The Liberal government-funded Canadian Anti-Hate Network lumped Canadian pro-life, feminist and civil liberties organizations into a list of alleged “far-right / hate groups” alongside recognized terrorist entities.
As first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter the report is meant to be used by far-left activists to organize against groups CAHN determines to be “far-right” in Canada.
In the report titled “40 ways to fight the far right,” CAHN listed Campaign Life Coalition, a pro-life advocacy group, and the civil liberties organization Liberty Coalition of Canada among a “non-exhaustive list” of “Christian Nationalists,” “far-right,” and “hate groups” that it hopes to help fight, an accusation the groups listed call false and ridiculous.
Some of the groups named in the report are fighting back, claiming that CAHN is a radical far-left collective the Liberals have awarded with generous funding to malign conservative voices in Canada.
The report also labelled Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights an “Anti-2SLGBTQ+” hate group. The woman’s organization advocates for the right for women to be in all-female spaces, such as in bathrooms and prisons. The report also stated that “incels” or involuntary celibates and “men’s rights activists” are far-right male supremacists.
CAHN did not reply to True North’s requests for clarification and comment though the report defines far-right groups as a “loose collection of individuals and groups which are anti-democratic, harbour racism and other forms of hate and traffic in conspiracy theories.” The report doesn’t explain the methodology that led the authors to make such determinations.
James Kitchen, the chief litigator at the Christian civil liberties group Liberty Coalition Canada, denied the allegation that the LCC is far-right or a hate group, saying that everything the LCC advocates for would be achieved democratically and the allegation that the Christian-based group harbours hate is unfounded.
“It’s often the people who claim ‘hate’ that are the most hateful, and the things that they’re identifying as hate are not hate at all, but just actual truth that they just don’t like,” Kitchen told True North in an interview.
Kitchen said the 11-points of the hallmarks of hate that CAHN used in its report could be applied to CAHN itself.
Kitchen said many leftwing groups or LGBT+ organizations use tactics which CAHN promotes in the report, such as targeting their political opponent’s places of work, in attempts to de-platform and impose “social costs” on those whose opinions they oppose.
“You see this in the way some LGBT activists treat Christians. They want us to lose our jobs and be kicked to the curb. Isn’t that hateful? We don’t want any of that for you guys,” Kitchen said.
The report lists the feminist and Christian groups alongside neo nazi groups that have been designated as terrorist entities in Canada. In the interview, Kitchen said he was skeptical that such “fringe” groups have more than a couple of dozen members in Canada.
Josie Luetke, the director of education and advocacy at Campaign Life Coalition, agrees with Kitchen. She said her organization is considering pursuing legal action against CAHN, which it believes should lose federal funding.
CAHN has received over $900,000 in taxpayer-funded grants since 2020 according to the Government of Canada website.
“The designation is false. We are neither far-right nor a hate group,” she emailed True North. “It’s disgusting that the CAHN seemingly can’t tolerate difference of opinion and feel obliged to brand pro-life and pro-family views as ‘hate,’ ‘fascist,’ or ‘far-right,’ and to lump them in the same category as Nazism.”
Luetke said CLC’s activism is peaceful protesting against the violence of abortion, which occasionally makes its activists targets of violence rather than the violent instigators that the report suggests.
The report claims that CIS straight white males make up most far-right and hate groups in Canada and exceptions to this rule usually require a “constant performance of internalized racism, misogyny, or other bigotries.”
“Personally, as a woman, I find it condescending that (CAHN) feels it necessary to resort to the eye-roll-inducing “internalized misogyny” accusations to explain away my principled pro-life position and that of my other female colleagues,” she said.
Leutke believes that CAHN’s “deceptive and ridiculous” rhetoric and the “antifascist” tactics the group recommends its readers employ on the taxpayer dime should be taken seriously. CAHN encourages doxing ‘Fascists’, a term she believes was intentionally kept “nebulous,” which can lead and getting people fired or kicked out of businesses and violence.