No Hate on Council

Read No Hate on Council’s election analysis Hate on the Ballot: Convoys, conspiracies, and BC’s 2022 municipal elections →

BC’s 2022 municipal and school trustee elections have a problem: far-right extremism. We want to highlight far-right ideologies that come up in platforms, events, and affiliations.

The images on the site were collected from convoy/freedom-related Telegram channels, social media sites, and websites.

This site is simply a collection of names that have come up in convoy/freedom social media channels and in the news. We don’t claim that all people here are absolutely 100% part of any particular movement or political ideology. We do point out when an individual has made direct statements or associated with others who express transphobia, hate speech, political violence, COVID-related conspiracies, and other aspects of far-right extremism.

Find your municipality/district or school district

Municipalities with a star (⭐) contain candidates that were posted after election day. We wish we could have examined candidates and posted everyone before voting ended, but we’ll continue to update this site. It’s important that this information is collected to show the extent of far-right extremism in BC and the organizations involved in radicalizing British Columbians.

Why is hate speech allowed in platforms and on ads?

We don’t know, and we hope that this is addressed by municipalities, school boards, and Elections BC.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are protected in Canada. Recently, the BC Minister of Education and Child Care, BC School Trustees Association, BC Teachers Federation, and allied organizations and unions affirmed that SOGI education is important in supporting all students and dismantling discrimination.

You cannot reasonably sit in a position that requires inclusivity when you outright seek to deny LGBTQ2S+ people of their basic human rights.

Hiding the truth

Far-right extremism hides ugly politics behind inoffensive language.

Many convoy/freedom candidates hide their association with the convoy/freedom movement—at least among the “unawake” (people who disagree with the movement). For example:

Community safety: More police, more surveillance, harsher punishments that primarily target unhoused people and people living in poverty

Traditional values or family values: Christian ideals, usually transphobic

Freedom: “Freedom” to impose Christofascism or other right-wing ideologies on everyone else and the “freedom” to celebrate poor science literacy

Awake: Part of the convoy/freedom movement, often involved in other conspiracy theories like 5G, chemtrails, and a host of anti-Semitic conspiracies like New World World, “globalists,” and more recently, the World Economic Forum

What do convoys have to do with municipal elections?

People within the convoy/freedom movement have been encouraged to enter municipal elections by their allies since at least this spring.

Candidates appear to have varying motivations: waking up the unawake (the other term for that is radicalization), removing systems and programs like SOGI 123, and interfering with public health activities.

I think we can all agree that people who operate in spaces where participants are cool with executing public health officials probably shouldn’t hold public office.

Are you saying that people in the convoy/freedom movement are a bunch of fascists?

Individuals are not necessarily engaging in far-right politics or bigotries themselves. The movement is as much about bringing people into the movement by offering lies and preying on vulnerabilities as it is a space for far-right extremists to gather and amplify. People who don’t know the extent of hate are caught up in a truly hateful movement.

The far-right sells a very simple solution for complex problems like a pandemic and growing socio-economic disparities. Blame Prime Minister Trudeau for absolutely everything and stop worrying about COVID because COVID isn’t even real (which is also Prime Minister Trudeau’s fault). When people feel overwhelmed or uncertain, this can be very tempting. But it’s an option that comes at a terrible cost.

Convoy/freedom groups aren’t really about COVID-19. They attack LGBTQ2S+ communities and SOGI 123. They engage in racism and white supremacy, religious fundamentalism, climate change denial and so many ideologies that harms our communities. Why? Because those are the values of the organizations and organizers of the convoy/freedom movement. Convoys didn’t magically appear out of the ether in January 2022, they came the same people and organizations associated with United We Roll and Yellow Vests Canada and hateful organizations that existed before the world had ever heard of SARS-CoV-2.

So are these convoy/freedom people just a bunch of fascists? It depends on the individual and their role. But one thing is certain: people in the movement are targeted for radicalization by assorted far-right ideologies and they inevitably have to tolerate far-right extremism in order to stay in the convoy/freedom movement.

It’s also unnerving how few degrees of separation there are between some convoy/freedom groups and neo-Nazi groups operating in BC and around Canada. While this isn’t the case in all spaces, some convoy/freedom groups take you places like this. That’s a pretty big problem.

The movement that says it’s about peace, love, and freedom

Keep your council convoy-free 🙂