the mentions of concerns about cross-border supplies, that hasn’t stopped this protest from blocking traffic to and from the US at an Alberta border crossing, or essentially terrorizing this town full of senior citizens. Protests have taken place in other places across Canada as well, though thankfully they have been controlled and short term. It would also be worth it to look at where the 10m raised in funding for it came from — the amount of Americans who are upset about it is significant, as is the fact that former President Trump has weighed in.
And yes, if you can’t tell by this point just thinking about all of it is weighing down on me. The second half of this has taken longer to write just as I review things and it is just so much stupid and so much wrong here.
We can also see the Far Right having a moment with the removal of Erin O’Toole as conservative leader. While he originally pitched himself more as a “true blue” leaning harder right then many during that period, since taking leadership he has attempted to be more of a moderate conservative, albeit one who seems to be that way more in a matter of realizing it was the only way to get elected than one who’s natural inclination is that way (based on some of how he’s handled things, in my opinion).
Apparently O’Toole’s refusal to support the protest fully was a big part of his removal here, as was the fact that he supported the ban on conversion therapy and whipped the party to doing so. This marks the first time a caucus has used the power of the Reform Bill to remove its leader from power — and that is their right.
What concerns me is the MPs like Pierre Poilievre (who I will forever remember by the nick name Pierre Poutine) who have openly courted and supported the protest who have announced to be seeking leadership of the party. We may be seeing the conservative party going apart like the Republicans have with Trump. One conservative senator has actually left the caucus, and there are some speaking out against the “freedom convoy” as well.
I vehemently disagree with Stephen Harper’s path for Canada that he took us down but that was far far less extreme then some of what is coming up right now. And damn it — I’m here forced to agree with Doug Ford, a man who I have little respect for as Premiere and disagree with on most issues I suspect about being against the “convoy”.
While I was writing this Ottawa declared a state of emergency, because the people have been taking over the streets. People in Ottawa are struggling to sleep, because the trucks will go honking at night. They are actively closing down businesses while complaining about limits on some businesses right now. Medical personnel have been asked to dress in casual clothes when going to work because of police being worried the protesters may attack them — and they have harassed them a number of times.
The Far Right of Canada is having its moment. Hopefully it exposes that what we sometimes laugh at in the US has its parts and roots here too, and that we need to take action to stop both internal and external variants of it. (BTW USA you can take confederate flags, and QAnon. We don’t want them here thank you very much.)
