In the coming days, Canada will see heightened activity in the nation’s ongoing gender identity politics debate. The “1 Million March 4 Children” protest against how gender identity is taught in schools, is set to occur on Wednesday, with synchronized events in more than 50 cities countrywide. Two days later, separate Toronto rally will spotlight two figures prominent in the gender-critical movement: Chris Elston, colloquially known as “Billboard Chris” for his distinctive method of protesting against childhood medical transition, and Josh Alexander, a Renfrew, Ontario student who was expelled earlier this year after objecting in class to his school’s transgender washroom policy.
Politics
Rage Farming Is Poisoning Our Politics. How to Resist
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An annual ritual, the Calgary Stampede helps many Canadians reconnect with the province’s “Wild West” heritage. A different type of agriculture was on display at this year’s event, however, as the rage farming conducted by some conservative leaders signifies a discouraging trend in our public discourse.
On July 10, Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre posed at Stampede with a man wearing a bright green shirt advocating for “straight pride.” Questions surround how the man gained access to the events and to the front of the line, let alone how he managed to secure photos with two of Canada’s most powerful Conservatives.
Official responses from the leaders claimed neither read the content of the shirt before the pictures were snapped. These excuses earned ridicule among seasoned staffers and those that pointed out that the questionable garment was neon.
Others on social media leapt to the leaders’ defense, championing the content of the man’s message, which contained the erroneous claim that straight people are responsible for all of human existence. Poilievre and Smith undercut those narratives, at least somewhat, by distancing themselves from the concept of “straight pride.” Progressives mustered a much more forceful counterattack, pointing out the bigotry of equating heterosexual persecution to that faced by the LGBTQ2S+ community. The two sides went back and forth for days, with little evidence of genuine dialogue or persuasion.
We can debate whether the Stampede photo ops were a deliberate attempt to drum up controversy or simply a pair of accidents. Only the Poilievre and Smith camps and the green-shirt-man know for sure (although the fact it happened twice throws the talents of conservative staffers into question and stretches the definition of coincidence).
Regardless of whether the seeds were deliberately planted, the effects of this sort of rage farming are tangible. And, as experience and research demonstrate, the polarization it breeds can culminate in the erosion of democratic norms and institutions, and even lead to political violence.
Roots of the term ‘rage farming’
The origins of the term “rage farming” are contested. Some attribute it to John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto, while others credit Molly Jong-Fast’s 2022 article in the Atlantic.
Both describe rage farming as a cynical political tactic designed to bait opponents into overreacting to a controversial statement. This, in turn, paints the other side as unreasonable while simultaneously riling up one’s own base in defense of the original position. The conflict between the two sides spirals into a pit of rage, with neither side really aiming to persuade as much as humiliate, discredit and vanquish the other.
This tit for tat is a pox on all of our houses, further eroding Canadians’ trust in all politicians and our democratic institutions. More and more people disengage from politics, failing to vote let alone join parties or run for elected office. The democratic sphere is left to those drawn to the conflict and controversy, further perpetuating the politics of distrust and animosity.
Rage farming is a key contributor to this type of political tribalism or factionalism. Rather than treating one’s opponents as adversaries to be defeated during elections, rage farmers convince their followers that the other side are enemies to be destroyed.
Rather than treating politics as a dialogue among competing viewpoints in search of the common good, rage farmers foster an environment where the interests of the few are more important than those of the many.
Indeed, for the rage farmer, anger is an end unto itself. As much as helping their side to win (and the other side to lose), animosity is the desired result. Rationality and compromise are treated as vices, not virtues.
While it is by no means endemic or exclusive to conservative groups, rage farming has become increasingly popular among right-wing operatives. The consequences are only exacerbated by algorithms promoting sensationalist content and siloing conversations, with social media companies and influencers — like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones and others — benefiting financially.
Homegrown examples
Canada has also proven fertile ground for rage farming. In 2022, prairie premiers spread disinformation about the legal role of federal environmental officials on private lands, for instance, raising anger among right-wing farmers. Federal conservatives have peddled similar disinformation about looming fertilizer cuts. This rhetoric, along with COVID-19 conspiracy theories, allegedly influenced a man who physically confronted Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in Grande Prairie, Alberta.
Similar tropes coincide with an increasing number of incidents of political violence, including gravel attacks on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Other examples include a concerted effort last year to intimidate and organize against women of colour journalists writing about politics.
Not all rage-farming results in violence, of course. Some of it amounts to mainstream deception. Columnist Deveryn Ross catalogues some of the cases involving Pierre Poilievre, including the apparently fabricated story of Mustafa from Calgary — a man who supposedly missed his wedding because “Trudeau’s passport offices are broken.” Tweets like this are among the most viewed and shared on the Conservative leader’s account.
As its name suggests, rage farming works best when it cultivates anger among its targets. Temper-inducing headlines, memes and statements tend to encourage the audience to seek out even more inflammatory information, thus prolonging the rage and deepening the target’s connection with them. In this sense, playing off anger is more effective than drawing on anxiety or fear when it comes to building a loyal following.
This is one of the reasons political operatives are enticed by rage farming. Beyond votes, it can help them cultivate a larger and more devoted membership and donor base. This creates a vicious cycle, of sorts. In order to maintain the allegiance of their followers, rage farmers must drum up more anger. This pursuit often results in the generation of conspiracy theories and spreading of disinformation, as amping up outrage requires increasingly more outrageous claims.
Four ways to subdue rage farming
What can we do to slow the tide of rage farming? The first step is to identify how, when and where it is happening. Distinguishing it from “politics as usual” can be difficult; political tactics exist on a spectrum of nefariousness. When we see or suspect it, however, we should call it out for what it is: a deliberate attempt to manipulate voters into becoming angry. Related to this, Canadians must realize that rage-baiting is not normal or productive, and that there are alternatives.
Second, beyond refraining from the tactic themselves, members of the press and the rage farmer’s own party should hold politicians accountable for engaging in rage farming. In response to the “straight pride” photos, National Observer columnist Max Fawcett rightly urged reporters to press Poilievre and Smith for specific reasons as to why they disagreed with the man in the neon-green shirt. Allowing them to blandly disagree with the sentiment or to assert that they were unaware of the statement in the first place allows leaders to save face among less extreme members of their base, while still allowing them to reap the rewards of the rage that’s been sown. If leaders know they must defend their actions, it establishes a proactive form of accountability.
Third, Canadians should turn away from politicians, influencers, and platforms that sow the seeds of rage and reward others with their votes and business. This is easier said than done, as witnessed by the failure of most anti-Musk Twitter users to deactivate their accounts. Many of us continue to rely on social media and certain political parties as the best option. Regulating the social media giants is a possible solution. But until Canadians create economic and electoral disincentives for rage farming, it will persist.
Fourth, politicians and their staff need to appreciate the deeper risks involved with rage farming. Beyond fanning flames they cannot control — as Jason Kenney discovered — the continued deterioration of democratic discourse leads in ominous directions. Harassment of women, people of colour, and other traditionally marginalized groups is often the product of rage-farming. And it can sometimes lead to targeted violence or even attempts at insurrection. Only rage farmers and their most avid consumers would agree that those are acceptable byproducts of democratic discourse.
Once we are able to see rage farming for the manipulative tactic that it is, we can begin to bring democratic discourse back to its rightful place, rooted in understanding and building broader common ground to address the many challenges facing our society.
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The core issue at hand is preserving their agency and autonomy over the ideological content of their children’s education
As parents’ voices grow louder, there’s a perception in the progressive left that all of these emerging movements are rooted and inspired by “far-right” extremism. Many in leftist circles suggest that parental rights advocacy is a dog-whistle: a veiled attempt to advance anti-transgender policies. A recently leaked video from an Ontario Federation of Labour meeting offers a glimpse into how some of the province’s most influential union members perceive these protests. As one member notably stated during the meeting: “The fascists are organizing in the streets … . This is far more than a far-right transphobic protest. They’re fundamentally racist, they’re fundamentally anti-union, they are fundamentally transphobic, and it’s just a matter of time before they come for us.”
It’s a grave mistake to deride the parental collective pushing back against the status-quo as fascist sympathizers motivated by transgender hate. A glance past such alarmist rhetoric reveals that — while a fringe group of hate has always existed — the concerns many parents are championing are much more moderate than a “far-right” moniker suggests.
For many parents, the core issue at hand is preserving their agency and autonomy over the ideological content of their children’s education. They want transparency about what is being taught, the option to excuse their child from content they believe doesn’t align with their values, and the discretion to determine age-appropriateness for activities, such as certain reading material or events like drag queen performances at schools. Perhaps least surprisingly, parents want to be involved in the key decisions of their own child undergoing a social transition in the classroom.
The matter of social transition behind parents’ backs in particular is so condemning of their role in upbringing that it has thrust the entire gamut of gender identity matters into the national spotlight, revealing just how out of balance transgender accommodation has become. The manner in which the left has responded — by doubling down in their rhetoric and deriding parents as militant zealots, has played powerfully into the rapid growth of this grassroots movement.
Many parents, even amid those who will stand in protest, have little desire to limit other families’ decisions regarding gender teachings and expression for their children. They realize that their objective of ensuring their own parental autonomy is intertwined with safeguarding those same freedoms for other families as well.
So where do we go from here? What might a balanced approach to parental rights look like within the nuanced landscape of gender identity politics? Fortunately, we need not start from scratch; history offers us a model for the coexistence of diverse ideologies within our educational institutions. Look no further than religion.
Amid religious diversity, we teach acceptance. Students are taught to make space for varied faith expression among their peers, whether through clothing or other customs, and with a strong desire to maintain neutral, religious symbols are not adorned by the institution. The lesson for students is to embrace and include, even where personal beliefs diverge; Meanwhile, the guiding principle for the institution is to avoid actions that display favouritism toward any specific religious doctrine.
Such a solution could address a significant portion of the concerns fuelling the rising parental unrest. Moderate parents would applaud such an education system, and this would still be inclusive of transgender students. But in order for this to be realized, the two factions moving ever further apart will first need to come to the table and talk. Given the recent rhetoric from progressive quarters, the prospect of this dialogue anytime soon appears distant.
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A month after Global Affairs Canada told CBC News it was looking into claims that the Polish government asked one of its diplomats in Canada to gather information on a former Alberta cabinet minister, the dismissed consul general at the centre of the affair says he still hasn’t heard from the department on the matter.
Andrzej Mańkowski told CBC News the only official he has heard from is a B.C. bureaucrat who asked him to return his diplomatic licence plates and identification.
“[Officials with Global Affairs] haven’t tried talking to me,” he said.
Mańkowski showed CBC News a copy of a letter dated Aug. 31 he received from B.C.’s Chief of Protocol for Intergovernmental Relations Lucy Lobmeier asking him to turn in his identity card and to return his diplomatic plates “within 30 days of this letter.” She also thanked him for his service.
Mańkowski alleges he was dismissed from his post in late July after he refused to carry out orders from the Polish government to gather information about Thomas Lukaszuk, a former deputy premier of Alberta who often provides commentary to CBC News about the province’s politics.
“It’s clear that Polish diplomacy during Communist times, the main responsibility was to collect information, to gather information on some Polish representatives abroad,” Mańkowski said, adding he felt as if the request was a throwback to that time.
“The analogy’s extremely evident.”
Last month, Global Affairs Canada said it was taking the allegations seriously.
Spying allegations ‘out of this world’: ambassador
In August, Lukaszuk said he believed he had been targeted by Poland’s department of foreign affairs over his activism against a controversial Polish pastor, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who has private radio and television stations in Poland.
Rydzyk, who has ties to the Polish government, has been criticized for delivering sermons featuring homophobic and anti-Semitic views and for preaching against the European Union.
Lukaszuk also shared what he said were encrypted messages Polish government officials sent to Mańkowski asking him over the course of a year to prepare notes on the former Alberta politician.
CBC News has not independently verified these messages were official government communications. Mańkowski did not dispute their veracity in his interview.
“Asking for my opinion about Lukaszuk was just a kind of trap, was just a political test of my loyalty,” he said.
Poland’s Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski called the allegation “totally absurd.”
“The idea of Polish diplomacy spying on a former provincial politician … it’s really out of this world,” Dzielski said.
He said he has never met Lukaszuk and did not know of his previous career in politics before Lukaszuk emailed him about an unrelated consular matter long before the reports about Mańkowski came out.
Dzielski said that if the notes cited by Lukaszuk are real, they were leaked illegally because they would constitute private diplomatic communications.
The affair has captured attention in Polish media, where the story first broke.
In July, Polish opposition politicians cited the messages released by Lukaszuk when they asked Piotr Wawrzyk, a secretary of state in the government’s foreign affairs department, whether Mańkowski was dismissed because he refused to spy on Lukaszuk.
In reply, Wawrzyk said the government could recall a diplomat who refused to carry out an assignment.
Wawrzyk, who was also a deputy foreign minister, has since been fired himself over an unrelated matter both local media outlets and Reuters have linked to a clandestine scheme awarding migrants visas in exchange for cash.
On Saturday, The Associated Press noted he had been hospitalized following an apparent sucide attempt.
“The minister, Wawrzyk, was laid off because of a totally different subject,” Dzielski said.
He pointed out that those documents were cited by opposition politicians in the context of a heated election campaign.
Dzielski� also said it’s normal for diplomats to be asked to gather information on notable members of diaspora communities.
‘A very marginal conversation’
“We are working very closely with them,” he said. “It is obvious and natural, and it is an element of diplomatic workshops, that we provide and we build ourselves opinions about the quality of cooperation with particular actors.”
He said Global Affairs has spoken to him about the allegations. “We had a very marginal conversation on this which reflects the level of seriousness of this topic,” he said.
A NATO member, Poland has worked closely with Canada to help out its neighbour Ukraine ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year.
Asked for comment, Global Affairs said in a media statement it “continues to work closely with security and intelligence community partners to assess the situation and identify next steps as appropriate.”
The department said last month it had contacted Lukaszuk and that it took the responsibility of protecting Canadians from “transnational repression” very seriously.
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The Current20:05Putting politics aside to tackle the housing crisis
Political leaders of all stripes must find a way to work together to solve the housing and climate crises impacting Canadians, says former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt.
“Toronto is the best example. NDP mayor, provincial premier who’s Conservative, federal Liberal who’s the prime minister,” said Raitt, co-lead of the new non-governmental Task Force for Housing and Climate, which launched Tuesday.
“And if they don’t figure this out, one voter is going to punish them all.”
The new task force is concerned with accelerating the construction of new homes, while ensuring that’s done in a sustainable way. In a press release, the group of former city mayors, planners, developers, economists and affordable housing advocates said it intends to convene until April 2024 to develop policy recommendations. The work is supported by the Clean Economy Fund, a charitable foundation.
Raitt held several senior cabinet posts under former prime minister Stephen Harper. But as co-lead of the task force, Raitt said she won’t engage in the political partisanship that she thinks “poisons the well” around these issues.
“Part of the reason why we’re coming together as the task force is to have a real pragmatic and practical conversation about these issues instead of weaponizing it into a political arena, and finger pointing back and forth,” she told The Current’s Matt Galloway.
Justin Trudeau announced funding to build more housing in London, Ont., as he and Liberal MPs kicked off their caucus retreat. The agreement comes as the government faces growing pressure to help make housing more affordable.
Canada needs to build an extra 3.5 million new units by the end of the decade, over and above what’s already in the works, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. A report this week showed rental costs have increased 9.6 per cent from Aug. 2022 to 2023, to an average now of $2,117 a month.
This week, the federal government announced it would cut the federal goods and services tax (GST) from the construction of new rental apartments, in an effort to spur new development. The Liberal government also pledged $74 million to build thousands of homes in London, Ont., — the first in what it hopes will be a series of agreements to accelerate housing construction.
Speaking in London on Wednesday, Housing Minister Sean Fraser called on municipalities to “legalize housing,” urging them to remove “sluggish permit-approval processes” and zoning obstacles if they expect federal investment in housing construction.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took aim at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s housing plans Thursday, saying the Liberal government’s ‘inflationary deficits’ and ‘taxes and bureaucracy’ are holding back construction of new homes.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre criticized the government’s plans as not going far enough, while pointing out it echoes some of his party’s proposals. He’s proposed measures that tie federal funding to the number of housing starts. Funding would be withheld from cities that fail to increase the number of homes built by 15 per cent, while cities that pass that threshold would receive bonuses.
Poilievre’s proposals also include a “NIMBY” fine on municipalities that block construction because of opposition from local residents, and the sale of 15 per cent of federally owned buildings so the land can be used to build affordable homes.
Don Iveson, former mayor of Edmonton and co-lead of the task force, said he understands why partisan politics can creep into the debate — but Canadians expect more.
He said the task force intends “to help all orders of government” understand what’s needed to tackle these problems from an economic, technical and planning perspective.
“We’re not going to be able to solve the housing crisis [by] building housing the way we built it for the last several generations,” said said Iveson, who was mayor of Edmonton from 2013 to 2021.
Your kids need a place to live: Raitt
Iveson said the challenge of scaling up housing construction will require some new ways of thinking.
That might mean a greater emphasis on automation and building houses from components prefabricated off-site, which he described as “essentially a more factory approach” that could also reduce construction costs.
Raitt said the task force will examine where houses are built, and in what kind of density, to ensure scaling up can “get the most bang for the buck.”
That might mean Canadians might need to have difficult conversations, including whether to build multi-storey buildings instead of single-family homes.
Raitt said older Canadians who already own their own homes might not like the idea of taller buildings going up around them, but they should speak to their kids about it.
CBC’s Sohrab Sandhu reports on an unorthodox strategy where some people are deciding to buy homes with strangers.
“They don’t care if it’s going to be four, six storeys in a residential neighbourhood. They just want a place that they know that they can purchase,” she said.
“Talk about whether or not our kids are going to have a place to live, let alone rent, let alone own, let alone a house in the communities where they were brought up, because right now it’s not looking so good.”
Counting the cost of climate change
When it comes to climate change and sustainability, the task force’s goals come down to a “very simple equation,” Raitt said.
“Whatever we’re building now is going to be here in 2050. So if it’s going to be part of the calculation of our net-zero aspirations, whatever they’re going to be,” she said.
She said the task force will work to formulate ways to build housing that take emissions into account, but don’t include prohibitive costs that slow down the rate of construction.
“It’s going to be a little bit more costly to build with climate indications built in … but you’ve got to make sure that there’s policies surrounding that to make sure it still makes it affordable,” she said.
Officials say the fire, which is burning out of control as of Monday morning, is expected to grow.
Iveson said wildfires, floods, heat domes and extreme weather events are already disrupting the economy, as well as posing huge financial burdens for the Canadians caught up in them.
“Climate change is already costing us a fortune,” he told Galloway.
Building without those climate considerations “maybe seems affordable in the short term, but it’s false economy when it comes to the real costs ahead of us,” he said.
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