Extremism Expert Stephanie Carvin on the Convoys and How To Respond to Them

Basic policing goes a long way

Welcome back to Lucid. Mark your calendars for our next live Q&A, on Friday, Feb. 18, 1-2pmET. Registration information for the Zoom call will be sent on Friday morning. Registration is free, your information will not be used for any other purpose, and the event is not recorded. I look forward to seeing you there,

I am pleased to bring you this interview with Stephanie Carvin, who is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. She is a specialist in international law, security, terrorism and technology. Her most recent book is Science, Law, Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare: The Quest for Humanity in Conflict (Cambridge, 2015) co-authored with Michael J. Williams. From 2012-2015, she was an analyst with the Government of Canada focusing on national security issues. Our conversation took place on Feb. 14, 2022, and has been edited for clarity and flow.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat (RBG): As an expert on extremism, you have been a trusted guide for the public as the convoy protest has unfolded in Canada. How do you see this movement? The rallies have created a space for unaffiliated people who have grievances about vaccines to mix with the far right.

Stephanie Carvin (SC): First, we've seen an escalation of tactics. This hasn't come out of nowhere. Maybe people don't think of Canada as having a lot of far-right problems, but we have a big history of this, with individuals who have Islamophobic, antisemitic, conspiratorial, and QAnon world views. In 2019, they tried to organize a similar convoy. It was framed around the issue of oil and gas, but it was really a conspiracy theory about migration and the United Nations supposedly engaging in White genocide.

Now, if you fast forward a few years, everyone has gone through the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike other countries, Canada has taken a serious approach to lockdowns. We still have strong mask mandates, and we have vaccine passports. People are tired of these things. So the grievances of this movement are very understandable to the larger Canadian public.

And then we've seen a number of extremist groups who are more interested in mayhem than mandates come into this movement for the purpose of recruiting and because they think it's fun to torture the city with noise, chaos, and trucks. And politicians from mainstream parties have openly aligned themselves with these groups, which legitimizes extremist tactics. That is going to have long term consequences.

RBG: We know all about those consequences in the US! What has surprised you about this convoy movement?

SC: I didn't expect it to be this successful, in that it brings together extremists, religious movements, fringe politicians, and the far-right media.

The success of the crowdfunding effort also surprised me. So much money has been raised, including from outside of Canada. The thing about GoFundMe is that it's a vehicle for giving away money, but over time it actually became a symbol of resistance, a way of keeping the movement alive. So it's really good that the government has moved to shut down these resources.

RBG: The Canadian convoy is a case study for governments and policy analysts in how to deal with extremists and also a case study in crisis management. You said in a CBC radio interview that the protest showed how unprepared the police were to deal with this kind of hybrid extremist crowd.

SC: I'm not a policing expert, but speaking as someone who lives in Ottawa, I can say that watching the city not react in any way to this protest raises questions. Were they briefed on who these people were? I mean, it's not like the organizers were shy about their intentions. They literally said, we're going to have trucks and we're going to occupy the streets of Ottawa, and we're not going to leave.

We'd been writing about them for months. So why were the police either unaware or, if they were aware, why did they not take them at their word? We've seen calls for the military to intervene, or for other harsher measures, but I'm trying to advocate for the use of non-kinetic tools to solve this.

For example, what we call administrative law, which is the law of regulations: you're using your truck to occupy a city? Well, you can't do that with your driver's license. Therefore, if you don't leave, your driver's license will be suspended.

These are very basic nonviolent tools. They won't convince people who are committed to overthrowing the government, but I think they would work for a lot of people who have commercial interests and livelihoods to protect.

RBG: That's certainly a less explosive way to handle it.

SC: When the police just do basic policing, these movements have been shocked. On the second weekend, the police went into one of the camps and confiscated fuel and other resources. It was one of the few moves that we've seen to make these guys uncomfortable. And people complied, they did not resist. So, there's a lot that basic policing can do.

RBG: In fact, few of these activists have paid any real price for what they've done.

SC: The reason that so many people who want to destabilize societies are looking at it from abroad also is that they see this is the case and they feel empowered. And I think that's why it's been exported. All of these movements have had transnational ties for years, but now the Canadians have innovated and that innovation is being adopted by groups in France, New Zealand, Australia and there's talk now in the United States as well. I think the city of Ottawa has a lot to answer for.

RBG: What's been the role of social media in fueling this extremism?

SC: Social media has given people a sense of connectivity, a sense of belonging, at a time when we've been forced to be separated. A lot of writing on extremism talks about the quest for significance. These people feel like they're part of something far beyond themselves. And they're live streaming 24/7.

The world's eyes are turned to Canada and since Canada is a very boring country (laughs) this doesn't happen a lot. They are getting support from countries in Europe, in South America, and that has almost certainly energized this movement in a way that we've never seen before in Canada.

Will this actually become a Canadian Tea Party type movement? That will depend on whether anyone faces charges. They may also fight over money and resources: money can help a movement succeed, but it can also tear a movement apart.

And what will be the central issue? Right now, they are united in their opposition to Trudeau, but he won't be there forever. Are they going to be able to frame their grievances around something else?

We just don't know yet if this is going to be a political force. We're having these conversations today, but I'm really interested in the conversations we'll be having six months to a year from now.