A city councillor from British Columbia’s capital called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to ban the free speech social media platform X and declare supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump as an “extremist organization.”
Victoria, B.C. councillor Jeremy Caradonna took to X’s left-wing competitor, Bluesky, calling on Carney to confiscate Make America Great Again hats and label the movement as an “extremist organization” on Wednesday. True North received exclusive comments from Caradonna after asking him to clarify his views.
“If I’m Carney, I’d declare the MAGA movement an ‘extremist organization’ and clamp down on its activities in defence of Canadian sovereignty,” he said in a Bluesky post. “That’s what Ukraine did against Russian state-backed entities.”
He also called for a federal ban on Elon Musk’s X, which he labelled “hostile propaganda.”
“Confiscate MAGA hats,” Caradonna said. “Restrict travel for US MAGAs.”
Caradonna, a councillor since Oct. 2022, said that though the action would be viewed as unconstitutional, the infringement was justified due to the “existential threat” posed to Canada as Trump continues calling Canada to become the 51st U.S. state.
“I recognize that these would be viewed as infringements on free expression & that these efforts don’t come naturally to Canadians,” Caradonna said in the post. “However, haven’t faced an existential threat like this one since WWII, when all sorts of hostile foreign activities were barred or restricted. Time to get serious. Now.”
In an email, Caradonna told True North that the ban he is proposing wouldn’t violate the Charter rights of Canadians and that only Americans and American entities would be targeted. However in another post, he clarified that the ban would be “directed at the US MAGA movement and its followers in Canada.”
There is no formal designation of an “extremist entity” in Canada, but groups such as CSIS and Public Safety Canada do use terms such as “ideologically motivated violent extremists” including for groups not formally designated under Canada’s terrorist entities list.
“If it’s true that the US MAGA movement is dedicated to the destruction of Canadian sovereignty, which sure seems to be the case, then there are grounds to ban its activities in Canada on the grounds that it’s a threat to our sovereignty and national interests,” he said in the email. “The same would go for any other foreign actors, whether they be Chinese, Russian, or otherwise, who seek to undermine Canadian sovereignty.”
Caradonna argued that limiting “hate speech and violent insurrection” in Canada is consistent with the Charter and equated Trump supporters to neo-Nazis saying their rights to free expression should also be stripped.
When asked if he thought Canada should try to remove the tariffs or if it should cut all ties with the U.S., he said, “the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally,” and references to a 51st state’ should be interpreted as a threat to “violently invade Canada and turn it into a vassal state” according to Caradonna.
When Trump first claimed that he would use economic force to annex Canada into the “51st state,” he ruled out the use of military force.
When asked what proof he had that the “MAGAs” are calling for a violent insurrection of Canada, Caradonna told True North that “it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”
He accused the U.S. president of following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “playbook” when he invaded Ukraine. He said Trump’s called the border ‘artificial,’ allegedly said that it isn’t a real country, that Canada owes the U.S., and it “only works” as a state.
Caradonna also claimed that the U.S. has threatened to leave the Five Eyes and NATO, which would allow them to invade. There were reports that the U.S. administration would advocate for Canada to be removed from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, but Trump’s team denied those reports.
When asked why he singled out X and not any other platform that hosts the opinions of Trump supporters such as Meta whose owner, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he would work with the Trump administration, he restated his position.
He said Musk, the owner of X is now an advisor of the US President. He acknowledged that Meta also has ties to the U.S. government, but “perhaps not as direct.”
“If one of Putin’s capos was running a social media platform, and both Putin and that oligarch were committed to the destruction of Canada, then I would expect the Feds to ban it,” Caradonna said. “No difference with X. We need to stop viewing the US as the good guys. Pretend they’re Russian oligarchs and it clarifies the moral imperative.”