Thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity.
Evan, thanks for providing a good segue for me. I really want to emphasize the lessons we can learn about the far right movement more broadly from their engagement in the convoys or the occupation.
There are really four points I want to stress here. One is what it tells us about their organizational capacity. We really saw the capacity to organize, in a Canadian context, unlike we've ever seen it before, on a large scale, largely facilitated by both the encrypted and unencrypted social media platform. That theme will sort of be running through what I say today, because that was also the venue through which they were able to display this adeptness that they really have in terms of their ability to exploit broader popular concerns, grievances and anxieties and weave them into their own narratives. As well, there are the implications of social media platforms for the deployment and, disturbingly, the ready acceptance of the sorts of disinformation, conspiracy theories, etc. that we see underlying much of far-right activism but particularly in the context of the convoy and COVID much more broadly, as Evan suggested.
The convoy and the occupation also tell us a great deal about the risks and threats associated with the right-wing movement in Canada. Obviously we have the threats to public safety, as we saw in Ottawa in particular, not just in terms of the disruption of the whole downtown community but also in terms of the harassment, the hate crime, the threats, the intimidation of people of colour or LGBTQ+ people or even people who were wearing masks in the downtown area.
We see threats to national security. Obviously the fact that they occupied that space so close to Parliament Hill is paramount, but also very important to keep in mind is the threat to border security that we saw in the border blockades, especially with the discovery of the artillery and weapons in Coutts associated with far-right groups.
On dangers to democracy, there's obviously the threat that Evan referred to in terms of attempts to overthrow a democratic government, but even more broadly than that the far right in this context is also very concerned with enhancing that erosion of an array of key institutions—surely the state but also science, media and education and academe as well.
The next point, the final key point in terms of the pattern, is the failure of law enforcement in this context to properly evaluate and prepare and understand the risks associated with the far right and, more broadly again, their failure to intervene and counter right-wing extremism generally. In fact, in the convoy and in other contexts, we've seen sympathy for the far right, and here, with the fundraising donations coming from law enforcement. We've seen social media platforms and pages that are devoted to law enforcement also sharing some of these conspiracy theories and this disinformation.
The last point I want to make is about what the points of intervention are, given what I've identified here as some of the key lessons. The first is the need to enhance not just critical digital literacy but civic literacy as well. There was an awful lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about the nature of the charter, about the role of the Governor General, about how governments operate generally. Both of those pieces are important.
Another point of intervention is around the law enforcement/intelligence community enhancing their awareness, their capacity and their willingness to intervene around right-wing extremism.
Finally, there is a need to create opportunities and incentives to engage in civil dialogue and engage across partisan sides whether we are talking about the general public or whether we are talking about politics.
I will end there. Thank you.