Multiple revelations over the past few weeks shed further light on the growing activity of the fascist far-right within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Canadian society more broadly.
On July 8, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) laid weapons and terrorism-related charges against four men with ties to the Canadian military who led a fascist group they accuse of plotting to organize an anti-government militia and “seize land” near Quebec City. Two of the men, Marc-Aurèle Chabot and Matthew Forbes, are CAF corporals, now suspended from their posts in the “Van Doos” Royal 22nd Army Regiment. Simon Angers-Audet allegedly left the CAF due to his opposition to COVID vaccinations. The fourth person charged in the conspiracy, Raphaël Lagacé, is a decorated former member of the Army’s Cadet training program.
The authorities, led by Prime Minster Mark Carney and the federal Liberal government, are trying to cover up the significance of this latest exposure of violent far-right extremists in the military. They have refused to forthrightly identify their politics as fascist, claiming the terrorist plotters were merely “anti-authoritarian extremists,” a designation that deliberately conflates left and right-wing opponents. On Wednesday, the three of the four who face terrorism charges—Chabot, Angers-Audet, and Lagacé—were denied bail. However, the public has been denied any further insight into the terror plot, because the bail hearing was subject to a Court-imposed publication ban.
If the government and state apparatus are seeking to prevent a thorough political exposure of the fascist current within the CAF, it is because it would gravely undermine their efforts to massively increase the size and firepower of the military and to make the working class pay for it; and underscore that the fascists enjoy considerable support within the ruling class.
Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese revealed in mid-July the existence of a far-right Facebook group run by soldiers of the CAF’s Ottawa-based Cameron Highlanders regiment in Ottawa that traded in explicitly racist, homophobic and antisemitic content. The group, called the “Blue Hackle Mafia” named after the feather used on the caps of the unit’s highland-dress regimental uniform, was “reported up the chain of command” in December. Yet the Lieutenant General of the Army, Mike Wright, claims he and other members of the top brass only found out about it on June 25, “the day after the Ottawa Citizen sent images from the Facebook group to DND and asked him for comment.”
Wright’s claim of ignorance is not credible. Multiple complaints were logged with various commanding officers, including the Judge Advocate General, but nothing was done. The group had at least 200 members and operated freely on Facebook for 14 years. According to Pugliese, “They have posted images of male soldiers in uniform exposing their genitals, others posing naked with Canadian Forces’ weapons or simulating sexual acts with each other in uniform. Some of the photos were taken at military installations. The Facebook page also includes hateful comments directed towards women, derogatory sexual comments about former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as discussions about raping grandmothers. In other cases, posts disparage both Jews and Muslims.”
The Cameron Highlanders serve as ceremonial honour guards for visiting officials and public events.
On July 18, the CBC and its flagship investigative journalism program, The Fifth Estate, exposed the growing network of fascist “Active Clubs” across the country. These organizations use physical fitness training in parks and private gyms to recruit white racists to train for “a coming race war.”
Their mainly male recruits are drawn directly from the desperate and impoverished layers of the lumpenproletariat and lower middle class who were drawn into the misnamed, fascist “Freedom Convoy.” As the WSWS exposed at the time, the Convoy was supported and promoted by key sections of the Canadian capitalist ruling class; its political representatives, including the federal Conservative Party, its soon to be leader, Pierre Poilievre, and Premiers Doug Ford, and Scott Moe; and enjoyed significant backing from within the police and military.
The fascist group “Diagalon” led by Jeremy MacKenzie, a CAF veteran from the Royal Canadian Regiment who participated in Canada’s criminal neo-colonial occupation of Afghanistan, is one of two known fascist groups building these “Active Clubs.”
Diagalon was among the initial promoters of the Convoy and was active both in the occupation of downtown Ottawa and the Coutts, Alberta, border blockade. CSIS reports on Diagalon’s involvement with the Convoy, submitted as evidence to the Public Inquiry Commission in 2022, remain highly redacted. Poilievre, shook hands with MacKenzie at one of his campaign rallies for the Conservative Party leadership, held after the convoy was dispersed. When he was elected leader, he openly solidarized himself with the campaign of another fascistic veteran, James Topp, in his misnamed “walk for freedom” demanding a halt to basic public health measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Diagalon has created a fascist successor organization, called “Second Sons Canada,” which openly advertises its racist, white supremacist ideology. It is this group which is organizing so-called “Active Clubs.” The group made its first public appearance in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in April 2025, and its fascist nature was clearly evident in the group’s white face masks and messaging.
Second Sons openly attempts to divide the working class on racial lines, and to whip up hatred of immigrant workers: “Our birthright has been stolen from us as we are being pushed out of society, academics and the workforce and replaced by foreigners without any roots or connection to the Canadian people,” a section of the group’s website declares. They are openly promoting the fascist and antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory,” which holds that “mass immigration” is part of a worldwide “Jewish conspiracy” to replace white workers with non-white workers. The group claims to have chapters in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and PEI.
The other group is an openly Nazi formation calling itself “NS-13,” which stands for “Nationalist Aryan Circle,” a coded reference, via the use of numbers (1 for the letter “A,” 3 for the letter “C”) to a large, white racist Texas prison gang responsible for multiple murders.
The group posts images of its members with their heads obscured by the SS symbol the “Totenkopf” or “death’s head.” It is active in Hamilton Ontario, where its members have staged several provocations inciting racial hatred against immigrants. Hamilton, the former centre of Canadian steel production and one of the poorest cities in Canada, has long been an organizing centre for the far-right, which preys upon and recruits from among the most socially backwards and demoralized layers.
The ability of far-right and outright fascist groups to operate with virtual impunity is due to the promotion of their politics by powerful sections of the ruling elite. They enjoy no mass popular support but can make a fraudulent appeal to disoriented and backward sections of the population due to the sabotaging of all opposition to Canadian imperialism’s program of war and austerity by the New Democrats and trade unions.
Through their alliance with the Liberals—the Canadian ruling elite’s traditional party of national government—the unions and NDP have systematically subordinated the working class to right-wing governments enforcing austerity and war. At the same time, they have worked to isolate and sabotage every major working class struggle. By suppressing the working class and ensuring it does not emerge as an independent political force offering its own socialist solution to the ever-deepening social crisis, the labour bureaucrats and social democrats leave the political field clear for reaction and the political dregs of society to come forward.
The fight back against the fascist threat in Canada can only emerge from the building of a mass socialist movement in the Canadian and international working class. Conditions for this are extremely favourable, as shown by the mass protests involving millions of people against the fascist-minded Trump across the United States in recent months. But it can only succeed on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program, linking the fight against dictatorship with the struggle to stop imperialist war and the escalating onslaught on the social rights of workers at home.
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