Canada designates Proud Boys as terrorist
organization beside Isis and al-Qaida
Move follows allegations that the rightwing group
played a role in the mob attack on the US Capitol in January
Leyland
Cecco in Toronto
Wed 3 Feb
2021 18.37 GMT
Canada has
designated the far-right Proud Boys group as a terrorist organization alongside
Isis and al-Qaida, amid growing concerns over the spread of white supremacist
groups in the country.
On
Wednesday Bill Blair, public safety minister, also announced the federal
government would designate the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups the
Atomwaffen Division, the Base and the Russian Imperial Movement as terrorist entities.
The federal government also added offshoots of al-Qaida, Isis and Hizbul
Mujahedin to its list.
“Canada
will not tolerate ideological, religious or politically motivated acts of
violence,” Blair said.
The move by
the federal government follows allegations that the Proud Boys played a role in
the mob attack on the US Capitol in January. During the 2020 presidential
debates, when Trump was asked to condemn white supremacist groups, he instead
told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”.
In late
January, Canada’s parliament unanimously passed a motion calling on the federal
government to designate the rightwing Proud Boys as a terrorist group. The
motion had no practical legal impact, but spoke to a growing worry over
rightwing extremism in Canada.
Ahead of
the announcement, Canadian officials told reporters that they had been
monitoring the Proud Boys before the Capitol Hill attack, but the event helped
with the decision to list the organization.
The Proud
Boys were founded in 2016 by the Canadian Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice
magazine. The group first made headlines in Canada three years ago, after five
military reservists, dressed in the group’s black and yellow shirts, disrupted
a protest by the Indigenous community over a controversial statue. The group
was banned by Facebook and Instagram in October 2018 after violating the
platforms’ hate policies and is classified as an extremist organization by the
FBI.
The
terrorist designation does not necessarily make it a crime to be a member of
these groups, but it does mean that the group’s assets could be seized or
forfeited by Canadian authorities.
Experts do
not believe the group has large, hidden assets, but the terrorist designation
could have important consequences for individual members.
“Banks and
companies like PayPal will probably not want to do business with anyone who has
been outed as being a member of the Proud Boys. These kind of companies are
pretty risk-averse,” Jessica Davis, a terrorism expert and former analyst with
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, previously told the Guardian.
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