Canadian Journalism and Fascism

“We have liberated them from fascism, and they will never forgive us for that.”
-Georgy Zhukov, Berlin, 1945.

On the Frontlines

Just outside of Victoria Park Collegiate Institute in the district of North York, on Friday September 22, anti-trans activists showed up to flex their muscle against the nebulous boogeyman of “gender ideology.”

This was the second GTA event in a week I was covering that was held under the “One Million Man March For Children” banner. The first took place at Queen’s Park on Wednesday the 20th.

I entered the counter-protest crowd to report and show support in the limited way I could on the job. One demonstrator held up a sign I found compelling, so I asked if I could take a picture. As I did, someone approached immediately and warned me about posting photos. I showed them as I cropped it to block out any identification. “Just be careful,” they warned.

After I had spent some time by the south wall of protesters, I went back into the middle of the now-widening blockade and pulled out my personal recorder. An anti-trans protester had attempted to get through the southwest corner and was crying assault to the cops when the people (that he tried to push through) pushed back. I began dictating as a second organizer approached me and wanted to know what I was doing. I turned off the recording and explained I was a reporter with TMU. They asked what that was, and my response of “It used to be Ryerson” placated them. I asked a question of protester numbers and thanked them as they left to keep tabs on other things.

I don’t waffle about which side I support (it’s the ones fighting to keep trans kids safe), but I can only do so much while also reporting on the situation. I’ll gladly wave 2SLGBTQIA+ flags, hold up banners, chant “death to fascists” and unabashedly explain my position to anyone who asks in clear terms. I’m not just a reporter, I’m a human being who understands where this rhetoric leads and what needs to be done to combat it.

That being said, I am a reporter and when I’m doing that work, that brings certain limits. Those limits often conflict with my values. This happened when two people broke through the north wall of counter protesters. A third organizer asked me to help expel one. Much as I would have liked to help, I explained that I was a reporter and my hands were tied on physically laying hands on people. They put their request in simple terms: “Then leave.”

I obliged.

There is no ill-will on my end. In fact, while I may not be glad that I was asked to leave, I understood it perfectly. Journalism has proved itself to be an enemy of progress in this fight. Since I’m not an identifiable or known quantity, there is no way to be sure that a reporter in the demonstration would cover things accurately. The safest option is to not allow coverage. As would be proven concretely in the House of Commons mere hours from then, this was the right move.

Nazi Praise in Parliament

On that same Friday, shortly after I left the protest, the Canadian government gave a standing ovation to a Waffen-SS soldier.

Speaker of the House Anthony Rota introduced Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, as having fought during WWII “for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” The chamber rose to an applause that lasted almost 20 seconds.

At the time, Russia and Ukraine were part of the USSR, allies to Canada, and enemies of Nazi Germany. That enemy and its ideology saw millions of people murdered, countless massacres carried out, and destruction on a scale never seen in human history. We know the Waffen-SS helped to perpetuate this genocide.

Rota apologized, but only after Jewish organizations officially demanded one. This followed an online backlash that found the roots of this Nazi that were easy to track down. He claimed he was unaware that the Nazi veteran was a Nazi.

“I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to [honour Hunka]. I wish to make clear that no one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them.”

Put simply, I don’t believe Rota. He’s either ignorant enough to not be aware of the basic history of WWII, or he knew and continued anyway. Rota should resign. I sent him an email saying as such. If you agree with that sentiment, you can send one too. The rest of Parliament should face consequences as well, as those reasons for Rota’s resignation also apply to those who applauded this Nazi.

But where was the news coverage before the apology?

Nowhere I could find.

It first spread on Twitter, then to other online circles. People who don’t have rocks in their brain heard that he fought against Russia in WWII and did the very easy work to parse out what that means. Then outlets like Forward identified Hunka in a photo of the SS Galichina. The news media only felt it worthy of reporting after official organizations made it impossible to ignore. “Canadian Parliament applauds Nazi veteran” apparently is not enough of a headline. If you can find coverage on the 22nd that highlights this from any of our big outlets, feel free to prove me wrong.

So when I told the organizer I was a reporter, why wouldn’t they ask me to leave? When our news media ecosystem ignores fascism this blatant, how can those fighting its rise expect anything different? They can’t. They shouldn’t.

News Media and Rising Fascism

Meanwhile, a confrontation at Friday’s protest plastered right-wing outlets like the Toronto Sun, who used language like “pro family values supporters,” “Antifa markings,” and calls for “acceptable compromises” to cover for the hate movements. All the while they lament that violence arose from a movement associated with another that plans for violence.

We know that the organizers of these protests are bigots. We know that the event was propagated by prominent right-wing internet personalities. We know that the panic about children is used to target queer people, and trans people specifically in this instance. We also know that fascists will doxx attendees if they don’t protect their identities, leading to precautionary measures by counter-protesters.

If one thinks that my vocal support of trans people is a conflict in reporting, while institutional journalists can omit facts like this and stay silent when fascism is praised in our halls of power, they’re either blind or ignorant.

It’s become a common joke that the media will use “both sides” language over and over and over when covering conflicts like the One Million Man March. Not only that, but the omission of the roots of these movements becomes more glaring once its presence is known. The information I mentioned early is clearly available and done by journalists who have investigated the roots of this protest. Yet, in most coverage, this simply isn’t discussed. While the reporting of these events was not uniformly awful from all media outlets, even these better pieces still left out reporting the concerted effort behind organizing this hate.

That coverage also doesn’t account for news media’s role in allowing this to fester in the first place. Stories on these events present attendees and differing viewpoints as equally valid. “These debates are simply a disagreement, with little material effect. Why must things get so heated?” seems to be the general attitude. If these right-wing movements received the in-depth coverage they deserved, they would not have reached this level of support. Put another way, if the goal of our journalist ecosystem was to highlight fascism and its threats, they would have done it immediately after the standing ovation of the Waffen SS soldier in Parliament.

On Wednesday, the self-appointed preacher for the rally took to the crowd. He shouted about how God says there are two genders in the bible, and that it’s not for us to question the word of the Lord. He declared he was “sick and tired” of being called a bigot and hateful.

But who was calling him hateful and a bigot? It isn’t news media. They’ve covered this movement in the most tepid of terms, at best calling it broadly “Anti-trans” or “Anti-LGBTQ.” Even when this is done, “bigoted” or “hateful” is rarely, if ever, used by mainstream news outlets. Even literal Nazi veterans are only described as such on sufferance. More likely, the people calling him these things are online, where these far-right people spend most their time. I’d seen this level of meltdown before on Twitter.

But here, this man was not on Twitter. This man was in Canada’s most populated province, before the provincial seat of power. The crowd hung on his every word, whether in disgust or agreement. That’s when he proclaimed “Free speech is lost in Canada” on his P.A system to the crowd.

As he said this, a CP24 news crew walked by me, headed towards the crowd of anti-trans protesters who were shouting their agreement that free speech was dead.

If the news media had done their supposed job, this man may still have been shouting, but his crowd would be negligible. If the news media had done their supposed job, people would understand the intricacies of gender, its fluidity and the harm these hateful movements pose. If the news media had done their supposed job, pro-trans demonstrators might trust a reporter in their midsts. If the news media had done their supposed job, we would have known the House of Commons praised a fascist the moment it happened.

But that’s assuming the job of the news media is to inform us and provide context to events that threaten democracy and our safety.

That’s what they claim. As we’ve seen this past week, that’s not what they do.