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Experts disagree on violent threat posed by incels in Canada – CTV News

Published

3 years ago

March 27, 2022

VANCOUVER —
Some experts say violent online rhetoric among so-called involuntary celibates is a concern as pandemic rules lift, but others say the threat of violence is overstated among a group of men who need mental health support.

Involuntary celibates or incels are made up predominantly of young heterosexual men who feel they are unable to attract romantic partners because of their looks or social status, says the think-tank Moonshot CVE. They often blame women, sexually active men and “oppressive societal structures” for their feelings of rejection and isolation, it says.

As attacks linked to the so-called movement mounted in recent years, authorities around the world began treating it as a terrorism threat.

A report released in September that was done for the federal government by Moonshot said lifting COVID-19 restrictions could result in more suicides, violence and acts of terror.

“Our researchers called (the pandemic) a great equalizer because incels believed everyone would experience the social and romantic isolation that they suffer on a daily basis,” said Moonshot spokesperson Alex Amend. “The end of lockdown and things opening up again will actually be more of a triggering point for them, so it would be beneficial for practitioners to pay more attention to the re-entry.”

Amend said the pandemic has exacerbated seclusion, alienation and anger, driving more people online seeking connections. Moonshot’s research suggests suicidal ideation and nihilistic attitudes are common in online forums that also perpetuate resistance to mental health treatment, he added.

“There is a critical need for mental health professionals to be trained to recognize incel ideology,” Amend said.

But Sophia Moskalenko, a U.S.-based clinical and social psychologist specializing in radicalization and terrorism, said violence shouldn’t be the main concern and she is calling for more research into non-violent incels in what she regards as a largely neglected mental health crisis.

“Radicalization is not necessarily the main issue among incels. Only a small minority of them actually endorse radical ideas, and an even tinier minority have ever acted out on them,” she said in an interview. “My work has been consistent in that the relationship between ideology and radical action is extremely weak.”

The term incel gained national attention in 2018 when Alek Minassian drove a van along a sidewalk in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16 others. A woman who was hospitalized after the attack also succumbed to her injuries in November.

During his trial, the court heard that Minassian composed a message about the “incel rebellion” before the attack then posted it on Facebook immediately afterward, before he was arrested.

A psychiatrist told the trial the fact that Minassian was a virgin and never had a relationship with a woman contributed to him feeling lonely. Reading about incels made him feel better about himself, the psychiatrist said.

Minassian believed tying his attack to the incel movement would increase his notoriety, even though he acknowledged he had no real anger toward women, the court heard.

Minassian was never charged with terrorism but was found guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. He will be sentenced later this year.

A study conducted by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in 2020 says there are at least 6,600 online channels motivated by ideological violent extremism with some form of Canadian involvement. On its website, Public Safety Canada said that makes Canadians among the most active in these online movements.

“The threat of IMVE (ideologically motivated violent extremism) in Canada continues to grow, and our government is stepping up our efforts to address it,” the department said in an email.

It has given nearly $5 million to Moonshot since 2017 to analyze the online subculture in Canada. The U.K. think-tank targets people searching for online violent extremist information and forums, directing them instead to resources where they can get help.

In May 2020, terror charges were laid against a 17-year-old boy, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, after a stabbing attack at a Toronto massage parlour that resulted in the death of Ashley Noelle. It left another woman seriously injured.

The youth was initially charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, but Public Safety Canada said Toronto police allegedly found evidence suggesting the attack was motivated by incel ideology. He was subsequently charged with two terrorism offences. The case is still before the courts and none of the allegations have been proven.

It is the first time police have treated an alleged incel-inspired attack as an act of terror and legal experts say it could force a reckoning of the courts’ definition of terrorism.

Leah West, a former Department of Justice lawyer and national security expert at Carleton University, said the concept of terrorism has been a “moving target.”

“There’s been a lot of confusion about what terrorism is under the law because it hasn’t been applied equally in cases across Canadian history. It tends to catch the type of terrorism the laws were originally designated to catch, which is al-Qaida and ISIS-inspired terrorism, but it hasn’t been applied to other threats,” West said.

Because previous terrorism offences were either politically or religiously motivated, the courts must first define ideology, West said. Then prosecutors will need to prove involuntary celibacy meets that definition to prove the terror charges.

West said there are three main reasons for using the terror designation: to equally apply the law regardless of occupation, race, gender or political characteristics; to denounce the crime and act as a deterrent; and to acknowledge that a group was victimized.

She added that the designation does not affect sentencing, but it is a more difficult offence for the prosecution to prove.

The International Center for the Study on Violent Extremism in Washington published a study in January 2021 that examined COVID-19 measures and the Canadian incel terror designation to determine if either issue intensified feelings of isolation and fostered resentment toward society.

Researchers surveyed more than 400 men in August 2020 who were active in the largest incel-specific forum on the internet. They say 50.8 per cent of respondents said the terrorism charges increased their resentment toward society, while 30.2 per cent said pandemic-related isolation had done so.

Jesse Morton, one of its lead researchers, said he believes most academic research has relied too heavily on the radicalization trajectories of the relatively small number of incels that have carried out acts of violence.

“Data shows that very few people that hold radical ideologies go on to commit acts of violence and if you stigmatize them, you can actually facilitate greater violence,” Morton said.

He said there is a need to directly engage with incels and for more study on the effects of public stigmatization and social exclusion on them.

Moonshot’s next project for the federal government aims to increase understanding of incels to help prevent radicalization and better respond to violence, Public Safety Canada said in its grant disclosure.

Amend said the company is also focused on creating a national network of mental health practitioners and counter-extremism experts trained to recognize incel ideology.

“The main issue is (incels) are not getting the support they need, so they’re seeking support in these toxic communities,” he said. “If we can offer support for the mental health aspects, we can help people reintegrate into society, and hopefully prevent them from falling into the more violent behaviour.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2022.

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Justin Trudeau’s Announcing Cuts to Immigration Could Facilitate a Trump Win

Published

19 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Nick Kossovan

Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.

Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.

Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.

My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5^th.

Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.

My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.

To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.

Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…

The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.

The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.

The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.

Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.

In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.

If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.

______________________________________________________________

Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s

on his mind from Toronto. You can follow Nick on Twitter and Instagram @NKossovan.

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Former athletes lean on each other to lead Canada’s luge, bobsled teams

Published

28 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

CALGARY – Sam Edney and Jesse Lumsden sat on a bench on Parliament Hill during an athlete celebration after the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Having just represented Canada in their sliding sports — Lumsden in bobsled and Edney in luge — the two men pondered their futures together.

“There was actually one moment about, are we going to keep going? Talking about, what are each of us going to do? What’s the next four years look like?” Edney recalled a decade later.

“I do remember talking about that now. That was a big moment,” Lumsden said.

As the two men were sounding boards for each other as athletes, they are again as high-performance directors of their respective sliding sports.

Edney, an Olympic relay silver medallist in 2018 and the first Canadian man to win a World Cup gold medal, became Luge Canada’s HPD upon his retirement the following year.

Lumsden, a world and World Cup bobsled champion who raced his third Olympic Games in 2018, leaned on his sliding compatriot when he returned from five years of working in the financial sector to become HPD at Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in July.

“The first person I called when BCS reached out to me about the role that I’m in now is Sam,” Lumsden said recently at Calgary’s WinSport, where they spent much of their competitive careers and now have offices.

“It’s been four months. I was squatting in the luge offices for the first two months beside him.

“We had all these ideas about we’re going to have weekly coffees and workouts Tuesday and Thursday and in the four months now, we’ve had two coffees and zero workouts.”

Canada has won at least one sliding-sport Olympic medal in each of the last five Winter Games, but Edney and Lumsden face a challenge as team leaders that they didn’t as athletes.

WinSport’s sliding track, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and where Edney and Lumsden did hundreds of runs as athletes, has been closed since 2019 needing a $25-million renovation.

There is no sign that will happen. WinSport took the $10 million the provincial government offered for the sliding track and put the money toward a renovation of the Frank King Lodge used by recreational skiers and snowboarders.

Canada’s only other sliding track in the resort town of Whistler, B.C., has a fraction of Calgary’s population from which to recruit and develop athletes.

“The comparison is if you took half the ice rinks away in the country, hockey and figure skating would be disarray,” Edney said.

“It just changes the dynamic of the sports completely, in terms of we’re now scrambling to find ways to bring people to a location that’s not as easy to get to, or to live out of, or to train out of full time.

“We’re realizing how good we had it when Calgary’s (track) was here. It’s not going to be the end of us, but it’s definitely made it more difficult.”

Lumsden, a former CFL running back as well as an Olympian, returned to a national sport organization still recovering from internal upheaval that included the athlete-led ouster of the former president and CEO after the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Olympic champion pilot Kaillie Humphries suing the organization for her release to compete for the U.S. in 2019.

“NSOs like Luge Canada and Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton, they’re startups,” Lumsden said. “You have to think like a startup, operate like a startup, job stack, do more with less, especially in the current environment.

“I felt it was the right time for me to take my sporting experience and the skill set that I learned at Neo Financial and working with some of the most talented people in Canada and try to inject that into an NSO that is in a state of distress right now, and try to work with the great staff we have and the athletes we have to start to turn this thing around.”

Edney, 40, and Lumsden, 42, take comfort in each other holding the same roles in their sports.

“It goes both ways. I couldn’t have been more excited about who they hired,” Edney said. “When Jesse was coming in, I knew that we were going to be able to collaborate and work together and get things happening for our sports.”

Added Lumsden: “We’ve been friends for a long time, so I knew how he was going to do in his role and before taking the role, having the conversation with him, I felt a lot of comfort.

“I asked ‘are you going to be around for a long time?’ He said ‘yeah, I’m not going anywhere.’ I said ‘OK, good.'”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

29 mins ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

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