CONFRONTING HOMEGROWN HATE
Two New Books Expose Canada's Far-Right Threat
This Montréal event features Aviva Rubin, novelist in conversation with Aurélie Campana, academic talking about their new books "WHITE" and "The Great Right North:
Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada".
Thursday, March 27
5-7 pm
at Paragraphe Bookstore
(2220 McGill College Avenue)
Copies of WHITE and "The Great Right North:
Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada" will be available for purchase.
WHITE tells the compelling, fact-based story of Sarah Cartell, a young woman who is raised in a White supremacist family in Goderich, Ontario, rejects their values and works to dismantle Canada’s nationwide neo-Nazi network from the inside. It offers readers an inspiring portrait of the resilience it takes to root out intolerance throughout society and within ourselves.
AVIVA RUBIN is a Toronto-based writer of memoir, essays and social commentary. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Zoomer, amongst others, as well as in numerous anthologies. Rubin is the author of the bestselling memoir, Lost and Found in Lymphomaland. WHITE is her debut novel.
The Great Right North Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada
By Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana and Samuel Tanner
Taking readers inside the black box of the Canadian far-right movement, featuring interviews with leaders and followers.
In February 2021 the Canadian government published a considerably expanded list of domestic terrorist entities. While some, such as Blood and Honour, were already known, others - such as Atomwaffen Division, the Base, the Proud Boys, and the Russian Imperial Movement - emerged from the shadows. Until then many considered far-right groups in Canada a negligible phenomenon, at worst a local police matter.
The Great Right North charts the growth of these groups, illuminating how official and unofficial government attention generates the context in which they build their movements. The result of seven years of research - including social media scraping, analysis of print and video sources, and interviews with scores of leaders and adherents - it examines how far-right organizations operate, recruit, and finance their activities and explores why individuals choose to join. Breaking new ground by revealing the ideological underpinnings and fragmentation within these groups, the authors also highlight the role of digital platforms in their proliferation.
Most politicians have been quiet about the phenomenon of far-right extremism in Canada, insisting it is imported activism financed elsewhere. The Great Right North provides an essential primer - for journalists, those working in policy institutes and think tanks, and students and scholars - for understanding its vast and urgent homegrown challenges.
AURELIE CAMPANA is professor of political science at Université Laval.