It Could Happen Here - Canadian Fascism Eh? Part 1

Episode Date: October 14, 2021

Canada is seen as a liberal haven but it's far from immune to far right politics. This episode we look at the history of Fascism and Nationalism in Canada from the early 20th Century, up until 2019. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's going to be way too jarring to open an episode with.

Well, we already did it, so let's keep moving. Yeah, uh-huh. The episode's actually going to start with Garrison saying, that's way too jarring to open an episode with And the listeners won't know what it was

That is a much easier opening Alright So we're doing I'm going to be reading a thing today And then we're going to talk about the thing that we're reading And who are you And who is here Oh yeah this is a good happen here

This is a good happen here i'm i'm garrison i am our resident canadian oh yeah that's anderson that's anderson the dog and here we have we had to hire a canadian for a diversity quota you don't you do not anyway uh we have chris here uh robert evans as usual, and Sophie. Hi. So, we're going to talk a little bit about Canada today. Oh, good. In the scripted what-if scenarios first posited in the original It Could Happen Here,

it detailed what it might be like to live in the United States during a modern civil conflict. And one of the stories that we kind of tell ourselves as a culture is about, you know, crossing up into the safe haven of Canada whenever stuff breaks out in the States. Whether that be like an escape from just the hell that's US politics or, you know, going up into the cold Northern terrain,

better equipped to deal with climate change. Canada is kind of just viewed as a bastion of liberal democracy in North America. I've made jokes in the past about using my Canadian passport to escape up into the forest of Alberta when things get too dicey here in the States. But this

weird utopian view of Canada is not just wrong about Canada's current political state, but also assumes that Canada is, like, immune to the political shifts that the states have gone through the past few years,

which is, it's very obviously not. So, like, Canada internationally is, and specifically in the States, it's used as, like, you know, it's used as, like, America's little brother, but it's, you know, it's much more, you know, democratic, it's much more democratic. It's much more liberal.

It's this kind of ideal scenario for what the states could be. And Canadians have a weird view of the states as well. Canadians, they're both kind of obsessed. A lot of Canadians, I think, know more about U.S. politics than they know about Canadian politics. But almost in a way that we watch sports. It's like this thing that we like watch as entertainment, like some kind of like sick reality show. That's how I think a lot of Canadians really view US politics.

Because it's just so wacky compared to the kind of more like civil parliamentary system that we have in Canada. US politics just looks very, very bizarre. And there's always this notion it's like no matter how bad things can get in canada at least we're not the states at least at least we're not at least we're not the u.s and that is kind of a lot of a lot of how a lot of stuff can get really get can just like survive in canada longer because it's just they they view it like at least we're not as bad as the other people. So that's how, you know, it gives them some kind of sense of security. But in terms of Canada as a country, you know, we've said that Canada as a country is basically just,

you know, a few mining companies in a trench coat, and the trench coat is healthcare. a few mining companies in a trench coat, and the trench coat is healthcare. And that's really all they are as a country. But today we're going to be talking about Canada's slide towards farther right-wing politics, both historically and then more recently, because a lot of what we've seen in the States has happened in its own weird Canadian way around the same time. But before we really get started, I think it would be remiss not to mention how the Canadian government has historically treated Indigenous and First Nations people living on that land. Of course, not only just hundreds of years ago, but a lot more recently as well. Just in the past year, there have been thousands and thousands of hidden graves found across the provinces at the sites of these residential schools. And the process of looking for these unmarked graves has just started. The Canadian Historical Association published a

letter this past Canada Day, Canada Day is like Independence Day, but for Canada, saying that it was abundantly clear that Canada is guilty of genocide. I know there's a few episodes of Behind the Bastards and I think even Worst Year that talk about residential schools and the genocide of indigenous people in Canada. Yeah, check those out. So yeah, you can check those out.

And I wrote this episode to be more focused on Canada's political shifts the past five years. But since we're going to be talking about Canadian fascism, I thought it would be irresponsible to not mention this up front as like a thing. Very responsible, Garrison. Very responsible. So I'm going to try to take us through aspects of Canada's politics chronologically.

You guys can butt in and kind of ask questions and clarifications about stuff. But the first thing that we're going to start with is actually going to be on the First Nations side of things. And that's kind of how, that's what mostly Indigenous people are called in Canada, is First Nations. Even, you know, the Indigenous people up in Canada,

most of them use that term. So that's the term I'll be using for some of this stuff, just because that's the one that's used up there. So the residential schools program is where, I'm going to briefly mention a few things things about it just because of how it kind of relates to some of the stuff that we're going to be talking about for the rest of the episode. Yeah, I'm going to read some words by Duncan Campbell Scott, who was the deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs. This was like a rank in the Canadian government. He served as the deputy superintendent from 1913 to 1932. And he's arguably like the main architect

of the residential schools program. He was also good friends with the first prime minister of Canada, John MacDonald. So here's how this guy, the architect of this program, this is how he

kind of talked about this in letters to both his underlings and just openly. Quote, it is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so close in the residential schools and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages but this does not justify a change in the policy

of this department which is geared towards a final solution for our indian problem it is quite within the mark to say that 50 of children who pass through these schools did not live to benefit from the education in which they had received so that's that's just what he calls it he says the final solution to the indian problem it's very very very clear what what like that that's just the language he uses and this was like before hitler though like this was this was 1913 well i mean hitler was paying attention to these guys yeah like this this is just like this is the mindset of all of these same people this is all of all of the same thing um thing. Another quote from this dude is, I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think of it as a matter of fact that the country

ought to continually protect a class of people who are able to stand alone. That's my whole point. Our objective is to continue until there's not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian department. That is the whole objective of this bill, the bill referring to the residential schools program. So that's how he talks about these things. There's other letters that he's sent that's telling his agents,

because he had agents stationed at Canadian reserves to not let Indians do dancing, because both that's doing their cultural practice, but also it'll distract them from learning how to do Western farming. They weren't allowed to go to fairs or exhibitions or anything that is reminiscent of any kind of cultural tradition that is not white and European. So he is a pretty bad dude.

He probably deserves his own thing, this specific guy. But you can kind of see these fascist ideas and rhetoric are not foreign to Canada, and it's been there since its infancy. Now, Canadian politics is very different in a lot of ways compared to American politics. Canada tries to kind of follow the European model, whereas America is very much like the rebel state that tries to play by its own rules. Kind of the first main difference is that Canada isn't a two-party system. It's more like a two-party plus system because, yeah, there still is the main liberals and the main conservatives, but there are other parties that actually

can get elected. It's not a strictly two-party system the same way the States is. That makes things more interesting. Another thing that's really interesting about cultural politics that's different from the States, besides Canada obviously has a parliament

and a prime minister, that's different, but Canada and Canadians view parliament and a prime minister. That's different. But Canada and Canadians view nationalism and patriotism very differently compared to United States citizens. Patriotism and in some ways nationalism have always been kind of more of a liberal progressive thing, in opposition to the states where it is not really seen as a liberal progressive thing. Like even under conservative leadership, Canada kind of prides itself as sort of like liberal utopia. And that's where a lot of the patriotism

and celebration of Canada comes from among its, you know, mostly liberal and more socially progressive citizens. They like celebrate Canada as like this great progressive nation. And that's where a lot of the patriotism comes from is like, oh, look, look how progressive we are. The nationalism part can be a bit more tricky because you first need to understand like the English and French divide within the country, which I barely understand that, to be honest. I was I was I was I was born in the prairies.

That was, you know, much more like the Protestant English settlement. I'm not from Quebec. But we'll be talking about Quebec a lot here because it is very important to how nationalism works in Canada. So the divide between the French and the English make elections really interesting because the English majority politicians usually need to court some of the French Canadian population

and people in Quebec in order to get enough parliamentary seats to have a majority government. Because Canada works on having a majority within the parliament. You can have a minority in the parliament, like the Liberals currently have. So even if someone doesn't win a plurality of votes, they can still be in control of the government in a minority or usually a majority capacity. We'll get into this kind of stuff later. But even though they need to get seats from Quebec to have, you know, a decent control of parliament, Quebec kind of likes to act like its own special country. They even have their own like federal political party, the Bloc Québécois. And so like that, that's a, that's a federal party that operates in forwarding the interests of Quebec.

Sometimes it functions as like a separatist party, but not really anymore. Um, so although the, the, the, the, the Bloc Québécois is a lot,

is, is, is a lot more secular and progressive than basically any, any other major party outside of the NDP. Um, but despite them being much more socially progressive, they're also one of the biggest nationalist parties in Canada. And the far-right parties in Canada

have always had their brand of ethno-nationalism, but that's been much less pronounced than the kind of keep non-French Canadians out of Quebec and keep Americans out of Canada type of nationalism that's common with like liberals and specifically, you know, progressives inside Quebec. I mean, I can't blame them for wanting to keep Americans out. No, yeah. That's just good sense. If I could keep Americans out of America, I would do it. Yeah, but so that kind of sentiment, you can see how that can like, you know, be used to foster some not good things, though. I would do it. towards other people. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Yeah, and so even though, you know,

nationalism can be a lot more progressive, that's not to say ethno-nationalism does not come up within these sects, which is going to bring us to, we're going to briefly talk about something from the 30s called the National Unity Party of Canada. The National Unity Party party that is a

weird thing to say um was a was originally called the canadian national socialist unity party um oh wait now that here isn't uh remind me national socialism that seems like a term with a little bit of baggage if i remember correctly yep it sort of does um so this was a party uh formed in 1934 by a little nazi shithead named adrian arcon um now that is if you cannot tell that it's me trying to say a french name so he is from quebec this is a lot of canadian nazi stuff originates inside que Quebec because it already has such nationalist tendencies. So, Arcand's introduction into

nationalism started around the turn of the century amid fears in Quebec that Chinese immigration would threaten the white French Canadian working class. This is still a big thing in Canada. Racism and nationalism against the Chinese is still a big thing.

We will talk about this at the very end of these episodes. That's still a thing the Conservative Party talks about a lot. So, yeah, his internationalism was because of fears of Chinese immigration in the early 1900s. So,

his anti-immigrant upbringing, plus the fact that he attended a Catholic school, there was no public schools in Quebec until the 1960s. All of the schools were either Catholic or Protestant. Now, this is also part of the cultural divide inside Canada, where usually the English speakers are Protestant, and they're usually further west, and the Catholics are usually French Canadians. There's a lot of that inside Quebec. West, and the Catholics are usually French Canadians. There's a lot of that inside Quebec. So he went to a Catholic school, which were at the time very anti-Jewish, because what was happening is the Jewish people in Quebec wanted to make their own Jewish schools, and the Catholics in charge didn't want that, because then that'd be less people were inside Catholic schools,

and they weren't learning Catholicism. So there's a lot of stuff going on here that is kind of contributing. So he was, you know, already anti-immigrant because of the Chinese and then he got exposed to anti-Semitism inside his Catholic schools and that, you know, pushed him onto this specific path. So in 1930, Arkan made a deal with the head of the Conservative

Party, R.B. Bennett, that in exchange for $15,000, which is like $250,000 in today's money, Arkan would craft a smear campaign trying to assist the conservatives in basically smearing the liberals to gain more conservative support inside the province of Quebec, which at the time was majority liberal leaning. So Arkan got to work and started prepping pseudo-fascist propaganda for the conservatives. And by the 1930 federal election, it absolutely worked. Bennett and the Conservatives won. They gained 24 parliamentary seats in Quebec, which is a massive success. Like before, they did not win any seats in Quebec. So gaining 24 seats over the course of just one election, massive win. just one election, massive win.

So after getting the conservatives elected, the conservative party dropped Archon because he was a little hashtag problematic. That's a shame. So after he got dropped by the conservatives, shortly later, Archon made contact with the growing National Socialist Party in Germany. And over the next few years, he started to gain more fascist contacts around

the world. He would exchange letters. People from, people like people, people from the German Nazis would come over and meet what, and come over to Canada and see what he was doing. He would travel around meeting other, other Nazis around the world. So this is kind of just like, just gaining a lot, a lot more contacts. So then in 1934, he formed his own fascist party, which is the Canadian National Socialist Unity Party. And within that year, so in the mid-1930s, it merged with other Canadian nationalist parties that were more based in the West. So, you know, in the prairies like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC. groups and started gaining traction getting thousands and thousands of members this actually became an actual thing you can find footage of his rallies and they're just terrifying just like you know just it's the same thing whenever you see like the nazis you know rallying in britain you know it it feels different than watching a nazi rally in germany because you

can feel a lot more you know if it's it's it's the same feeling but come but come home your own countrymen kind of do the same thing that you associate with old footage of dead people is uh exactly real fucked up yeah so he was gaining thousand numbers across canada um you know mostly in the provinces of quebec and alberta so the the two main provinces we're going to talk about are going to be quebec and alberta because that's where a lot of a lot of the far right stuff gets started out um so in 1938 so that's like four years after he started this uh the canadian national socialist unity party merged again this time with various nationalist groups and so-called swastika clubs um in that we're already inside like ontario and quebec

so on the eastern side of canada so now he united both the Quebec stuff, eastern Canada, and western Canada, and then he called that the National Unity Party. And Arcand appointed himself the Canadian Führer. Oh, gosh. Rad. Sweet. So I'm going to quote from a Time magazine piece from July of 1938. Arcand scheduled Canada's first national fascist convention for Kingston, Ontario. Time magazine piece from July of 1938.

Arkan scheduled Canada's first national fascist convention for Kingston, Ontario. The mayor and city council did not want a fascist convention held in their city and called the police to prevent it. Defiantly, Leader Arkan slipped 45 of his leaders into a room near police headquarters. It's this old-timey language. Held forth unmolested for five and a half hours. Upon emerging, Leader Archon wired thanks to the mayor for his courtesy extended and announced the formation

of the new National Unity Party. A flaming torch will be the new party's emblem. Canada for Canadians, its slogan. And the upraised arm of its salute for King, Country, and Christianity. Moving on to Ontario, Leader Arkan, supported by 85 of his blue shirts, he claims there were 80,000 members at the time, held a meeting in Mancy Hall that was attended by about 800

sympathizers. More impressive, however, there were three anti-fascist counter demonstrations held simultaneously. Two outdoor anti-fascist meetings drew 400 persons until broken up by police fearing a clash. But at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Canadian League of Peace and Democracy attracted 10,000. So this was the first big fascist rally in Canada in 1938. There was like, you know, 10,000 of these more liberal people rallying elsewhere and 400 like anti-fascists ready to, you know, 000 of these more liberal people rallying elsewhere and 400 like anti-fascists ready to you know beat up these nazis um but then the police beat them up because history doesn't change time's a flat circle we're still doing the same thing now do you know who won't rally 800

canadian nazis called the blue shirts to sell you products oh my god, who? Tell us. You can't promise that. Yeah. Yeah. Depending what... HelloFresh has recently been sending their... Why do you always pick HelloFresh? There are so many worse brands that have

accidentally advertised on our show. But we can't ignore the fact that they've been increasingly building their militant capacity for the last seven years. Anyway, here's some ads. We have too much to read. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. As part of my Cultura podcast network. Available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and we are back talking about the canadian blue shirts um the hello fresh hello shirts please continue blue aprons

thanks chris thanks chris for saving the bit yeah all right thank you um so next year after his first rally which was 1939 uh world war ii obviously started to ramp up and the canadian government arrested our con for plotting to overthrow the state, and his National Unity Party was banned from federal elections. Archon was released from prison after the war, but he continued his political aspirations. He ran for federal election

twice in Quebec, once in 1949 and once in 1953. Both times, he ran under his National Unity Party banner, despite it being banned from elections. I don't know how he did that. Laws are fake. Laws are fake, yeah.

Both times he placed second with over 5,500 votes, which is about like 30% of the vote. Actually, but the second time he ran just under a nationalist banner, and he got second as well, but he got like 40% of the vote so he did slightly better just running as a nationalist in Quebec not like the National Unity thing because that was more overtly Nazi but he kept holding

National Unity Party public rallies until the mid 60s his last rally I think attracted like 1000 supporters that's way too many I was hoping you were going to say like 3 and there was going to be really sad footage but that's way too many i was hoping you were gonna say like three and there was no really sad footage but that's no sad in a different way yeah yeah so he finally died in 1967 and with him also died the national unity party um also hooray i so i bring this one up because

it's one fucked up and interesting um and two's like, it's indicative of the weirdness that can come out of Quebec's nationalist political bent. We can see that now with a modern, you know, neo-fascist Canadian political party that's based out of Quebec, which we will talk about shortly. But even like the nationalist tendencies within Quebec's more mainstream progressive population. Like, I'm going to read some of the policy positions

of the Bloc Québécois party. That's like the Quebec sovereignty, you know, party that is still actually very popular in elections, specifically in Quebec. And just ahead of this, if you're a French speaker and you're frustrated by Garrison's pronunciations or my pronunciations of Québécois,

just note that your language isn't real. And it's fine. All right. And you're descended from the French. Yeah. And you're responsible for this Nazi. So, womp womp. Go to hell.

Unlike English speakers who have been responsible for zero atrocities. French has just mispronounced Spanish. That's my take. Okay? Anyway. You're just saying Spanish wrong. Here is the progressive, liberal, bloc québécois

policy positions. Quebec sovereignty, up into independence, but usually it's just them pushing the interests of Quebec. Environmentalism, abortion rights, pro-abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, legalization of assisted suicide,

opposition to Canadian participation in the Iraq War, abolition of the monarchy, forcing immigrants to speak French in Quebec. Less good. You lost me there. Blocking immigration to Quebec. You've also lost me there blocking immigration to quebec you've also lost me there the quebec secularism law which bans public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols primarily targeted at muslims and sikhs yeah you've kind of lost me yeah we're lost exemption quebec's exemption from the requirements of the multiculturalism act

yeah i mean i don't know the multicultural act but i'm gonna it's great it's it's good so yeah so you could kind of see how like they have you know all these like you know just pretty good stuff pretty good progressive things and then they get great until the racism then they get really anti-immigrant right so this is like this is kind of hard to explain to americans how like you can be very like pro-gay pro you know abolition of the monarchy but then also be like no but we don't want those brown people in quebec yeah so yeah anyway uh we're gonna move on from quebec specifically but don't worry we will be back because you're still a problem but there are there are other things to there are other things to discuss so after our cons fascist canadian movement there was a stint of Canadian skinheads

in the 70s, you know, around the same time as the UK and the US. In the 70s, there was an unsuccessful Nazi party called the Nationalist Party of Canada that spawned a skinhead gang called Heritage Front. Heritage Front disbanded around the mid-2000s because the Canadian feds

infiltrated it and kind of, you know, cut that down. So, critical support to the Canadian feds. But now we're going to move on to Unite the Right. Not the Unite the Right that you're thinking of, the Canadian Unite the Right movement from the 1990s, early 2000s. Yeah, but that one probably wasn't problematic, right? There is, it has no lasting problems. Yeah, that's good. Okay. So because of Canada's multi-party system, there's more opportunity for ideologically similar parties to split the vote of people leaning in a certain direction.

Throughout most of the later half of the 20th century, there were multiple conservative right-wing parties that were operating at the same time, which did split the right-of-center vote. This is in part what allowed Canada to rise as like a liberal haven, because for a while, the Conservatives just couldn't get elected because they were splitting the vote too many ways, leaving the main Liberal Party to win the vast majority of elections.

Obviously, this frustrated right-wing politicians and voters. Then in the 1990s, there were two main right-wing parties. There was the older Progressive Conservative Party. They're like a classically fiscal conservative party with slightly less socially conservative beliefs. So I would rather take them compared to the alternatives here. The other major party was a right-of-center party

called the Reform Party, which was much more of like a right-wing populist and extremely socially conservative party, more similar to like the Trump-era Republican Party. They're much more right-wing populist and extremely socially conservative party, more similar to like the Trump era Republican party. You know, they're much more right-wing populist, way more socially conservative, kind of what we traditionally think of as like, you know, like a racist Republican. This is their party called the Reform Party. So after loss after loss throughout the 90s and during the turn of the century, concerted efforts were being made between these two parties to unite into one.

In 1998, there was a Unite the Right conference held in Toronto, Ontario, trying to bring together politicians and delegates from these two main conservative parties. But they also brought in some much more extreme Christian fascist parties, which there was like four of at the time. There was a lot of Christian fascist parties around this time. So the conference garnered negative news coverage in part due to the inclusion of these far-right Christian extremist parties. And then after the conference, polls were conducted that suggested that many of the progressive conservative supporters would rather vote liberal than vote for the new kind of merged more extreme right-wing party so like a lot of these a lot of these like fiscal conservatives are like no i i'm not gonna vote for all of this weird racism

i just don't want there to be higher taxes so like i'm gonna i'm gonna rather vote for the liberals than vote for these fucking weirdos which i mean yeah like that's that that's the conservative i would rather have yeah absolutely um so the the conference didn't sit well with the with the progressive conservative party um it's politicians or or the political leaders so the merger plans were were cut off they're like nope we're not going to do this you guys are too weird and racist we're not doing this um then in 2002 no i think this is important that this was after 9-11 i think this is really the reason why this happened. One of the original Reform Party founders, the Reform Party is the more populist one,

so one of the original founders named Stephen Harper took control of the populist conservative party and worked to improve the optics of the more extreme sides of his party. I think it's very important that this happened after 9-11 and this is how the merger actually worked. So in 2003, merger talks started up again, and in August of that year, the two parties announced the merger had been completed, and there was a new, united Conservative Party. In the announcement, Harper is quoted as saying, Our swords will henceforth be pointed at the Liberals, not each other. And in December, Harper was voted in as the new party leader. The work did pay off.

In the 2006 Canadian federal election, the Conservatives gained a controlling minority government among the electorate, with the former co-founder of the extremist, you know, populist Reform Party, Stephen Harper, becoming the new Prime Minister of Canada. So this is how he got from Reform Party to being, you know, the Prime Minister throughout the 2000s. He was the Prime Minister of Canada for most of the time i lived there that that's who i think of when i think of the prime minister of canada is i think of stephen harper so harper remained as prime minister until the 2015 election that saw a noted blackface appreciator justin

trudeau elected under the liberal party so that's good what a good system we have that that man like just the sheer range of his blackface like there's no he has range you have to look say what you will about the man Robert be very careful to wear a lot of black no you under no circumstances gotta hand it to him you do not in fact have to hand it to him well you have to hand him uh the the little the towel that he uses to get the black face off of his face so he can go into his work running canada uh-huh yep cool great country so didn't we find out that like five of our governors all had blackface photos yes we did it was a big year for blackface

it really it's incredible because I can't picture like again I grew up very right wing and definitely said some uncomfortable things in my time I don't think there was ever a point in which I would have been like yeah this seems like a good idea right

what the fuck? Yeah, it's pretty messed up. What is the joke? It's pretty bad. Justin Trudeau. This is the liberal. Yeah, he is. Incredible.

He sure is. He is the one all of the wine moms thirst over. Yeah, he is. Incredible. He sure is. He is the one all of the wine moms thirst over. Yeah, that scans. Respect the wine moms, not. Yeah. Anyway, beyond making it easier to vote in right of center candidates, what the Canadian Unite the Right accomplished was pushing the conservative establishment much further to the right

than what the previously popular progressive conservatives had established, while maintaining the respectability and civility the progressive conservatives had cultivated. We are now going to skip ahead to 2017. In January of 2017, soon after US President Donald Trump put into place the travel ban from, you know, seven Muslim-majority countries, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a message via Twitter, to those fleeing persecution, terror, and war, Canadians will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength.

Hashtag welcome to Canada. Trudeau is like, if the US is going to be racist, we're going to let them in. For this next part, I'm'm gonna quote from the new york times um just hours after watching the television report suggesting canada would accept immigrants uh that were shunned by trump the 28 year old political science student packed his

glock handgun and rifle and trudged through the snow-covered streets of quebec to a nearby islamic cultural center as 53 men were finishing evening prayers, he unloaded 48 rounds. Six people were killed, several of them with shots to the head, and 19 others were injured. One was paralyzed for life. In the month before his rampage, the shooter trawled the internet 819 times for posts related to Mr. Trump, reading his Twitter feed daily, and homing in on the American president's travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. He kept a cache of guns underneath his bed at his parents' house, and among his friends was just his twin brother.

The shooter told investigators that he wished he had killed more people, and he wanted to protect his family from Islamic terrorists. Experts on radicalization say that in Quebec, the French-speaking province surrounded by an English-speaking majority, the anti-immigrant far-right offers fertile imperialist ground for psychologically unstable youths seeking a sense of identity and a scapegoat. The head of the Canadian-based Centre of Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence said that the Quebec mosque shooter was part of a growing number of educated middle-class white youths in Quebec drawn to far-right ideas, fueled by the election of Mr. Trump and fanned by fears of

immigration that threatens Quebec's identity. When the anti-radicalization center was started in 2015, they dealt with 16 cases of youths in the province that were getting radicalized by the far-right. Last year, which was like 2016, this center had 154 such cases. So this is kind of the arc of things. Really, Trump's election did spur a lot of this growing, like, oh, these political beliefs are acceptable now. This is something that is like, we are allowed to do this. And that did echo in Canada and across a lot of the a lot of a lot of other countries um what one of one of the victims of the of the quebec uh massacre um his his father said that he'd come to canada from algeria in the 1990s to escape terrorism um and he said that like quebec

did not create the monster the shooter but the Islamophobia that is inherent inside Quebec gave him like the motive so this is really does relate to canate to like the the political situation of Canada and it's very it's it's not a coincidence that the majority of these types of attacks are inside either Quebec Toronto or um you know if you're if you're a white if you're if you're in Alberta you're a white, if you're, if you're in Alberta, it's, it's more tied to like other, other like conservative values, but like a lot of it is around Quebec for a lot of these like shootings and all these acts of terrorism. Um, there was like the, uh, there was the, uh, incel guy who ran over tons of people in,

in Toronto with his car. Um, same, same kind of thing of like, of getting more, more used to these kind of having having these far-right ideas be more allowed, and then thinking of them as more of a normalized thing. the Quebec mosque shooting kind of woke up a lot of people in Canada to be like, oh, we're

not immune to this. This is like an actual thing that we have to deal with too. And the next few months after Trudeau's January announcement, border crossings did see an increase, and Canada formally accepted more immigrants and refugees. And there was like,

the term in Canada is like an irregular spike of border crossings. The fact, the way Canadian media reported this, I think, is very irresponsible. The way they tried to frame this is like, after this announcement, we're getting so many irregular crossings that only fueled this type of anti-immigrant sentiment. It was not really great. A lot of the old articles I pulled up for this

had really disgusting framing, especially viewing it now. So in March, the Canadian parliament passed a motion that condemns Islamophobia and requested the government recognize the need to quell the public climate of fear and hate specifically around Muslims and immigrants. The motion was non-binding, so it doesn't mean anything. It's just the government saying something nice. But it still sparked tons of outrage.

It called on the government to condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and discrimination. The margin was passed by a margin of 200 over 90. A lot of the conservatives in Parliament didn't like this, but it garnered so much online backlash.

There were petitions and nationwide protests condemning this bill as an attack on free speech. And the person who introduced the bill, an MP named Aikra Khalid, received death threats through their email. They had their private information leaked. And it turned into this very, very big kind of... One of the first things where it had these national protests in Canada,

similar to how we had the free speech thing around 2017, this was the Canadian version of that and how this kind of started. Then in December, Trudeau signed into the United Nations Global Migration Pact, which is another non-binding incentive designed to provide understanding among nations about how to deal with the global immigration crisis. Again, all these things are just people talking. But it made people very, very mad. Because if you're talking about it, that means it actually is real, and it's actually going to affect you, versus just ignoring that these problems exist.

So really, after Trump's election, after the Quebec mosque shooting, then we have all these bills. This kind of ignited an in-person rallying possibility, an in-person protest that Canada hadn't really seen before for this type of anti-immigration sentiments. And we'll talk more about these protests after we have a little bit of an ad break. You know who doesn't get protested, except for that one time when they illegally overthrew the government of Ecuador?

That's right, Garrison our sponsors only one time did they cause mass protests as a result of overthrowing a sovereign government that's pretty good garrison that's pretty good are Garrison. That's pretty good. Are you trying to do like a Banana Republic thing? What are you doing? I'm just saying, most podcasts, three to four governments overthrown by their sponsors. All right. It could happen here. Just the one, baby.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your podcast. Hello, welcome to Why Canada Isn't a Liberal Utopia, and actually has a lot of the same systemic problems that every other Western country does,

and it's not immune to fascist infiltration and fascist co-option. Sophie, make a note of that. So, we've talked a lot about Quebec and stuff, which is great, because yeah yeah it is a problem but this exists in the western provinces as well saskatchewan alberta bc have a lot of these growing kind of things but they're not french canadians doing this they're more like you know what we in america would you know recognize as as like rural conservatives um so around all of this you, increased discussion around immigration in 2017, around the same time, people in Western Canada were facing a bit of an economic recession.

They had, you know, significant job loss around this time. And projects that traditionally brought work to the area, like pipelines, were, you know, there was discussion of them getting stalled, and people, you know, moving more towards renewable energy. This kind of increased a lot of the political tensions between the Eastern, you know, liberal towards renewable energy this kind of increased a lot of the political tensions between the eastern you know liberal majority canada and the western more rural canada um quoting an article from the cbc uh trudeau just keeps giving away all of our money to immigrants said samantha oh boy that is a that is a french name i'm not even gonna attempt that one you will call her frenchie. Samantha Frenchie. Anyway, this mother of five, she

attended a January 5th rally with Webster, her husband, and two of their children. It was her first protest for any cause. We're stuck paying for all this money that he wants to give away to everybody but Canadians. My kids are growing up, and my grandkids, and all of their kids are going to be poor and stuck in a hole

that they're never going to get out of this is this is you know very common type of thing like oh we're getting taxed and taking all of our money and giving away to immigrants this happened after this after the syrian refugee crisis when canada started accepting a lot of syrian immigrants that's that's around the time that i left canada um but i totally remember people having very similar sentiments of like, why are we paying for all of these refugees? And that's a thing that happens in the States too. So the economic tensions developing in Western Canada combined with the increase in anti-immigration sentiments

among conservatives were in part spurred by the Trump presidency led to the Canadian Yellow Vest movement. This is totally separate from the French protest movement. The Canadian version just stole like the working class branding and just used it for their proto fascist crusade. So the Canadian Yellow Vests were a group of connected protest movements over the course of 2018 and 2019 that had a lot of like in-person rallies, but also a lot of connected protest movements over the course of 2018 and 2019 that had a lot of like in-person rallies but also a lot of online mobilization it's kind of since died out uh but it was a major force in pushing right-wing extremism in canada and having it be accessible

to like regular people right it's it's not it's not like the proud boys at all where it's like you know specific you know bad people doing this thing. It was, like, appealing to, like, you know, the oil workers, appealing to, like, the moms. It was primarily used Facebook as a means of passing off this type of information and making it seem, you know, acceptable. The Canadian Yellow Vest, quoting an article from Vice, Canadian Yellow Vests, which had over 100,000 members on their Facebook as of May 2019, carries the greatest potential for radicalization leading to violence in Canada right now, according to the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. The group's description says it was created to protest

the carbon tax and build that pipeline and stand against the treason of our country's politicians who have the audacity to sell our country's sovereignty over to the globalist UN and their tyrannical policies. But concerns over Canadians' oil sector appear to be a very little factor in the discussion that goes on inside these groups. Instead, members are obsessing over with the defending, you know, Western civilization from Islam, bashing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and spreading whatever far-right conspiracy theory is trending at the time. And I cannot overstate the amount that these people hate Trudeau. But it's not for reasons because he wore blackface. They find the most bizarre ways to hate this man.

A lot of these people think that Justin Trudeau is the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro. This is a very... This is... This is a very popular conspiracy theory in Canada. The way that Trudeau is treated by conservatives is baffling

because I hate Justin Trudeau, but I think I hate him for reasonable reasons. He made a bunch of promises around you know environment stuff that he didn't follow through on he talks about the game he doesn't do anything he does a lot of blackface like a shocking amount

there's a lot of reasons to hate Justin Trudeau but not because he's the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro leading us to like trying to sneak Canada into the socialist UN like that's not that's not what he's doing he was the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro, leading us to like, trying to sneak Canada into the socialist UN. Like, that's not what he's doing. Yeah, among other things, he was the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro.

There's a couple of those in the United States. One of his daughters is now like a right-wing radio personality in Florida. Oh, God, that makes so much sense. He had a lot of, you know, he's Castro. He did a lot of fucking. Like, who would care? It's not your fault who your dad is.'s just like this is it's it's like it's like a weaker like funnier version of birtherism yeah yeah like it is it makes sense it is like the canadian version of that like

it's very weird he's like justin trudeau is very cringy he lies about all of his promises um he talks about game he does a lot ofingy he lies about all of his promises um he talks about game he does a lot of virtue signaling he does a lot of blackface those are all really good reasons to hate really a lot of blackface um yeah a lot of blackface but the the way the ways that they come up with trying to make him seem like a bad dude are just baffling um very very bizarre so um in an interview with somebody from the yellow Vests exposed anti-fascist research team, which was a very good Twitter account around 2019. It's inactive now, but this was a very good account that did really solid research into the Yellow Vests movement. In an interview, they were asked what type of impact they think the Yellow Vests could have in Canada.

And this was their response. The image of the threat is no longer the skinhead, blood and honor type. We're dealing with average people who don't understand the impact of the rhetoric. They're calling for the mass death of an entire religion, or they're celebrating the violence against that religion, or they're celebrating violence against government officials. They are just one step away from outright fascism, but they can't see that, and they refuse to see that.

away from outright fascism, but they can't see that, and they refuse to see that, which I think is a very good summary of how the Yellow Vests were a popular movement, specifically on Facebook. Another part of it was the idea of Western separatism. The people in Western Canada feel ignored, they feel put upon, they feel oppressed, not just for feeling, not, not just for being Westerners, but they honestly feel oppressed because they're white. They, they feel like, oh, we're focusing on, you know, only going to give money to the brown people. That's the kind of thing that they, they feel like in, in the West. Um, they're like, well, you know, my right to free speech was taken away because of the, because of the non-binding bill and refugees can just walk across the border And they make more money than I do. So they have all these ideas that are not actually based in reality,

but they can believe them. And they find these news sources that are just echo chambers that reinforce this belief to the point where they become, radicalize themselves. It's a very, very common thing, especially around 2019. I was tracking a lot of these Facebook groups around 2019 as well just in my spare time um because it's just interesting to watch them interact um i'm gonna give like you know like a brief recap of like a typical yellow vest protest around like edmonton um based a bit off of a few cBC articles. So, you know, protesters would gather around

in front of, like, the legislative building, holding signs, wearing bright yellow vests, and they would do this, like, basically every weekend for, you know, months and months and months on end. Some protesters may stand at a podium shouting conspiracy theories about how powerful the Jewish families controlling the world are,

as one dude did at the Alberta legislature on January 5th, 2019. Some may come sporting red Make Alberta Great Again hats. This was very, very popular. Very popular. Others may prowl the sidelines dressed like they belong to a biker gang. Instead of Hell's Angels patches, they have patches that say Wolves of Odin and Canadian Infidels. Oh, great.

I'm going to give you one guess what type of ideology the Wolves of Odin have. Yeah. Clearly they're communists. Yeah, no, they're Nazis. But most of the protesters' voices are not from the fringes. Most of them just have jobs in high-rises, or they drive for Uber, or they're teachers, or pipe fitters, or real estate agents.

And although their message is muddled by all of these other much more overtly extremist kind of talking points, they all have one thing in common, that they feel like they're getting ignored and being left behind by the liberals in the East. This is echoed by one of the persons that got interviewed at these rallies was named Lynn Smith, who was a former oil and gas worker who now works in the school system. They were at a Yellow Vest rally in January of 2019. That was like the fourth protest she attended.

She said, they're just giving away our country. We have no rights anymore. They're taking them away. No more Lord's Prayer. But they're putting prayer rooms in schools for Muslims. Merry Christmas. You're not allowed to say that anymore. It's supposed to be happy holidays.

They're changing our country, and we've got to stand up and say something about it because this is our country. I was born here. My parents were born here it's wrong so you know i'm sure people in the states are familiar with this type of rhetoric um but just the in the increased nature of it in canada was surprising to a lot of canadians and like surprising to a lot of like liberal canadians because they're like but you're you're in canada why are you doing the states thing why are you doing the thing that they do in the states why are you doing it here um but you're in Canada. Why are you doing the States thing? Why are you doing the thing that they do in the States?

Why are you doing it here? But, you know, the same reasoning, you know, people do it in the States is because they feel ignored by politicians. You know, that's why this happens in Saskatchewan and Alberta and BC way more than it happens in, like, Ontario, right? It's because, you know, the more farther away you are from, you know, the big cities, the less your interests are cared for by a lot of politicians. So the ones that speak to you are these

extremists who are trying to prey on these actual financial insecurities. Some of the protesters say that they're not opposed to immigration, but most of the focus of the Edmonton Yellow Vest rallies has been about who can come into the country and how they're allowed to get here. One guy

named Brett Webster, the father of five who works in the construction industry and how they're allowed to get here. One guy named Brett Webster, the father of five who works in the construction industry, says, they're overwhelming our resources. We can't properly vet these people and make sure it's safe for them to come in and make sure that they're skilled and assimilate into our country and know our ways and our values. So most of the extremist stuff

in Canada outside of Quebec does come specifically from Alberta. The big cities in Alberta are Calgary and Edmonton. This happens also in a lot of the more rural areas that, you know, mostly used to run on, like, oil drilling. After losing an election to the more social democratic NDP party in 2015, the two provincial conservative parties in Alberta had their own little mini Unite the Right and merged together in 2017, leading to their success at the polls in 2019.

So then the conservatives have, since then, done a whole bunch of stuff in Alberta, like cutting down their health care. Actually, a lot of the conservative voters don't like, but they voted for, because that was the platform. You just were being scared of brown people, so you voted for the conservatives. But now your health care is cut so that's that's how politics works um so that's kind of a brief

summary of the yellow vest movement and how it how it gained a lot of popularity um they they would do rallies around like polling centers they would they would they would they would attack people they would have you know violent rallies where a lot of like older older men who were in the yellow vest movement would be pretty violent towards anyone in their area during a protest. But around COVID, the yellow vests kind of sputtered out. A lot of the people in these Facebook groups got moved into other conspiracy theory groups,

and the yellow vest movement kind of lost its train. So that's where we're kind of going to end for today is with the kind of the yellow vests kind of fizzling out. And in the next part, we'll talk about what's happening from like 2019 and the election that year to like kind of the present fascist rumblings inside different sectors of Canadian politics. So yeah, that's my very brief write-up

of right-wing populism and extremism in Canada pre-2019. Great. Yep, it's fun. It's not fun. It's upsetting. And it's a lot of the same problems we have here of politicians really ignoring people in certain parts of the country, which provide very fertile recruiting ground for a lot of extremists.

I think it's going to all end well. That is our official policy, that everything is going to turn out great. Yeah, seems fine. I mean, there is actual ways of preventing this from happening, right? It's not a hopeless thing. We can actually do it if we want to. Just people with power to do it don't like doing it.

Cool and good. That is the message of the pod, Sophie. Cool and good. So, yep, that's Canadian fascism, part one. Cool. I would recommend if people want to learn more about the canadian uh uh yellow vests check out the yellow vest exposed twitter account uh there's also like there's also articles about them they were a very a very good anti-fascist

research team um yeah i would just recommend if you want to learn more about this specific movement all of their work on it has been great. So yeah, shout out to Yellow Vests Exposed. That's the pod. Pod cast! Go get your Tim Hortons and your, I don't know, maple syrup

and go find a moose. Find a Canadian and just start screaming in their face. Follow us at CoolZoneMedia or HappenHerePod on the twits and the inst. Just scream at them. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye. Ay.

Ay. Goodbye, ay. Ay. Ay. It Could Happen Here is a production of CoolZone Media. For more podcasts from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com.

Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.