An anti-government, pro-gun movement linked to recent violence in the U.S. is gaining supporters in Canada — prompting warnings from experts over their often hateful, violent remarks against protesters, police and Ottawa’s new firearms restrictions.
In the U.S, Boogaloos have recently been in the spotlight, after some showed up heavily armed at anti-lockdown and Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
There are no reports of Boogaloos at Canadian protests. But online, the nascent movement has inspired at least two Facebook pages where followers have recently talked about killing protesters and RCMP officers alike.
The Facebook pages identified by CBC News were created in the past six months and in that time grew to around 800 followers each.
That kind of support is cause for concern, say experts like Alexander Reid Ross, a postdoctoral fellow with the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right in Portland, Ore.
“People need very little to do a whole lot of damage,” Ross said.
A screenshot of a Canadian Boogaloo page on Facebook which has since been taken down. (Facebook)
Ross said he started to see more activity by Canadians on sites frequented by Boogaloo supporters in the wake of the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, and the resulting tighter restrictions on firearms.
While it is impossible to know where all of them come from, many of the people interacting with the Facebook pages list locations in Canada in their profiles. Others list locations in the U.S. or other countries.
The administrator of one page, who refused to be identified, told CBC News that nearly half of its followers were located in Canada. The page, which CBC News has decided not to name, has 854 followers and is managed by accounts in Canada, according to Facebook’s transparency data.
Another page, the K/razy Kanucks Big Kanadian Igloo, had attracted nearly 800 followers before Facebook removed it last week, following an inquiry from CBC News, saying it contravened its community standards against violence and incitement.
The unnamed page, however, is still up and includes posts that threaten police and talk about harming protesters.
On June 13, one of page’s moderators posted that “pink misting” protesters would “really slap,” above a meme critical of protestors in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Pink misting is slang for either killing someone with an explosive or a sniper’s bullet.
Another post links to a story about a 26-year-old woman killed in a police shooting in Edmundston, N.B., and the line, “This is why we need guns” — a reference to Canadians defending themselves against police.
While many of the posts on the pages viewed by CBC News were reshared from American groups, others discuss events in Canada.
Several were critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, objecting to the government’s tougher gun rules or mocking his criticism of unconscious bias and anti-Black racism.
Others are critical of police or the government in general, including one post that jokingly referred to using “claymore Roombas” to blow up an RCMP armoured vehicle.
One post opposed the federal government’s plan to accept more immigrants after the pandemic is over. Another criticized Chinese investors buying Canadian farmland.
Banned by Facebook
While some American Boogaloo supporters openly advocate for a second civil war in the U.S., the administrator who spoke to CBC said he thinks political change should follow the proper democratic process. He said his page is meant to be about memes and humour.
But Facebook says it is taking anything referring to the Boogaloo movement seriously.
“We continue to remove content using Boogaloo and related terms when accompanied by statements and images depicting armed violence,” Facebook Canada spokeswoman Meg Sinclair said in a statement.
“We are also preventing these Pages and groups from being recommended on Facebook.”
On Tuesday Facebook said it was banning all Boogaloo content.
Facebook recently lost $56 billion in market value as advertisers like Mountain Equipment Co-op, Coca-Cola and Lulemon leaveover concerns it isn’t doing enough to police hate speech and disinformation.
On Reddit and Instragram, Canadian references to the Boogaloo movement are generally found on subreddits or accounts frequented by firearms enthusiasts. Some show photos of users posing with their firearms, and mentioning boogaloo.
Boogaloo supporters span a wide range of political ideologies according to Barbara Perry, a criminologist specializing in hate crime at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. (CBC)
Reddit spokesperson Sierra Gamelgaard said the platform has been banning Boogaloo-associated communities since spring.
“Our site-wide policies explicitly prohibit users and communities from posting content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals,” Gamelgaard said.
The RCMP won’t say whether it is monitoring or investigating Boogaloo supporters in Canada.
“The RCMP does not investigate movements or ideologies, but will investigate the criminal activity of any individuals who threaten the safety and security of Canadians,” said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Caroline Duval in an email to CBC.
‘Waiting for the boogaloo’
While memes and phrases referring to a “boogaloo,” or second U.S. civil war, have been online for many years, the movement has gained prominence in the past few months.
In April, the Tech Transparency Project, a Washington-based group that studies the influence of technology on society, identified more than 125 Facebook groups tied to the movement, and found that more than 60 per cent of them had been created in the previous three months.
The group provided CBC News with examples of Canadian Boogaloo content it had identified, including a Facebook post in April from a Calgary gun store, The Shooting Edge, advertising a shotgun as “your favourite 12ga [gauge] BOOGALOO gun.”
The store made the same post to Instagram in April, along with another about AK-47-themed T-shirts to wear while “waiting for the boogaloo.”
Store owner J.R. Cox says the posts are satirical.
“The thing that we tend to do with our posts is we try not to take ourselves too seriously. We are not preparing for the end of the world and we’re not preparing to get people ready to go to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban,” he said.
There’s a mix of ideologies among people drawn to Boogaloo content, including some anarchists and left-wingers, but most are far-right or libertarian, according to Barbara Perry, director of Ontario Tech University’s Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism
“The thing that binds them, regardless of what their orientation may be, is an anti-statist position. So we see in particular a real concern, a real reaction to gun legislation that restricts firearms,” Perry said.
Perry said some supporters of existing far-right groups in Canada could be attracted to the Boogaloo movement.
“Some of them might be drifting towards the Boogaloo as they see an alignment there with their narratives.”
Boogaloo supporters often use phrases that sound similar — like “big igloos” or “big luaus” — to evade social media monitoring. Some supportershave appeared at U.S. protests heavily armed and wearing Hawaiian shirts, a reference to “big luaus.”
The colourful shirts are in line with the satirical or seemingly innocuous elements sometimes used by extremist groups, according to Kathleen Belew, an associate history professor at the University of Chicago and the author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.
“It follows a much longer thread of organizing, also used by groups like the white power movement, the militia movement, which have used kind of public facing, sometimes funny and acceptable forms to mask what is an inherently violent ideology,” said Belew.
Recent violence in the U.S. included the killing of two law enforcement officers in California, allegedly by a man who scrawled phrases related to the Boogaloo movement on a car, according to NBC.
In May, three veterans were arrested in Las Vegas on terrorism and explosives charges. The FBI alleges they intended to disrupt protests over the death of George Floyd, and were all members of a Nevada Boogaloo Facebook group.
While Canadian supporters haven’t gone that far, Perry says the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, job losses, businesses failing and racial tensions risk increasing Boogaloo support in Canada.
“You put all those layers together, it’s sort of ripe for an acceleration of the movement, an exacerbation of the movement,” she said.
“The fear is that they now take a page from the book of their American counterparts.”
BATHURST, N.B. – RCMP in New Brunswick say a weekend ground search for evidence related to the disappearance of a teenage girl in 2021 didn’t reveal any new information.
In an emailed statement, the RCMP said 20 people participated in the search for evidence in the case of Madison Roy-Boudreau of Bathurst.
The release said the search occurred in the Middle River area, just south of the girl’s hometown.
Police have said the 14-year-old’s disappearance is being treated as a homicide investigation.
The RCMP said the search “did not reveal any new information regarding the circumstances of her disappearance.”
There are no plans for another search until police receive a tip or a lead pointing to a new search area.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
VICTORIA – A middle school in Victoria was forced into a lockdown after a man entered the building without permission, and police say they had to use a stun gun to make an arrest.
Victoria police say officers received multiple calls around noon on Monday of an unknown male entering Central Middle School, leading staff to set off emergency procedures that put the building under lockdown.
Police say its emergency response team arrived within minutes and found the suspect, who “appeared to be in a drug-induced state,” in the school’s library.
A statement from police says the suspect resisted arrest, and officers had to use a Taser to subdue the man.
He’s being held by police and has been assessed by emergency medical staff.
Police say the man was not armed and there were no continuing safety concerns for students and staff following the arrest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver knows what it’s like to form a minority government with the NDP, but says such a deal to create the province’s next administration is less likely this time than seven years ago.
Weaver struck a power-sharing agreement that resulted in John Horgan’s NDP minority government in 2017, but said in an interview Monday there is now more animosity between the two parties.
Neither the NDP nor the B.C. Conservatives secured a majority in Saturday’s election, raising the prospect of a minority NDP government if Leader David Eby can get the support of two Green legislators.
Manual recounts in two ridings could also play an important role in the outcome, which will not be known for about a week.
Weaver, who is no longer a member of the Greens, endorsed a Conservative candidate in his home riding.
He said Eby would be in a better position to negotiate if Furstenau, who lost her seat, stepped aside as party leader.
“I think Mr. Eby would be able to have fresh discussions with fresh new faces around the table, (after) four years of political sniping … between Sonia and the NDP in the B.C. legislature,” he said.
He said Furstenau’s loss put the two elected Greens in an awkward position because parties “need the leader in the legislature.”
Furstenau could resign as leader or one of the elected Greens could step down and let her run in a byelection in their riding, he said.
“They need to resolve that issue sooner rather than later,” he said.
The Green victories went to Rob Botterell in Saanich North and the Islands and Jeremy Valeriote in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.
Neither Botterell nor Valeriote have held seats in the legislature before, Weaver noted.
“It’s not like in 2017 when, you know, I had been in the (legislature) for four years already,” Weaver said, adding that “the learning curve is steep.”
Sanjay Jeram, chair of undergraduate studies in political science at Simon Fraser University, said he doesn’t think it’ll be an “easygoing relationship between (the NDP and Greens) this time around.”
“I don’t know if Eby and Furstenau have the same relationship — or the potential to have the same relationship — as Horgan and Weaver did,” he said. “I think their demands will be a little more strict and it’ll be a little more of a cold alliance than it was in 2017 if they do form an alliance.”
Horgan and Weaver shook hands on a confidence-and-supply agreement before attending a rugby match, where they were spotted sitting together before the deal became public knowledge.
Eby said in his election-night speech that he had already reached out to Furstenau and suggested common “progressive values” between their parties.
Furstenau said in her concession speech that her party was poised to play a “pivotal role” in the legislature.
Botterell said in an election-night interview that he was “totally supportive of Sonia” and he would “do everything I can to support her and the path forward that she chooses to take because that’s her decision.”
The Green Party of Canada issued a news release Monday, congratulating the candidates on their victories, noting Valeriote’s win is the first time that a Green MLA has been elected outside of Vancouver Island.
“Now, like all British Columbians we await the final seat count to know which party will have the best chance to form government. Let’s hope that the Green caucus has a pivotal role,” the release said, echoing Furstenau’s turn of phrase.
The final results of the election won’t be known until at least next week.
Elections BC says manual recounts will be held on Oct. 26 to 28 in two ridings where NDP candidates led B.C. Conservatives by fewer than 100 votes after the initial count ended on Sunday.
The outcomes in Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat could determine who forms government.
The election’s initial results have the NDP elected or leading in 46 ridings, and the B.C. Conservatives in 45, both short of the 47 majority mark in B.C.’s 93-seat legislature.
If the Conservatives win both of the recount ridings and win all other ridings where they lead, Rustad will win with a one-seat majority.
If the NDP holds onto at least one of the ridings where there are recounts, wins the other races it leads, and strikes a deal with the Greens, they would have enough numbers to form a minority government.
But another election could also be on the cards, since the winner will have to nominate a Speaker, reducing the government’s numbers in the legislature by one vote.
Elections BC says it will also be counting about 49,000 absentee and mail-in ballots from Oct. 26 to 28.
The NDP went into the election with 55 ridings, representing a comfortable majority in what was then an 87-seat legislature.
Jeram, with Simon Fraser University, said though the counts aren’t finalized, the Conservatives were the big winners in the election.
“They weren’t really a not much of a formal party until not that long ago, and to go from two per cent of the vote to winning 45 or more seats in the B.C. provincial election is just incredible,” he said in an interview Monday.
Jeram said people had expected Eby to call an election after he took over from John Horgan in 2022, and if he had, he doesn’t think there would have been the same result.
He said the B.C. Conservative’s popularity grew as a result of the decision of the BC Liberals to rebrand as BC United and later drop out.
“Had Eby called an election before that really shook out, and maybe especially before (Pierre) Poilievre, kind of really had the wind in his sails and started to grow, I think he could have won the majority for sure.”
He said he wasn’t surprised by the results of the election, saying polls were fairly accurate.
“Ultimately, it really was a result that we saw coming for a while, since the moment that BC United withdrew and put their support behind the conservatives, I think this was the outcome that was expected.”
— With files from Darryl Greer
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
