Canadian domestic extremists exploit federal election to push harmful narratives

Global News, a Canadian media company, featured analysis from ISD Digital Research Analyst Steven Rai in a new article on Canadian domestic extremists and how they are using this weekend’s federal election to amplify harmful narratives around democracy, immigration and conspiracy narratives.  

Drawing on recent ISD research, Steven noted that while these groups – which include ethnonationalists, white supremacists, anti-Muslim extremists and neo-Nazis – are not explicitly calling for violence, “they’re taking these mainstream topics of conversation and manipulating them to basically gather support.” Two key issues being exploited to rally support are the deteriorating US-Canada relationship and immigration. 

“They say ‘the political status quo is not working, there’s all these problems, there’s these tariffs that are going to lead to all this economic misery,’ and then they’re basically choosing scapegoats on who to blame,” Steven explained. 

He also discussed how conspiracy theories are not being directed to any one particular party but across the spectrum. As the election approaches on 28 April, he urged Canadians to be critical of the information they encounter on social media. “Some platforms are woefully inadequate altogether at even having policies to combat things like misinformation or hate … So I think there’s really a need to kind of educate the public on treating with huge amounts of skepticism with any kind of claims they’re seeing on social media.” 

The full article is available on the Global News website.