The legacy media constantly warns about the ‘far-right’—but struggles to define it

If you’ve tuned into legacy media in recent years, you’ve likely heard about the “rise of the far-right” in Canada.

Headlines have included: “Does Canada take the threat of far-right extremism seriously?,” “Far-right activity a problem for military,” “This expert says far-right groups are on the rise,” “Canadian right-wing extremism increased online during the pandemic,” “Canadians are big players on far-right social media,” “Pierre Poilievre’s love of far-right U.S. Tea Party politics,” and “It’s irresponsible for Justin Trudeau to equate the far right and far left in Canada.”

A search for the term “far-right” on the website of Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC, yields over 2,170 results, while a search for “far-left” produces just over 120.

There is little doubt that radical right-wing extremists exist in Canada. Our country has been the setting for attacks linked to right-wing hateful ideology, including the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting which killed six, the 2018 Toronto van attack which took the lives of 11 people, and the 2021 murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont which claimed a family of four.

However, journalists appear to be liberally using the “far-right” label, increasingly using it to describe everything from fringe terrorists to mainstream conservatives and libertarians.

A catch-all term

CBC’s coverage of the far-right includes articles on how the word “freedom” has become far-right. Its journalists have gone on to label Israel’s government, American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, and even The Lord of the Rings as tied to the far-right.

The Toronto Star recently described American political commentator Dave Rubin, a gay pro-choice Jew, as far-right.

The New York Times has even referred to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith as far-right.

Journalists have also accused Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre of “dog-whistling to the far-right.”

The federally funded Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which is frequently cited by the legacy media, recently released a guide titled “40 Ways to Fight the Far Right,” naming civil liberties organization Liberty Coalition Canada, feminist organization Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights, and pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition on a list of alleged “far-right/hate groups.” They’ve since clarified their stance on the Campaign Life Coalition.

This broad use of the term “far-right” has left some to wonder: is the far-right truly a large imminent threat to Canada, or is this, as some commentators have suggested, a legacy media “moral panic”?

Who is Canada’s “far-right”?

Historically, the term “far-right” has been associated with fascism.

In an interview with The Hub, Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Buckingham University, explained that the far-right label should be reserved for individuals or groups on the right who oppose liberal democracy, such as fascists.

“I think a good definition for the far right is anti-democratic and anti-constitutional liberalism, favouring the use of violence. These parties believe democracy is a bad idea. They argue for a properly fascist system, with a charismatic leader wielding absolute power,” the academic, who studies political ideologies and movements, said. “They often have street movements—brown shirt-style street thugs—who might beat people up.”

Kaufmann argued politicians with provocative views who support democracy, like those from European parties like France’s National Rally or Italy’s Brothers of Italy, often labeled “far-right,” should instead be called “populist right,” “radical right,” or simply “right-wing.”

According to Kaufmann’s definition, Canada’s far-right should describe neo-Nazi groups and other extremists opposing liberal democracy and or established rights, such as the Atomwaffen Division, The Base, the Proud Boys, and the Soldiers of Odin.

While some of Canada’s far-right extremist groups have gained traction, their membership remains marginal, and several have appropriately been designated as terrorist entities. Of the 78 entities on Canada’s list of terrorist organizations, eight can be considered Western far-right extremist entities.

Lack of consensus on a definition of far-right

Others disagree the definition should be this precise.

Justin Ling, a freelance journalist on the left who covers political extremism, told The Hub that restricting the definition of far-right to fascism is “too academic.” He said a broader view is needed.

For Ling, far-right groups are identitarian, white nationalist or white supremacist, have a lot of religious overtones or explicit religious affiliation, are radically anti-establishment and anti-institution, or believe in various types of conspiracy theories.

“We are seeing the acceleration of a trend in far-right groups that civil strife is just around the corner and that you must either prepare for it or provoke it to bring it about sooner,” he explained.

However, he admitted those on the left can’t seem to agree as to what exactly the far right is.

“There’s no clear consensus on how we define these groups. You’ll find as many definitions and frameworks as there are experts studying the subject. It’s difficult because the groups we typically describe as far-right are a hodgepodge of different ideologies, grievances, and policy concerns,” he told The Hub.

This lack of “clear consensus” is reflected in the lack of clear definitions for the term “far-right” among Canada’s prominent legacy media outlets.

The Globe and Mail style guide has “no standard nomenclature” for the far-right, and The Canadian Press Stylebook also lacks a definition.

“Groups on the ‘far-right’ tend to favour strict immigration rules as well as social policies that put ‘local’ people first in terms of social services,” explained CBC’s senior manager for journalistic standards Nancy Waugh.

Meanwhile, those on the “far left,” she highlighted, “might argue that capitalism is the root of all problems and argue for the redistribution of wealth. Policies that tend towards communism would fall under this umbrella.”

CBC’s ombudsman Jack Nagler urged CBC staff to be careful when using these terms.

“CBC journalists need to exercise extreme caution when using terms such as far-left and far-right. The same is true for terms such as extremist, fascist, or communist,” he wrote in response to a complaint from a reader.

Agreeing with Nagler, Ling urged for more careful use of the term by the legacy media.

“The Toronto Star was being very cavalier with their language [referring to Dave Rubin as far-right], and I think it’s really bad, and we should call that out,” the Toronto Star contributor said.

However, he cautioned conservatives about getting too satisfied with the idea that the term applies to next to no one.

“Conservatives have a habit of looking at those instances, drawing a line under them, and going, ‘Oh, well, language doesn’t mean anything. No one’s far-right. The Liberals call everyone far-right, and therefore I don’t have to listen to any conversation about far-right extremism.”

“That bugs me,” said Ling.

Canada’s 300 alleged far-right groups 

In articles about the far-right, journalists frequently write that Canada is home to over 300 far-right groups. The large figure can be traced back to Barbara Perry, a publicly funded researcher who heads the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. Perry claims to have directly identified 325 active far-right groups operating in Canada between 2016 and 2022.

Her research has been cited by numerous outlets, including the CBC, CTV News, Global News, City News, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail. It has also been used in RCMP reports, House of Commons publications and mentioned in legislative committees, and in NDP campaign materials.

Perry was recently appointed to the Order of Canada for being “one of the world’s foremost experts on hate crime.”

In an interview with The Hub, she said the far-right contains violent elements.

“In terms of the contemporary extreme right, perhaps in the Canadian context, [it includes] this increased tendency to promote, if not engage in violent action as a means of working through whatever their grievances are, whatever challenges they see in the broader society.”

However, in a 2018 scholarly article exploring “the right‑wing extremist landscape in Canada,” Perry appears to expand her definition, writing that “[right wing extremism] hate groups are nourished by diets of public and political sentiments that resist change, and seek to counter the advancement of typically Canadian values of inclusivity, equity, and multiculturalism.” She adds that some of Conservative Prime Minister Harper’s policies helped fuel this hatred.

In our interview, she noted that it’s appropriate to categorize some pro-life organizations as “extremist groups.”

Perry was also recently in the news for a questionnaire she helped craft, which was sent to Canadian soldiers asking if they had purchased “extremism merchandise” like “Make Canada Great Again” hats.

Perry’s refusal to release her list 

We don’t know much about the groups on Perry’s heavily referenced list because she has yet to release it. Her employer, Ontario Tech University, also successfully fought to block an access to information request pertaining to the list.

“We’re not bound [to release the list]. There’s no requirement that we need to,” she told The Hub. She added that she would release it when her “final report” is finalized with its funder Public Safety Canada.

Perry denied being secretive about naming the groups.

“It makes no sense to release it out of context without the rest of the report to help contextualize it and make sense of it,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to release the full list without that methodological background, without that theoretical background.”

Back in 2019, Perry touted the 300 figure to the Toronto Star saying, “We’ve started to sort of list the groups and name them…we’re getting close to 300 groups.”

In January 2021, she told the National Post she would finalize her report in the spring, though it’s unclear if she meant spring 2021 or 2022—when the Public Safety Canada grant ended.

In 2025, six years after she first touted the 300 figure, her list is still yet to be released.

When asked why she touted a 300 number to the media when the report had not yet been finalized, she said, “I think I’ve answered your question. Can we go on to another question? Or the interview is over.”

When we asked further about why she hasn’t made it public and whether this hurts her credibility, she abruptly ended our interview.

“Okay, the interview is over. I said I answered the question, so thanks for your time and I hope this is not a hatchet job,” she told The Hub.

Perry’s unwillingness to release the list has attracted criticism from some right-leaning journalists.

Quillette editor and podcaster Jonathan Kay has previously written about Perry’s unwillingness to release her list.

“One would think that if a publicly funded researcher says they have a list of 300 hate groups. It’s such a basic question: ‘Okay, let’s see the list,’” he told The Hub.

Kay also criticized her methodology. Perry said she used open-source information including information from media, community-based organizations, and law enforcement. But Kay said that, based on her academic writing, she appears to consider those calling for reduced immigration control as hateful members of the far-right.

“Her methodology appears to lump in anyone urging more immigration controls, a category that now includes Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. So I suppose her list now has 301 entries on it,” he said.

Kay also criticized the legacy media for constantly referring to her list as a stated fact when she has not released it.

“It’s bad journalism,” he said.

Kaufmann added that Perry’s unreleased list serves a legacy media fuelled by fears of the right.

“Once one person makes the claim, the entire grievance industrial complex just riffs off that and cites it. This is used to gin up this kind of folk devil and moral panic and paranoia. It’s a bit like Goldstein in George Orwell’s 1984.”

Others are less critical. Ling said Perry should release the list, but added that lists like this are pretty useless given these groups are formed, splinter off, and disband constantly.

“Are there 300 active, significant, and worrying, distinct groups of far-right extremists in Canada? I don’t think so,” he said. “I think more realistically, we’re talking about a couple of dozen that are not just Telegram groups or Facebook groups but that are actually genuine groups of people with a kind of coherent ideology with an actual organization structure, a leader, and a potential for violence.”

Is legacy media preoccupation with the far-right a moral panic?

With the legacy media using the term “far-right” so freely while lacking clear definitions, and the academics they heavily cite refusing to answer critical questions about their practices—the question arises: is legacy media’s concerns about the far-right veering into a “moral panic,” as Kauffman insists?

Ling doesn’t think so.

“We’ve had basically zero instances of left-wing terrorism hurting or maiming or killing people in this country… [but] we’ve had instances of violence against women perpetrated by people [on the right] who identify with the incel movement and the general kind of anti-feminist, anti-women ideology. We’ve had instances of anti-Muslim hate, like the Quebec City mosque shooting driven by an intense identitarian belief. We’ve had attacks on the RCMP driven by anti-government right-wing extremism,” he said.

“It is not a serious position to say, ‘Oh, well, both ends are an issue. Why is the media only focusing on one?’”

Ling also cited Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefs that listed right-wing extremism as a major threat to Canada.

In 2022, CSIS however announced it has developed “new terminology to replace ‘right-wing’ and ‘left-wing’ extremism that more accurately depicts the broad range of violent ideological threats facing Canada.”

Kay disagrees that right-wing groups constitute a major threat to Canada.

“I’m not sure body count is decisive here in the way it’s being suggested. The two biggest hate-crime terrorist attacks in my lifetime that killed Canadians were 9/11 [Islamic terrorism] and the Flight 182 Air India bombings [Khalistani Sikh terrorism]. Were those committed by ‘left-wing’ or ‘right-wing’ groups? I’m not sure either label really applies,” said Kay.

“I would never say there are no far-right attacks. But certainly, the risk is infinitesimally small,” added Kaufmann. “Proportional to population, Islamist terror or antisemitism involves a much larger share of a community. The left is generally less violent but has mounted attacks on property and pipelines.”

Both Kaufmann and Kay agreed legacy media journalists revel in narratives about the far-right while ignoring far-left extremism.

Kaufmann said there is currently a “fascist scare” in Canada comparable to the anti-communist Red Scare of the mid-20th century.

“If you give cultural conservatives an inch, they’re going to take us back to the 1930s. That sort of mentality is seen as perfectly legitimate,” he said.

Kay meanwhile noted that the Liberal government’s funding of groups to research and combat the supposed far-right threat has meant there are now incentives for academics to exaggerate and inflate.

“You have people across Canada who derive their salary in some way from finding hatred,” he explained. “It’s a long observed process that when you create any kind of bureaucratic institution, no bureaucracy likes to put itself out of business. When you form groups that have convinced themselves that the greatest problem in the world is X, they will get very creative about finding X.”