Canada’s Right Is Moving Further Right—And Closer to the U.S.
…As Mulroney’s government worked closely with U.S. Republicans, they still remained ideologically distant on many issues. Mulroney, for instance, drew criticism from Reagan for imposing sanctions against South Africa during apartheid. But in the 1990s and early 2000s, conservatives in Canada—and particularly conservative leaders in Alberta—pushed the Progressive Conservative Party further right. In 2003 it joined with another conservative party, creating what is now the Conservative Party of Canada.
As politicians on the right in the United States and Canada worked to strengthen diplomatic relations between the two countries, far-right activists and organizations have also strengthened cross-border ties. Ben Klassen, for instance, was raised in Canada, but founded the Church of the Creator—a white supremacist church—once he moved to the U.S. Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, moved from Canada to the U.S. in 2001, when he began to embrace far-right ideology.
Now, as the Canadian far right has gained more power domestically, these connections have deepened. In 2022, a trucker convoy took over the downtown of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the vaccine mandate for truck drivers crossing the Canada-U.S. border. The trucker convoy itself seemed to signal how the ideologies of the U.S. and Canadian right had converged.
It also strengthened financial ties between far-right conservatives in both countries. Many who donated to the trucker convoy through crowdfunding websites had U.S. addresses. When GoFundMe took down the convoy’s donation page, U.S. Republicans such as Ron DeSantis and Jeff Landry protested the move, demanding immediate refunds to U.S. donors. In a sample of a 12-hour period, where donations totaled over half a million dollars, one news agency estimated that over half of identifiable donations came from south of the border.
In this way and others, the far right in the United States is helping to empower the far right in Canada. The ideological gap between the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada is growing larger as the far right gains more influence in the Conservative Party. All the while, despite significant differences (such as their positions on abortion and gun control), the Conservative and U.S. Republican Parties grow closer together, a move that is being championed by the far right on both sides of the border. |Read more https://time.com/6696097/canadian-far-right/| time.com/6696097/canadian-far-…
#cdnpoli #abpoli #extremeRight #supremacists #fascism capitalists #conservatives #republicans
