Canadian domestic extremists are using the federal election to amplify “corrosive” narratives around democracy, immigration and conspiracy theories, a new report suggests.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found Canadian extremists are capitalizing on the deteriorating relationship between Canada and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to draw people towards their movements.
The ISD is an international group of non-profit organizations, established in 2006, that works with governments and communities to counter extremism and polarization. The organization analyzed more than 160,000 social media posts from Canadian domestic extremism accounts between March 1 and April 12.
ISD takes a broad view of who counts as “domestic extremists,” including groups looking to push their agenda through both violent and non-violent methods. That definition captures ethnonationalists, white supremacists, anti-Muslim extremists and neo-Nazis, among other grievance-fuelled movements.
The report’s lead author, Steven Rai, told Global News that while the scan did not point to concrete plans …