‘It’s a total game-changer’: Canada designates Proud Boys as terrorists

OTTAWA–The federal government’s move to list the Proud Boys and three other white supremacist groups as terrorist organizations is being seen as a significant step to dismantling domestic extremist networks in Canada at a time when federal officials warn their threat is getting more severe.

On Wednesday, Canada declared the Proud Boys — an all-male, far-right group — as a “terrorist entity” under federal law, making it illegal to knowingly participate with or contribute to the group.

Three other organizations — Atomwaffen Division, a murderous neo-Nazi group; The Base, a militant white supremacist group; and the Russian Imperial Movement — received the same designation.

The moves means Canada has gone from having no white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups on its terrorist-entity list to recognizing six such groups as national security threats in just two years.

“It’s a total game-changer,” said Bernie Farber, the head of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and longtime anti-racism activist.

“It will, in my view, limit hard right-wing terrorism significantly,” Farber said. “It came at a time when we’ve seen right-wing terrorism significantly on the rise, we’ve seen young people radicalized into extremist terrorism on the rise, and we haven’t had the tools up until today to actually battle it.”

The new terrorist designations came as the Proud Boys and other far-right groups have been under increased scrutiny due to their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, when a mob of Donald Trump supporters, including the Proud Boys and militia groups, stormed the Capitol Building.

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair emphasized that Canada’s intelligence agencies had been probing the Proud Boys’ activities since 2018, and that the designation was based on evidence rather than politics.

But Blair also confirmed that Canadian security and law enforcement agencies have seen a concerning rise in domestic extremism threats after Trump lost November’s presidential election.

“Over the past several months … we have seen an escalation, an escalation toward violence” from the Proud Boys, Blair told reporters on a teleconference Wednesday.

“We’ve also seen acts of furtherance of that rhetoric … in that people have actually gone out, acquired weapons and engaged in activities which are now subject to criminal investigation and charges are coming in the United States.”

Twenty years after the Sept. 11 attacks, “the foreign terrorist threat is coming from the United States, and that to me is kind of remarkable,” said Leah West, a former national security lawyer who now teaches at Carleton University.

“The call is coming from inside the house.”

But West questioned whether designating a group as a “terrorist entity” is the best way to go about countering that threat. West noted the list was enacted after 9/11, and has so far focused predominantly on foreign-based groups that have little reason to challenge Canada’s designation.

If the federal government starts expanding the list to include groups with significant Canadian memberships, the likelihood of court challenges increases, West said.

That’s because there are significant financial penalties for members of proscribed groups. Bank accounts can be frozen and property confiscated, and financial institutions are not permitted to deal with members of a designated terrorist group.

“Banks and other financial organizations will take notice as soon as a country like Canada lists one of these entities, and will often refuse to engage in business with that entity,” said trade lawyer John Boscariol, a partner at McCarthy Tetrault.

Jessica Davis, the principal consultant at Insight Threat Intelligence and a former CSIS analyst, said that’s what makes the Proud Boys designation so consequential.

“This listing effects more people in Canada than, I would argue, any other listing has, because there are more individuals who have been publicly outed as members of the Proud Boys (in Canada) than there ever were of al-Qaeda (or) the Islamic State,” Davis said in an interview.

Anti-hate advocates, as well as groups representing Muslim and Jewish Canadians, applauded the government’s listing of white supremacist groups Wednesday. But others, including the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, have questioned the expansion of what they called a “problematic” anti-terrorism powers.

In a statement, the ICLMG said white supremacy must be countered, but called the terrorist entities list a “rights-violating and politicized process.”

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Blair acknowledged those concerns Wednesday, but said the groups added to the list represent clear national security risks to Canadians.

“I listen very carefully to those organizations who are concerned about the impact on free speech, on freedom of association,” he said.

“And as vile and as repugnant as the rhetoric and the ideologies of these hateful organizations may be, it’s important to acknowledge there is a threshold beyond which it’s no longer about speech, it’s about violence and it’s about extremism.”