There has been reportage in numerous respectable news outlets about the “active” threat of “White Nationalism” within the Canadian Armed Forces. Is this an issue? Is it a spectre, a ghost?
Global News, in November of 2022, wrote on a report from The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. According to the same article, all three branches or elements of the Canadian Armed Forces found this to be a concern. Thus, this may be a problem across the Canadian Armed Forces, from the senior leadership, no less. Who would know better based on experience and time in service than the senior leadership?
“Organizations with access to training and weapons have long been a target for domestic extremists. In 2018, then Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance said ‘clearly’ right-wing extremism is ‘here‘ in the Canadian Armed Forces,” Alex Boutilier said.
He went on to report that White Nationalists, and supremacists may use the Canadian Armed Forces as grounds upon which to enact threat-related actions elsewhere, as stated in The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency report.
In January of 2021, Fred Youngs asserted, “White nationalism is alive and well, including in the Canadian military.” Youngs reflected on the attack on the Capitol Building in the United States at the time. The American military wanted to uproot the individuals involved in those movements from the active membership of the American military.
He noted that the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, active in the Capitol Building attack, were, in fact, founded in Canada and then exported to the United States. At the time, the federal minister for public safety, Bill Blair, mentioned how the Government of Canada was considering whether or not to consider the Proud Boys a terrorist organization.
Youngs found these individuals, organizations, and acts in the United States “worrisome,” but the ones “who operate in the shadows” more so, e.g., those in the Canadian Armed Forces, as “an issue.” Youngs noted the individuals with these ideologies were in the Canadian Armed Forces prior to the era of former President Trump.
So we cannot, as Canadians are prone to doing, place the individual and collective responsibility vicariously on the pork of American legal and social culture. Saying, “This happened over in the States. Therefore, this inspired the actions and culture of White Nationalism and supremacism in Canada. They emboldened them.” As if the “they,” the Americans, and the “them,” separate subsect of Canadian culture, are in some manner distinct enough to sacrifice their image on the altar and leave ourselves – ahem – Scott-free, blameless.
At least 53 members, Youngs states, based on Global News obtaining an internal study of the Canadian Armed Forces, “had been involved or associated with hate groups,” some may not identify as such, as we live in the era of the rise of self-identity as paramount.
By analogy, there are the cases in the United States of the organizer of the Charlottesville far-right rally, Ryan Kessler. He argues that he is not a White nationalist but a civil rights organizer for white people. Do we accept this as we do others, or do we reject this based on external identifiers of acts and thoughts? Self-identification is not the sole criterion for identity.
The impacts of the identification of these members by the institution of the Canadian Armed Forces will have their own effects. However, there are social deterrents to entrance into hate groups, as with disownment from family or distancing by others, interpersonally – as happened with Peter Tefft. However, that is one person; this does not necessarily mean pervasive social or institutional effects. As we see with the public opinion about the sexual assault and harassment scandal in the Canadian Armed Forces, a large hunk (about 40%, at least) of the Canadian public is skeptical about action on something as serious as sexual harassment and assault.
The report claimed the number was too small to be a threat. However, that was reported numbers. As with sexual assaults and harassment, mechanisms are a question. Were they as poorly in place for identification as they were in the cases of sexual harassment and assault within the Canadian Armed Forces in the past?
For instance, what we see is that only one person with a proper hate ideology is sufficient to murder a few innocent people; Nathaniel Veltman is one such individual who ran over and murdered four members of a Muslim family. Now, imagine this person not with a vehicle made into a weapon but with military training and a piece of equipment designed for maiming and killing human beings, e.g., a C7A2 5.56-mm Automatic Rifle, something all Canadian Armed Forces members will have training in, in Basic Military Qualification and Basic Officer Military Qualification courses in Saint-Jean Garrison in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.
Hate not only kills humans; it kills that which is humane – human – in the person who hates. CBC reporter Ryan Thorpe, after going undercover, stated, “It only takes one lone actor motivated by a hateful worldview to do significant violence.”
Youngs noted how a letter to Defence Minister Harjit Sajan by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network claimed the report seemed to understate and dismiss the issue of white supremacists in the military. Both have a point. It depends on the sensitivity of one’s dial to this form of ethnic supremacism as an issue when filtered or refracted through the Canadian Armed Forces rather than other institutions.
Youngs noted other groups such as The Base, a neo-nazi group, and the Soldiers of Odin, a far-right group, had associations with members in the Canadian Armed Forces. One former reservist, Patrik Matthews, was trained in explosives and faced, at the time, weapons charges in Delaware and Maryland. He is associated with The Base.
Whether the Proud Boys, The Base, or the Soldiers of Odin, we are left with members, at least 53, with ties to such groups in the Canadian Armed Forces. Those are only identified and known numbers in an overall understaffed base in the Regular Forces and the Reserve Forces.
Youngs described a positive move by the Canadian Armed Forces at the time, where they moved to have a formal definition of hateful conduct. This would make an association with hate groups a separate style of failure to meet professional expectations within the Canadian Armed Forces.
Youngs opined, “Coming up with a definition of what constitutes hateful conduct is a step in the right direction. However, it is also only that — a step. Organizations that track hate groups in Canada still worry that the armed forces want to hide cases of white nationalism and do not take the rise of right-wing extremism as seriously as they should. To underline their concern, they point to armed forces members with links to right-wing extremist groups who have been allowed to stay in the military.”
Lt.-Gen Wayne Eyre, Youngs reported, stated in the previous fall from the time of publication, “If you have those types of beliefs — get out. We do not want you.”
Hate ideologies can infect any institution. However, few institutions have the degree of training in how to harm and kill other human beings with proficiency than the military. Thus, the Americans have subcommittees devoted to this. In North America, this particular brand of brazen ethnic supremacism and nationalism is not an aberration.
Al Donato in CBC News argued, “White supremacists, anti-immigrant organizers, and Holocaust deniers in Canada have been actively organizing here for decades.”
When referencing hate crime researcher Dr. Barbara Perry, Donato notes how the views of hate groups in the last two decades have not changed much. Perry stated that there is a national dismissal or denial of the reality of hate-based violence within Canadian society.
Perry said, “It’s embedded in our psyche, I think, that we are the best example of the success of multiculturalism. There’s still failure or unwillingness to acknowledge our flaws, the chinks in our armour.”
Looking at hate groups of an ethnic supremacist flavour oriented around white identity between 2013 and 2015, Ryan Scrivens and Perry concluded there are at least “100 white supremacist groups across Canada.” with an increase of ¼ to ⅕ more. In addition, these groups form coalitions.
Does this mean more than those identified are in the Canadian Armed Forces, as the canadian Armed Forces – according to them – is a cross-sect of Canadian culture at large? It seems reasonable to assume as such, and thus probable, especially when the Canadian Armed Forces claims their resources and personnel to identify hate group associations amongst members is highly limited.
Donato referenced a history of hate groups in Canada with the 1910s to 1930s and anti-black hate groups, the 1980s-1990s rise in Holocaust denialism, anti-Muslim violence, race-based xenophobia, and far-right protest movements and demonstrations where hate groups can be found agglomerating. There are counterprotests by opposition parties in Canada.
So, in that article, Donato makes some good points about the development of a consciousness of the reality in Canada of the quiet nature of hate groups in Canadian historical memory. It’s there. It is real. They persist, whether remembered or realized – or not. Some media have acknowledged that the Canadian Armed Forces are ill-equipped to deal with this issue. They work through the Canadian Armed Forces and are looking to recruit actively, as investigated by the Fifth Estate.
These are not old news items. These are in the last few years. They may feel like an eternity in the era of the Internet and near-instantaneous access to the world’s communications and information networks. Is it mainly the Regular Force or the Reserve Force, or full-time force or part-time force, respectively? Is it Officers or Non-Commissioned Members? Is it the seniors of each or the juniors? If it is left to time, then those juniors become seniors, meaning the issue becomes more severe if considered a concern (not everyone agrees).
Members can appear on alleged white nationalist podcasts. There can be stores selling questionable items. Is it a cultural issue, a Canadian Armed Forces issue, or somewhere in the middle, an inter-relationship between the two, as their existence is established from multiple channels of analysis? One is a sociopolitical threat. The other is a national security threat.
Vice produced some commentary through Mack Lamoureux and Ben Makuch. They confirmed the American neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division is in the ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces. So, in the reports so far, Proud Boys, The Base, Soldiers of Odin, and Atomwaffen Division have had their members in the Canadian Armed Forces. The Southern Poverty Law Centre identifies the Atomwaffen Division as a domestic terror group. (If happening in Canada, then modestly international in that sense, as domestic relative to its source in America.)
Neo-Nazis want military training. This makes them different from a run-of-the-mill hate group isolated to online hate fora or harassment of ordinary citizens. The Canadian Armed Forces is a target for these hate groups, likely because of the skills, knowledge, and access in the Canadian Armed Forces. “White Supremacy, Hate Groups, and Racism in The Canadian Armed Forces” was the Canadian Armed Forces 2018 report. Other identified groups Canadian Armed Forces members had associations with were Hammerskins Nation (Neo-Nazi), La Meute (Quebecois nationalists), and III% (paramilitary militia). Again, those are only the identified groups with associations with Canadian Armed Forces members.
The writers for Vice argued the Canadian Armed Forces did not see this as a broader problem at the time. Based on the statement by Eyre above, this may not necessarily be true. Fewer than 0.1%, at the time, members of the Canadian Armed Forces were part of these hate groups.
The report stated, “Many white supremacist groups tend to be paramilitary in nature, conducting weapons and other training exercises. Drawing on their training and deployment experience, current and former military members find that their skills are valued by these groups. Further, they provide structure to these organizations, therefore affording them the ability to gain positions of leadership.”
Whether members of Proud Boys, The Base, Soldiers of Odin, Atomwaffen Division, Hammerskins Nation, la Meute, or III%, the stance of the Canadian Armed Forces has been against hate groups and racist organizations to their credit. In turn, these organizations and their members must function in a covert capacity. They can evade detection in this manner, and due to the understaffing of the Canadian Armed Forces; they cannot tackle this issue across all elements of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The issues stem not only from internal Canadian culture, but also from the Canadian Armed Forces. It can be exported, which becomes a real national threat to the international image of Canada based on this moral blight exposed and expanded, then exported to other countries – particularly acute in war times with Canadian Armed Forces training far-right groups in Ukraine.
Hate movements unite as much as solidarity movements in some ways, while the social rewards for the former typically act as buffers against mass movements. Those seem more significant than ignorant persons who receive affected praise and a fine for rejecting proper health mandates for the health of the public and oneself with vaccines, masks, and social distancing.
What should the Canadian Armed Forces not do in these cases? One of the easiest ways to avoid engaging in other criminal actions is not to run counterintelligence probes without warrants, which seems entirely unethical and against the proclaimed standards of conduct and professional expectations. The Canadian Armed Forces did this. Individuals who violate the life and dignity of others or adhere to abhorrent ideologies are morally wrong.
Subsequently, those who commit crimes or acts without reasonable legal grounds institutionally in response are also ethically incorrect. Why does a crime to counter another set of crimes become just, whether by individuals, organizations, federal government defence institutions, or a government in general? Should we pay people who engage in criminal acts while portraying themselves as defending the country? The periodic pay increase is nice if you follow the rules and protect the rights of the public. Maybe those who violated the rights of taxpayers – fellow soldiers – by acting without reasonable legal grounds should have the taxpayer money decreased – talking about a penalty to their salary. If you want to serve, serve; if you want to violate those who foot your salary or you as their bill while violating their rights, then don’t expect a proverbial bonus or tip – seems fair to me.
There is a call by Eyre to call out racism in the ranks. At the same time, the efficacy of calling out racist and hate group activities in person will be buffered or muffled, as most of the groups tend to congregate online. So, any actions, whether in person or on a military base, can be easily avoided. Someone can use phone data for the Internet on a laptop as a hotspot rather than the WiFi or be off-base while congregating and organizing.
It was reported even in specialized types of work, such as the rangers. The 4th Canadian Ranger Brigade was found to have members vulnerable to extremism. Again, not simply full-time or Regular Force members; we see these styles of hate ideologies, as noted, in reservists, too.
Perry, speaking to CBC News, made some astute commentaries about culture, structure, and institutional buildup. “Something is happening… I mean, it comes back to the culture. Right? What is the culture that has been built up? We’ve heard a lot of that around sexual assault. I think we need to have more of those conversations around, you know, race and ethnicity, and religion, all of those other pieces.”
To the credit of the Canadian Armed Forces, they are making efforts and public statements. It is part of a culture change, which might amount to culture shock. Do not simply believe me; we can check the references available to us.
“”I’m Not Your Typical White Soldier”: Interrogating Whiteness and Power in the Canadian Armed Forces” stated:
Of all serving members in the CAF, 89.2% are white Canadian. According to a 2019 report entitled Improving Diversity and Inclusion in the Canadian Armed Forces, 8.1% of currently serving members identify as a “visible minority,” and 2.7% identify as Aboriginal. Based on these quantitative statistics, a clear majority of the CAF identify as white Canadian. My conversations with racialized soldiers involved describing the CAF as somewhat welcoming. Others struggled to find their place. Many soldiers articulated that they were warned of racism and that it was “so white” or a “not a very diverse place” but that service “might get better over time.” The following underscores how Chester, a Chinese-Canadian in the Reserve Force, understood the CAF to be a “white space.”
The Canadian Armed Forces do, to their public affairs portrayals, represent a cross-sect of Canadian Society, which is a good thing if this is the goal. However, it is an inter-sect of Canada in the 1980s, when the country was vastly white and Christian. Whites in Canadian society are rapidly being displaced through birth rates and immigration.
Christianity as a cultural item is being disposed of more and more. So, any demographic in the Canadian Armed Forces in which the Non-Commissioned Members and the Officers are vastly white and mostly Christian is not representative of 2024 Canadian society and is more representative of 1980s, ethnically, and 2000s, religion-wise, Canadian society.
Ergo, they are making false claims in the advertising about the Canadian Armed Forces as representative of Canadian society, not to their credit; while, at the same time, they are making efforts to represent Canadian culture in 2024, to their credit. It is, as with many subject matter on the Canadian Armed Forces, an admixture of the good and the bad, depending on framing.
Some political commentators disagree with these representations of the Canadian Armed Forces, e.g., Cosmin Dzsurdzsaof True North. He, in reaction to the above and other publications, writes, “Nearly every article in the latest issue of the Canadian Military Journal was devoted to critical race theory and disparaging ‘whiteness’ in the military.”
Continuing, “The recurring theme throughout the articles is the assertion that the military perpetuates various -isms and -archies, from patriarchy to ableism, all rooted in white supremacy. A search of the word ‘white’ found that it appears 190 times, painting a picture of a military institution deeply embedded in a colonial legacy that allegedly marginalizes racial minorities.”
Others, such as Brett Forester of APTN, take a view that is not necessarily fully opposing but different. “The military’s ties to racist hate groups and white supremacy are also well-known, particularly following the violent abuses of the 1993 Somalia Affair, in which racist neo-Nazi Canadian soldiers tortured and murdered Somali teenager Shidane Arone during a UN-backed humanitarian deployment,” Forester wrote.
As with the number of 53 in the ranks known so far, certainly, as with reports on sexual assault and harassment, we can claim more than this number exists to an unknown extent. To the 53, it would be wrong to stipulate the 53 as all murderous extremists who would act out violently in the name of their social and ethnic dogma or religion.
Similarly, or inversely rather, it would be incorrect to state none, as these individuals have professional training in arms, in combat, in weaponry, etc. Hate ideologies lead to violence in sufficient numbers and fervency. Thus, regardless, we must deal with this in haste and thoroughness.
The difference between Forester and Dzsurdzsa is the difference between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. All would denounce racism and hate. The argument would occur over the degree of severity requisite for a response and the style of response seen in culture change within the Canadian Armed Forces. Dzsurdzsa focuses on the responses around “-isms and -archies.” Forester focuses on history. Both make sense in a particular frame, but they change the frame to fit the picture one wants of the issue.
These have real impacts across the sociopolitical spectrum and in broader Canadian culture. Because, as we see on other serious issues of sexual harassment and assault within the Canadian Armed Forces, Canadian citizens are skeptical in a significant minority about the solubility of that issue within the Canadian Armed Forces. One might imagine much the same for this issue, too. If there is dismissal, maybe there won’t be robust enough solutions implemented on it.
Academics are working on this issue. They want to find out the reasons – or root correlations – to hate groups and extremist groups finding nexuses of cultural influence and inflection in the Canadian Armed Forces over other areas. Professor Andy Knight at the University of Alberta was awarded a Department of National Defense grant to research the degree of white supremacy in the Canadian Armed Forces.
He researches “radicalization, antisemitism, xenophobia and anti-Black sentiments” in the Canadian Armed Forces. Soldiers in the “Freedom Convoy” piqued the interest of Knight.
Knight in 2023, said, “When you have individuals who are directly in opposition to the Canadian government, obviously it is of concern and that’s one of the reasons I thought it would be useful to take a deeper dive into why this is the case.” Individuals were linked in the Freedom Convoy to Christian Nationalism. It would be, certainly, unfair to claim the Freedom Convoy is somehow rampant with the ideology, but the Freedom Convoy did attract some of these people.
That’s an astute point. Individuals who engage in or are a part of extremist groups in a multicultural and diverse country positing an ethnic supremacist vision are fundamentally opposed to the values and principles undergirding much of national identity in Canadian society in the 21st century.
Knight expected “some pushback. It’s the kind of subject matter that hits a raw nerve, particularly in the military, right? No one wants to believe that the military has a culture and attracts that type of individual.”
Geoff McMaster, in the University of Alberta’s Folio, wrote, “[The Canadian Armed Forces] received 143 complaints in 2020 about hateful conduct and xeno-racist attitudes within their ranks and that even the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency had a limited ability to identify white supremacists in the forces” – echoing other reportage.
These are cultural issues, mind you. We are failing men and women in uniform in terms of financing them or meeting international commitments. Our 2% commitment to NATO will not be reached in any foreseeable timeline in a decade or longer, even in spite of billions in promised funding. However, these monies pay for new equipment, updates to systems, etc.
They do not, however, necessarily deal with the cultural issues listed above, except insofar as the identification of radical hate groups within the Canadian Armed Forces is limited due to the inability to devote personnel and resources to it. That’s where recruitment, retention, and financing come into play.
So, the larger issue of extremist ideologies creeping into the Canadian Armed Forces, as former chief of defence staff, Gen. Jonathan Vance, stated, “It is entirely possible that we are not sufficiently aware of the indicators or the insidious, corrosive effect of having extremism in our ranks. I think we’re academically aware, like technically aware. But from a practical basis, how do you know for sure?” Also, it is clear that they get through and are in the ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Yet, well before Vance and Eyre, there was “a public inquiry recommended assistance for Canadian military leaders in detecting ‘signs of racism and involvement with hate groups.'” What happened?
When public groups speak in paranoid rhetoric about the “black pill,” “great replacement,” “red pill,“ or “white genocide,” they’re speaking in internal terms. How does this rhetoric impact other Canadians in the Canadian Armed Forces and outside in civilian life? It projects a terrible moral painting to the world, something transcendentally awful. I trust work was done then, and the problem rose a quarter century later as a national security threat. I trust work is being done now. A sincere critical question, though: Is this the same pattern of not enough as before?
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Photo credit: Photo by Mier Chen on Unsplash.