The Canadian ‘Newest’ Right

Is the Far Right Redrawing the Boundaries of Mainstream Politics?

There seems to have been a re-making of conservative politics in 21st century Canada. Most mainstream Canadian conservative parties, both federal and provincial, long ago abandoned their post-war pragmatic centrism and moved into ideological spaces we might call authoritarian neoliberalism. This shift has found some measurable traction among sections of the Canadian working class. In part, this reflects the retreat of social democracy from explicitly class politics and organizing, the weakness of the labour movement and the larger inability to create a significant political space beyond social democracy.

In short, 40 years of working class disorganization has provided the hard Right with opportunities to present itself as the vehicle to carry working class anger and anxiety with a world that is increasingly volatile.

What can we on the socialist Left do to understand and help to begin to challenge this?

Presentation by Bryan Evans. Introduced and moderated by Herman Rosenfeld.

Recorded in Toronto, 19 October 2022.