Canadians' appetite for extremist organizations like Diagolon will need a ‘whole-of-society approach,’ say experts

Members of the right-wing Diagolon community, including its founder Jeremy MacKenzie, may downplay their online rhetoric with ironic humour and “memes,” but extremism researchers say the organization’s tactics are a continuation of those used by similar groups, like the Proud Boys, and their influence on lone-actor violent extremists is no laughing matter. On Nov. 9, the public inquiry into the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act heard testimony concerning the border blockades in Coutts, Alta. That included Feb. 12 text messages from Coutts Mayor Jim Willett calling the protesters “domestic terrorists” and raising concerns about what the final outcome of the protests would be due to the “more extreme element” that had moved in. Jim Willett, mayor of Coutts, Alta., pictured on Nov. 9, 2022, wiping away tears during his testimony at the public inquiry, while recounting the anxiety and intimidation felt by local residents during border blockades in February. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia Two days later, the Alberta RCMP seized guns, ammunition, and body armour, and arrested 13 protesters accused of mischief and possession of a weapon. Four protesters were also charged with conspiring to murder RCMP officers. Following the arrests, the RCMP released images of the seized weapons and ammunition, including a ballistic vest featuring a patch adorned with a white diagonal line on a black background, the same symbol used by followers of the Diagolon movement. An image of weapons, ammunition, high-capacity firearm magazines, and body armour seized by Alberta RCMP officers on Feb. 14 near the Coutts, Alta., border blockade. Photograph courtesy of Twitter According to an RCMP intelligence report shown to the commission during testimony from Diagolon founder MacKenzie on Nov. 4, the Mounties said they believed the vest belonged to one of the accused, Christopher Lysak, who their open-source information-gathering had connected to MacKenzie through their mutual association with Diagolon. “The militia-like network—members have repeatedly said they are armed and prepared for violence—has often expressed sentiments akin to accelerationism, viewing a coming collapse, or civil war as necessary to right the tilted course of the country,” the RCMP wrote, citing articles from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN). MacKenzie, a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, said the RCMP’s description and Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Patrick Morris' testimony describing Diagolon as an “extremist entity that holds extremist views,” was an “Astro-turfed” narrative created by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which he said is not a “credible” source of information. MacKenzie also testified that any member of the Diagolon community could have produced the patches independently and said that Lysak was simply a “long-time fan of the podcast” who he had met twice. Since then, MacKenzie testified that Lysak had called him twice from prison to “simply say 'hi.'” In response, CAHN executive director Evan Balgord submitted a sworn affidavit to the commission on Nov. 14, highlighting the CAHN’s extensive work monitoring MacKenzie’s hours of online content and providing numerous examples of Islmaphobic and anti-Semitic comments and conspiracy theories. In an interview with The Hill Times, Balgord said he and his colleagues at the CAHN were disappointed that MacKenzie’s cross examination had not sufficiently demonstrated MacKenzie’s history of hateful rhetoric, including statements blaming Jewish people for starting wars and controlling the government as well as praising the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which details a conspiracy about Jewish world domination as “describing what’s happening right now.” “I think that's important because when testified for the commission, we heard him talking about how he's a comedian … about how all these things are a big joke,” Balgord explained. “While might use humour, I don’t find it funny.” Balgord said while MacKenzie and members of the Diagolon community use “ingroup/outgroup” humour to signal who their enemies and allies are, he said there is just as much rhetoric that is far more serious, including statements that have the potential to incite violence. Executive Director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network Evan Balgord submitted a signed affidavit to the Public Order Emergency Commission on Nov. 14. Photograph courtesy of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network While Balgord said the CAHN didn’t believe it was likely MacKenzie would personally commit an act of violence—a potential made even more unlikely due to his current incarceration—he said there is a concern with MacKenzie's ability to create the conditions to incite ideologically motivated extremism. “They take an audience and convince them that there's an existential threat, that there are people to blame and that their grievances cannot be addressed through traditional means,” Balgord said. “They convince them that violence is justified, righteous, and inevitable.” Unlike other IMVE groups, “accelerationist” communities like Diagolon don’t speak about the impending violence in the usual defensive and “vainglorious” style couched in protecting family or property, but rather “with glee.” “They're gleeful because they see it as their enemies getting what's coming to them,” Balgord said, pointing to examples of MacKenzie telling his viewers that journalists “deserved” the death threats they were getting or that doctors working at hospital in Boston to improve health care services for people of colour should be hung. When asked about his comments that could be construed as inciting violence, like those cited in a Feb. 21 briefing compiled by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, MacKenzie testified that he had been misunderstood. “This is the good guys versus the bad guys ,” MacKenzie is quoted as saying in the document, as well as indicating that the “showdown” had finally begun. “This is the beach, get yourself there,” the document also quoted MacKenzie, explaining that “the beach” is a Diagolon reference to the Second World War and D-Day. “I certainly didn’t mean it in any kind of violent context,” MacKenzie told the commission. MacKenzie also downplayed much of the online rhetoric as “inside jokes,” including a statement he made in a Feb. 15 video saying that he could not wait until the Diagolon flag is seen as a hate symbol, which he described as “tongue-and-cheek.” “We find it amusing that our, I guess, enemies … do believe this and believe these absurd claims of ours,” MacKenzie explained. Barbara Perry, director of the Centre for Bias, Hate, and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, says that while MacKenzie may act like he doesn't take himself seriously, others do. Photograph courtesy of Barbara Perry Barbara Perry, director of the Centre for Bias, Hate, and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, told The Hill Times that she has seen a similar defence mounted by similar “accelerationist” organizations like The Proud Boys. “It’s a hangover from the Alt-Right,” Perry explained. “They’ve been doing it since 2014, and it’s been very successful and effective in terms of deflecting criticism.” As with Diagolon, the Proud Boys originally presented themselves as “a bunch of over-aged frat boys on a lark” who didn’t take themselves seriously either, Perry said. “But others grasped onto that narrative and claimed them as their own, just as they have now with Diagolon,” Perry explained. Originally founded in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInness, taking its name from the song ”Proud of Your Boy” from the 2011 Broadway production of Disney’s Aladdin, members of the Proud Boys would go on to organize and participate in the deadly 2017 Unite the Right Rally. More recently, five leaders of the group, including its former chairman, were federally indicted on seditious conspiracy charges in relation to their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, United States Capitol Building attack. A month later, on Feb. 3, the Canadian arm of the organization folded after the federal government designated the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization. Perry said that examining the broader trajectory of both Diagolon and MacKenzie’s history of racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric online didn’t strike her as genuinely unserious either. “They take themselves seriously, and they want others to take them seriously,” Perry said. “But it’s all ‘Wink, wink, nudge, nudge,' because they want it to fly under the radar for everyone else.” Perry said MacKenzie’s record of violence and weapons charges, coupled with his racist and xenophobic rhetoric had the makings of a “very dangerous situation.” MacKenzie testified remotely on Nov. 4, from a Saskatoon correctional facility due to criminal charges in three provinces, including harassment, uttering threats, assault, pointing a firearm at another person, and 10 counts of possessing restricted firearms or prohibited magazines. “This is not just a joke for him, this is who he is,” Perry added. 'Significant rise' in IMVE 'lone-actor and small-cell activity' since 2019: King Michael King, director of research for the Organization for the Prevention of Violence (OPV), told The Hill Times that the spreading of extremist ideas using ironic humour and memes was a fairly unique tactic among ideologically motivated extremist organizations, which he said had been re-energized following the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. “The spreading of their ideas via memes is a big thing and seems to be way more present among IMVE actors,” King said, also noting the similarity in strategies between Diagolon and the Proud Boys. “It’s almost like strategic learning from different generations or iterations of far-right extremists.” Michael King, director of research for the Organization for the Prevention of Violence, said Canada has seen a 'significant rise' in ideologically motivated extremism and anti-authority movements. Photograph courtesy of Michael King In September, OPV released a report outlining the changes in hate-motivated violence, extremism, and terrorism in Alberta and Canada for the past three years, beginning in 2019, which found that there had been a “significant rise” in ideologically motivated extremism and anti-authority movements in the country. Perry also said that the Centre for Bias, Hate and Extremism had identified Quebec, western Ontario, and Alberta as three separate ideological concentrations of IMVE, they had also identified dozens of different strains with “an awful lot cross-pollination.” “These are all hybrids now,” Perry explained. “There are no more pure pillars within the movement in terms of racial, gendered, or religious narratives.” While more traditional white nationalist and anti-government groups like the Sons of Odin and the Three Percenters have mostly dissolved or splintered, King said that IMVE actors have begun to shift toward more “lone-actor and small-cell activity” and away from organized activities to avoid detection and make themselves less predictable. One of the strains gaining the most traction in the country are “accelerationist” ideologies purported by groups like Diagolon, which foresee some major societal upheaval like a civil war as not only inevitable, but a desirable end state that they hope to hasten society towards, King said. King also said that the “amorphous” nature of organizations like Diagolon allows people to pick and choose their preferred ideologies from numerous different sub-strands of IMVE. “Someone can go livestream or put up a blog, and they don’t have to necessarily subscribe to just one of the main forms of IMVE du jour,” King added. “They’re cherry-picking whatever really resonates with them.” This new “salad bar” extremism, as King describes it, also explains why it can be difficult to sift through the seemingly contradictory or misplaced grievances, including protesting provincial and municipal pandemic measures by parking trucks outside of Parliament or blockading border crossings. As far as how to counter the rise of IMVE, Perry said it isn’t be a matter of “legislating our way out,” but said having regulations surrounding online hate “with some teeth” would help. The Hill Times

Canadians’ appetite for extremist organizations like Diagolon will need a ‘whole-of-society approach,’ say experts

‘Perfect storm’ of geopolitical events and two years of pandemic isolation have left Canadians looking for ‘easy answers to complex questions’ and someone to blame, says Barbara Perry.

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