(LifeSiteNews) — During testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women last week, senior officials with CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service – stated that “anti-feminist ideology is becoming ‘increasing relevant’ to Canada’s national security landscape and may lead to radicalization and violent extremism, but added that the ideology alone does not yet rise to the level of a security threat,” according to Global News.
The Standing Committee on the Status of Women invited CSIS to testify because it is currently “conducting a study on the anti-feminism movement that has sprung up in some online circles and advocates for regressive roles for women in society and relationships.”
The director-general of assessments at the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, identified only as Luc, stated that “anti-feminist ideology is increasingly relevant to Canada’s national security landscape.”
“However, our assessments indicate that in certain contexts, anti-feminist ideology can function as an enabling factor along pathways to violent extremism. These narratives can provide grievance frameworks that legitimize hostility toward women and gender equality, and elements of them are consistent with those observed in ideologically motivated violent extremism.”
Definitions here are important. What does ITAC and CSIS mean by “anti-feminist ideology”? Is it merely holding “traditional beliefs” about gender, as the RCMP indicated last year? Are they monitoring extremist groups and ideology, or are they labeling traditional religious beliefs as extremist?
The answer appears to be both. Global News noted that The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women “says it has identified a rise of regressive and anti-feminist groups in Canada in recent years, which use social media and online platforms to spread their messages and recruit members,” defining “regressive” in part as favoring a “romanticized” vision of the past:
These regressive ideologies blame the current problems we face today on progressive policies and activism, and women’s rights and social justice organizations, rather than on ongoing structural inequality and injustice.
The CSIS representative reassuring stated that “the fact that you’re an anti-feminist does not necessarily mean that you are inherently violent or a violent extremist,” although he does find that “abhorrent” and “controversial.” There is no indication of where feminists who oppose gender ideology fit into this threat analysis.
The director-general for counterterrorism echoed the sentiments. “The vast majority of Canadians are not within our purview,” he said. “We’re talking about a small number of individuals in the country that are ready to act on their ideology.”
Despite these reassuring statements from CSIS that their beef is not with individual Canadians, their recent track record – and that of Canadian law enforcement – is not encouraging. Consider:
- CSIS has led a contingent in the Ottawa Pride Parade, with representatives hoisting the LGBT banner. This act of public fealty to the LGBT movement reflects their internal commitment to viewing those who oppose LGBT ideology as enemies. They also hosted a series of LGBT events last year.
- CSIS and Canada’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) believe that the growing parental rights movement is a “violent threat” to Canada, citing parental protests against radical LGBT education as one example and lumping them in with genuinely violent actors.
- The RCMP, as I noted recently in this space, has also identified people who hold “traditional beliefs” as potential threats.
- CSIS published a memo in 2015 absurdly claiming that pro-life activists are frequently linked to terrorist attacks.
- Conversely, CSIS has declined to state whether the dozens of churches across Canada that have been attacked, vandalized or burned down since 2021 are being investigated as acts of terrorism.
It appears that holding “traditional views,” opposing LGBT ideology in general and transgender ideology in particular, and working with a pro-life group means that in the eyes of Canada’s top spy agency, your worldview is “abhorrent” although not yet illegal –and with Mark Carney’s Bill C-9, it is easy to see how that could change.
