OTTAWA – Following the events of the US election, Canada’s homegrown and indie racists are determined to not have their hateful efforts overshadowed by the behemoth to the south.
“People are always saying, ‘if you were any good at being a racist, you’d go to the States’. That lack of support and the resulting bigot-drain is discouraging,” says Derek McMaster, 34, local racist and author of the alt-right blog “The McMaster Race”. McMaster shared his fears of being overshadowed by America’s Trump-supporting racists, moments after spray-painting a swastika and anti-Semitic slur on the door of a local rabbi.
“Canada likes to pretend we don’t have racists, but we do – we just don’t have the big time production values of a Breitbart, or even the dog-whistle racism of a Sean Hannity,” McMaster lamented. He went on to list numerous examples of Canadian racism, including Residential Schools, Halifax’s Africville, wartime internment camps, last year’s Peterborough mosque arson, and the Komagata Maru incident.
Additionally, In the wake of hundreds of reported post-election American hate crimes, McMaster points to alt-right flyers posted in Toronto and slurs shouted in Canadian high schools as “proof the Canadian scene is still just as vibrant, and hateful, as the States.”
“It’s hard to compete, especially when Canadian bigots just want to consume American propaganda,” added Toronto construction worker and streetcar-shouting-racist Kyle Smith, 29. “I mean, I’m just one guy here on the TTC shouting at brown people, trying to find my voice. But I’m not looking to get famous – just knowing that I’ve terrorized one vulnerable minority is reward enough for me.”
Still, many Canadian “race realists” and islamophobes are aiming higher following Trump’s victory. “Canadians are always complaining that our homegrown racial fearmongering is too cheap and low-budget compared to the big American cable news channels,” explained The Rebel’s Ezra Levant.
“But if a white nationalist blog editor can become chief presidential strategist, then maybe I’ve just been thinking too small.”
While America looms large over Canadian racists, McMaster remains hatefully optimistic. He sees government efforts like last year’s proposed Barbaric Practices Hotline as a subsidy that could “help keep our uniquely Canadian type of racism alive”. He also expressed some excitement at the Conservative leadership platform of Kellie Leitch.
McMaster added, “I mean, it’s not the kind of full-blown hate I’d like, but Leitch’s Values Test is a step in the ‘Right’ direction.”
