The RCMP proceeded to the arrest of four Quebecers on Tuesday, including two active members of the Canadian Armed Forces, for having facilitated a terrorist activity qualified as “violent extremism of an ideological nature”. An event that puts forward the question of radicalization in the Canadian Armed Forces, but also the very real existence of white supremacist armed groups in Canada. The duty Take stock with Evan Balgord, director general of the Canadian network against hatred, and with the professor specializing in terrorism and far-right movements Yannick Veilleux-Lepage.
What do you think are the motivations of Quebecers recently arrested by the RCMP?
Yannick Veilleux-Lepage: It is an ethnontalist ideology. It is motivated by the idea of being able to create a territory of lawlessness where extremist ideology, of extreme right, would be able to rebuild a society. This is not a new project. In the United States, we have seen several citizen militias carrying out efforts to buy territories or plots of land in order to create a parallel company.
Evan Balgord: We do not yet know in detail the ideologies of these accused, but we can find at the moment on one of their Facebook profiles of the pages followed and the publications ranging from the right to the far right. We found pages containing explicitly anti-administrators, transphobes, pro-Trump or pro-Russian, and others publishing anti-Semitic memes. It is a heterogeneous and contradictory mixture.
What is the importance of extremist armed groups in the country?
Evan Balgord: Over the years there have been different iterations of far -right groups with an anti -government tendency, generally led by white nationalists and who have merged over time. Our organization is mainly interested in the groups corresponding to the “active clubs” model, which share white nationalist convictions and which seek to recruit and act offline.
We are talking about more serious groups, with an acceptance process, which meet to train, whether training in mixed martial arts and combat or military training and shooting. The far-right Canadian nationalist group Diagolon and its second Sons Canada subdivision, or the Nationalist-13 group, are the main examples.
To what extent can the Canadian armed forces feed radicalization or extremism?
Yannick Veilleux-Lepage: There are really three stages by which radicalization can take place. First, an individual can already be radicalized and wanting to enter the armed forces to advance his ideological cause, go and seek military or medical training, for example, even have access to weapons or explosives. The armed forces do a selection work (screening), but we know that there are forums or sites, such as Telegram, which give advice to hide his ideas or beliefs in order to be admitted.
There are also individuals who radicalize during their service, as is the case of two founding members of the pack, who made several public statements saying that their radicalization and their decision to create the group were catalyzed during their experience in Afghanistan. As for the third stage, we speak of a radicalization after the service, when an individual lost the feeling of belonging and the social aspect that came with the army.
How did the nationalist armed groups gain in influence?
Evan Balgord: There are obviously several individual reasons, but certain common denominators are observed. Climbing the number of people believing in conspiracy theories During the Pandemic of Covid-19 played a very strong role. If you frequented conspiracy spaces on COVID, sooner or later, you went on other conspiracy theories, which can be racist, anti -Semitic or hateful.
The far -right group diagolon gained a considerable scale during this period. Like several supremacist groups, Diagolon diffuses live videos, produces online propaganda, makes interviews, creates shareable posters and content. This is how he recruits, establishes a network of contacts or friends, then develops an active club model. The members then try to meet in person and train.
What exactly are their political intentions?
Evan Balgord: their motivations are diverse. Do they want to change the government or overthrow it? In any case, they do not believe in the political parties in place. They don’t think there is a political solution [à leurs revendications nationalistes, racistes ou antisémites]which is a bit of a signal to suggest that violence is inevitable. There is also a branch that encourages her supporters to resort to violence in order to accelerate what she considers an inevitable collapse of society, in order to seize power and to use it against the people she sees as their enemies for political, racial or gender reasons.
But it should also be remembered that one of their reasons is also financial. Their work is to produce nationalist and racist content for which an audience pays them.
Do these groups represent a risk to public security?
Evan Balgord: It’s hard to say. On the one hand, these groups will publicly disavow the crime, violence or the handling of firearms. But on the other, they practice incentive to violence against individuals and minority or precise groups.
Yannick Veilleux-Lepage: There are risks. The fact remains that the number of people who are radicaling is infinitely small compared to the 60,000 members of the regular forces. The problem is that the damage they can do […] is disproportionate.
This interview was published for clarity and conciseness.
