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No Nazis allowed at story time
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Canadian Anti-Hate Network writer and research Peter Smith joins host Duncan Kinney to talk about the recent spate of far right protests at all-ages drag reading events and other queer events in Alberta—and the counter-protests that resist them.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to the Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwichiwa Sky again, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory on the banks of the mighty Kasisksawanissippi, or the North Saskatchewan River.
Protests Against Drag Shows
00:00:27
Speaker
Joining us today is Peter Smith, a researcher and reporter with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, who has been covering the ongoing protests against all ages drag shows that are happening really across the country, but have really been localized in Calgary over the past couple of weeks. And this is where kind of Christophashes right-wingers
00:00:46
Speaker
have harassed and protest the participants and the people who show up to these all ages drag shows. It's really awful. It's like fascism on our streets. I'm grateful that Peter Smith is here today to talk to us about it. How are you doing, Peter?
00:01:02
Speaker
It's good, good, Duck, and the world's on fire, but it's nice to finally be here. Yeah. Thank you for coming on the pod, first time guest. Yeah. I mean, you're covering this issue across Canada. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network keeps an eye on this kind of activity across the country, but your attention has really been on Alberta and specifically Calgary for the past few weeks, right?
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Like you've said, it's kind of a phenomenon that is happening across North America, across the UK is having them. But yeah, here in Canada, specifically it seems like Alberta and specifically Calgary has been very active as far as protests to drag events.
00:01:49
Speaker
as well as just anything that could be broadly construed as relating to transgender people, transgender identity, is being pulled in by the gravity of this thing.
Misinformation and Safety Concerns
00:02:01
Speaker
And specifically, what we're talking about here is protests by folks outside of family-friendly drag events. These are often held in libraries or other public spaces. The parents and the guardians are present. And these are framed by the FASH
00:02:16
Speaker
as grooming events where kids are victims of abuse, pedophilia, or sorts of other scary things. But Peter, just for my own edification, what actually happens at these events if they're not being interrupted by middle-aged fucking losers pulling fire alarms or bursting in screaming about repenting for your sins?
00:02:39
Speaker
I'm based in Ontario and I've managed to attend a few of the ones that have happened in my area. This might shock you, but it is a child's event where a person in my experience has donned an excessive amount of clothing.
00:02:57
Speaker
usually a bright, frilly dress or extravagant costume. This is the part that's really going to fuck you up. They read children's stories, sing children's songs, and sometimes there's even arts and crafts. Yeah, it's really shocking stuff, it sounds like. I mean, as a 36-year-old man, it's not generally how I would spend my weekend, my Saturday or my Sunday, but the kids seem to enjoy it.
00:03:26
Speaker
I mean, if someone's going to read to my kid, brilliant, you know, uh, and if I just, all I have to do is go to a library, great. Um, but okay. So that's the kind of what's happening. That's the kind of like structure of it all. How many of these events have been shut down in Calgary because of the, because of these protests and what kind of tactics are they using?
00:03:47
Speaker
I wouldn't be able to give you an exact number because this type of opposition has been going on for a little while. I can certainly say that in the past week or two, I've counted three or four specifically that have been canceled. There's a big outdoor one planned for Olympic Plaza that I remember hearing about, Chinook Blast or whatever.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, so Chinook Blast was one. There was another one that was a drag brunch as opposed to a story reading. And then the other one I wasn't able to identify. That cancellation number comes from somebody else we're going to talk about later in the episode, I assume. But I also don't doubt it.
00:04:31
Speaker
I think that there is a fatigue when it comes to venues hosting these events. They are very supportive, especially libraries. They are very supportive of building inclusivity, having a home for all types of people. But as protests intensify and become more consistent, in some cases when you have a grown man running around inside,
00:04:54
Speaker
They have to start to worry about individual safety. I'm not suggesting they do one thing or another. I certainly like that a lot of these events have gone forward. But I think that there's a real difficulty in that balance. When it comes to their tactics, there's kind of a particular pattern that I've observed. I don't think this is particularly groundbreaking, but I haven't heard it really laid out.
00:05:19
Speaker
So drag events will be announced publicly. The ones I tend to focus on most are the family friendly ones. These are ones that are specifically geared towards children. They happen, like you said, mostly in libraries. Some all ages events are a little different. It is like with parental discretion. They take place in venues that serve alcohol. But one of these events will come to the attention of the opposition.
00:05:47
Speaker
they'll take note and it spreads in private groups or semi-public spaces more than kind of overtly in the open. It'll get shared around in DMs, group chats, the kind of rooms of telegram will start to pick them up and closed Facebook groups and they'll share them within their networks.
00:06:10
Speaker
Anybody who uses Facebook kind of knows how easy it is to just amass a whole collection of like a Neapolitan of different groups that you're a part of. And you cross share those. The information spreads kind of very naturally grassrootsly. And they'll start to specifically by targeting the venue at first, you'll get calls, emails, normal types of kind of grassroots advocacy, you know, telling people, you know, this is where
00:06:39
Speaker
It diverges from other types of useful protest or useful objection. It cites by calling this evil, conflating it drag performance explicitly with transgender identity, which is not always the case.
00:06:55
Speaker
And then within these groups is the kind of offense begins to foment. Sometimes they'll also start to look at the drag performers who are human beings. They have other interests besides just the performance that they do. And anything that can be construed as adults or inappropriate is also
00:07:14
Speaker
kind of blasted around. Some organizations like Action for Canada in the past have even put together videos like clips that show the kind of bad actions of the people who are organizing these events, which in most cases is like
00:07:35
Speaker
fairly tame and innocent and just kind of reduced to this kind of pearl clutching talking points. And then from there, if they can't get the performer to drop out and they can't get the venue to cancel, then the protest will happen. And that's your usual like, we'll show up with signs and a bullhorn and like, you know, yell at you as you come in kind of thing. And if something like that happens, usually a counter protest has gotten set up as well, right?
Counter-Protests and Legal Responses
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. There's been a large up swelling of counter-protest, which has been incredible to see. I think we spent the past three years
00:08:17
Speaker
kind of getting our ass kicked. We had incredibly active and large COVID restriction street movements, heavily motivated by conspiracy. There was obviously the blockade protests along the border in Ottawa. Yeah, the freedom convoys it's called.
00:08:39
Speaker
And these were really galvanizing events that different people, different similar but conflating ideologies were able to come together under this kind of united issue. And that has always been where most protest movements find their success. But in the far right in Canada, they've always had particular success taking a large blanket issue and fitting as many things under that canopy as they can.
00:09:09
Speaker
Speaking of these counter protests, wasn't there two teens in Calgary who were charged with some bylaw bullshit during a counter protest? What exactly happened there and what did Canadian Anti-Hate Network do to put some pressure on the police there?
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, so two teens were leaving a protest. I think it was about a pool bathroom usage. One of them had a megaphone as they were leaving with their mom, I believe they were pulled over and given by-law infractions for fairly sizable amounts for using amplified sound.
00:09:49
Speaker
which I mean is illegal. It's a very common charge to receive as a protester. But obviously the targeting of
00:09:59
Speaker
two individuals from one side with none that we're aware of being issued to the other side is a problem. Obviously, we support what the kids are out there to do. We put together a petition asking people to sign and advocate to have these charges dropped by the city. I know that there was a huge amount of ground swelling support from within Calgary as well, much more important than an NGO
00:10:27
Speaker
is the local support. And yeah, it was happy to say that that resulted in those charges being dropped. And yeah, hopefully those kids will be out again at some point. Yeah. I mean, just some unsolicited advice for
00:10:46
Speaker
Calgary police, Calgary by-law. Don't charge literal children with by-law infractions at a counter protest. Oh, and the fascia on the other side. We've talked about Calgary for a bit. It hasn't just been contained to Calgary though. There was a recent event in Grand Prairie that was
00:11:06
Speaker
You know, some people attempted to disrupt it by pulling the fire alarm and turns out like they were unsuccessful. Sounds like the counter-protest was legit. And the coverage of this from the Grand Prairie Daily Herald Tribune is actually quite good. I'm just going to read from this story. Quote, Grand Prairie RCMP are looking for a man who pulled the fire alarm without cause during a January 24th family literacy week event.
00:11:31
Speaker
reading with drag Queen Tiffany as part of an ongoing protest trend across the country by some freedom convoy members and supporters. The reading event was planned in advance by Grand Prairie Public Library's head of children's services, Bailey Randolph. And not long after, publicizing the event, she started getting harassing phone calls and emails, just like you were discussing, Peter. But the library, to their credit, were unbowed. They put on the event. Counter protesters came out, but according to, you know, like parents and people who talk to the media, there was 10 times
00:12:00
Speaker
more people there than there were protesters, which is very encouraging. But yeah, some loser stepped in, pulled the fire alarm, tried to get everyone to leave. I think only a handful of people did, according to this media story, which is quite serious. If you have a bunch of children stamping towards the exits, bad things could have happened there.
00:12:24
Speaker
There are live streams of the event that are still up that I didn't watch actually until this recent story had come out about the chart or the searching for this man. And yeah, it is nice how it didn't cause a panic. Nobody was really freaking out. I think that there was some suspicion that what it might be related to, what had happened. But obviously you want people to react
00:12:53
Speaker
calmly, but swiftly to a fire alarm. And it is kind of an incredibly childish tactic in which to usher people outside of a building. It's certainly not the only thing like this.
00:13:08
Speaker
Here in Ontario, there was a much more serious incident where before a library had one of these events, an individual made their way onto the roof and attempted to start a fire while up there.
00:13:23
Speaker
The library manager told me that she suspected that this was to trigger the fire alarm or the sprinkler system and kind of damage the contents of the library, but it didn't result in anything like the fire never spread. I've never had the full details on that, but essentially a fire was started on the roof. It didn't make it much further than that, and the event still did go on. During the event, there was bomb threats.
00:13:49
Speaker
Obviously, people are concerned of when this behavior starts coming out, and that's what I mean about this balance. We're constantly told that we're not willing to engage in fair debate when we advocate for the rights and existence of trans people or just people in drag to be treated like normal human beings.
00:14:16
Speaker
And then these are the kind of common tactics of harassment and I certainly don't want to say lighting, attempting to light libraries on fire is a common tactic, but it is kind of indicative of the harassment that tends to go on and kind of around these events. It is one that happened and you're right to mention it.
00:14:33
Speaker
At the Grand Prairie protest, Elliot McDavid features prominently in the footage. You might remember Elliot McDavid as the dude who cursed out Christian Freeland in an elevator at Grand Prairie City Hall, saying all sorts of insane shit. He was also quoted heavily in Western Standard and Rebel coverage of the event. He knows how to get headlines, that's for sure. Yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
Exactly. The picture that's included with this story is also really encouraging. Literally, the kids and the parents are jammed into this building. They are full. Then you go outside and it's like 12 fucking losers and hoodies outside.
00:15:21
Speaker
Well, that's certainly been like such a heartening thing is the response, is the support, like the counter-protest action, which is not violent or hostile. There's certainly been some very chippy moments, but generally the goal here is to kind of create just a wall that makes it so parents and
00:15:43
Speaker
children especially and performers can come to and from the venue without being harassed. In instances where there's kind of been like an even division of space with counterprotesters on one side, protests on the other, the type of language that is hurled at people going to a family event in public spaces is quite vile.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, this, this event in Grand Prairie was in January, but just recently, like just last weekend in Calgary, there was, you know, this type of thing is, is escalated once more. Can you tell me about what happened just this past weekend in Calgary?
00:16:29
Speaker
Right. There was a storybook reading at, I believe, the Seton Library in Calgary. There had been a planned opposition before it. Like we had said before, there's this pattern of staking out these things in advance, putting pressure on the library. That hadn't worked. An individual that I only became familiar with around the end of January as well, Derek Reamer,
00:16:58
Speaker
He runs a kind of advocacy group or a mission called Mission 7, heavily related to ideas of very literal interpretations of the Bible, literal but selective, of course, and various types of Christian nationalism. His group
00:17:17
Speaker
According to him, because I reached him when I wrote the article and asked him for comment, according to him, they got three people into the room ahead of time where this thing was taking place. It was originally planned to be in like a main area, but because of the response, the library had kind of put them into a reading room or a conference room of some kind. And speaking to parents who were also in attendance and then watching the videos, I guess one by one
00:17:46
Speaker
These people kind of revealed themselves. At first, it was a woman who was talking about their need to repent and what followed that. There was another individual who I believe was identified, I don't have his name in front of me right now, who also got quite vocal about what was going on. And then the third and kind of final brick to fall was Derek himself. And that was all captured on video.
00:18:11
Speaker
from the video that was taken inside. It starts once he's already begun his rant, but he's yelling at children. He's yelling at parents. They're trying- Full of children with a grown man screaming at them.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yes, more or less. Obviously, it is also filled with parents and that's another thing. It is constantly claimed when you talk to protesters that these events are the parents aren't sure what's going on and there's no parents allowed. It's like that is not the case. The room is filled with different parents who had up until then, I guess, just
00:18:47
Speaker
guided the people who had gotten up to make noise to the door. But yeah, Derek was moving around quite a bit. He's kind of chucking and jiving and dodging parents and then eventually they do start to pull him. He's ignoring library staff.
00:19:03
Speaker
instructions to leave. Yeah, they start to pull him towards the door. He's very aggressively shoved out at one point. He falls as he gets through the door frame. When I spoke to him, he said that he banged his chin or he banged his head in some way that he felt was quite significant. I think you can see it a little bit on video. You got Uncle Phil out of the room, right? Uncle Phil throwing jazz out of his house, you got get the fuck out.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, quite a bit.
00:19:37
Speaker
And then he got fucking let out, eventually left. Well, that's the other thing is he proceeds to stand up. He's obviously not heard that badly because he gets up and continues to kind of proselytize, shout at people. Parents inside the room said that they were, once he was ejected, you couldn't really hear him. But they had these huge windows and he's going through shouting and yelling at them. A lot of the kids took no notice. The other ones were quite upset.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, something that a definitely like a normal person would do is just like go into a room full of children and start yelling at them and yelling at their parents. I mean, it's tempting, but we don't act on those feelings.
00:20:21
Speaker
So, so it's very funny. So this, this got a bit of attention from the kind of like right wing media ecosphere. Uh, as a Levant went on the Tucker Carlson show to talk about this arrest or sorry, to talk about this event after Reamer got arrested. Um, you know, this week, uh, Reimer did in fact, uh, was charged with CPS for causing a disturbance and something else and some other criminal charge.
00:20:48
Speaker
Actually, just before we were set to record, I got a release from the city of Calgary that he had also been charged with six counts of harassment under the Calgary Community Public Spaces By-law. Each charge of harassment has a possible fine, a maximum fine of $10,000.
00:21:07
Speaker
So it looks like some consequences for Derek Raimer's actions are kind of coming his way. But I think it's also worth just taking 90 seconds to listen to Tucker Carlson get the vapors about this event in Calgary. Here we go.
00:21:24
Speaker
But in Canada, of course, that's all disappeared. Canada has now become an atheist totalitarian state with amazing speed. And in Canada, it's now a crime to object to sexualized drag shows for children, not allowed to say a word. Late last month's month, a pastor in Calgary was violently thrown out of an all-ages notice for children drag queen story hour for daring to object to the sexualization of children. That in Canada, showing any disloyalty at all to the Trudeau government could get your bank account frozen and your truck seized.
00:21:54
Speaker
So maybe you're not surprised to learn that that man on the ground, his name is Pastor Derek Reamer, who showed profound disrespect for Justin Trudeau's ongoing efforts to sexualize children and mutilate the genitals of children, woke up yesterday to the police banging on his door and telling him he was going to be arrested.
00:22:11
Speaker
That doesn't look like the Canada you thought you knew. All Molson and sled dogs or some stormtrooper in sunglasses won't answer a question before you provide your ID. And then the pastor sitting in a car with bars on the windows getting hauled away to jail for being thrown to the ground.
00:22:29
Speaker
at Drag Queen Story Hour. We're going to be joined by Pastor Derek Bremer tonight, but he is, of course, in jail. So, instead, we are grateful to be joined by Ezra Lavon of Rebel News, which filmed the tape you just saw. Ezra, thank you so much for coming on. It's hard to believe that this is happening in your country. Met a question first. Is anyone saying anything about it other than you? I say this as one of the few Americans I know really who sincerely loves Canada, and I mean that, but it does seem like darkness is descending on your country.
00:23:00
Speaker
Wow. I love Canada, but it is an atheist hellscape covered in darkness. It is an atheist communist totalitarian ship, a totalitarian country where a darkness is falling on it. But I love it. I say this with love in my heart.
00:23:17
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this a bit before the show. There's a bit of a pattern, certainly with religious figures like Pastor Art Polowski, during his various legal troubles, being lionized not just within the American right, but also Tucker Carlson quite specifically taking up that cause.
00:23:44
Speaker
It is interesting what they choose to grab onto. I can't imagine any scenario that would involve a left-leaning person or whatever type of person that they find objectionable yelling at a children's event that wouldn't be met with swift action.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's not the point, right? I mean, the point is to cast themselves as the victim. The point is to say, oh my God, things are getting terrible. Things are the worst. But I think it's time to take a step back from the ridiculous Tucker Carlson hyperbole. And just, I have a couple of questions about like, who are these people that are showing up to these protests? And like, what are their political goals?
Ideological Motivations Behind Protests
00:24:25
Speaker
And like, what do they identify as?
00:24:29
Speaker
So, it can be fairly broad. Generally, there is a religious aspect. There is a biblical aspect. It certainly doesn't mean that Christianity has a monopoly on transphobia, on homophobia. But in Canada, the organizing against this is generally informed by
00:24:52
Speaker
kind of Christian nationalist beliefs. It is a lot of the same people, same figures that we saw from earlier protests like the COVID one. But going back even further than that, like yellow vests, kind of the movement against M103, the non-binding motion on Islamophobia or against Islamophobia.
00:25:11
Speaker
You know, with each kind of iteration, we get new figures as other ones kind of get dropped off or disappear. And then, you know, a returning of the old like COVID protests, and now these drag protests, not only attract these like very
00:25:32
Speaker
very fundamentalist Christian, like, uh, evangelical beliefs, but also, um, just anybody who has kind of been in the far right. One of the most interesting things is that, excuse me, one of the most interesting things is that drag queen, drag queen story hour and kind of associated, uh, comedy around it has, I've seen it the most in like really hardcore neo-Nazi spaces. Um, I don't know if they were the first ones to take up this issue, but
00:26:01
Speaker
A lot of the propaganda that you see around it, these handful of videos that do show what seemed like to be very inappropriate events that children attended, but are not reflective in any way of any one of these shows that I've been to here in Canada or that I've seen footage of that have been protested.
00:26:24
Speaker
A lot of these have origins and very, very far to the right, like radical right spaces that are beyond the pale of what even individuals like Mr. Remner believe. If anyone's keeping track of neo-Nazis in this country, it is the Canadian anti-hate network. Are there any document instances of neo-Nazis being at these drag queen story hour protests?
00:26:52
Speaker
Well, I'm happy you answered that, Duncan. Yes, there are. Specifically in Calgary, not this most recent one, but I believe it was last week or the week before, during a protest where Derek Remner was giving a speech. Just behind him was a man named Jason Harley, who has been a longtime member of numerous
00:27:16
Speaker
He was a member of the Aryan Guard in the early 2000s. Now he's a member of WLM, which is the White Lives Matter movement, which is another fun little organization that has taken the language of social justice and repurposed it.
00:27:33
Speaker
It's decentralized, so it has chapters throughout Canada, throughout the US, throughout Europe, without really having central leadership. But one of the common features is that as much as they will sometimes claim that this is just about preventing discrimination against white people due to changing demographics, when you talk to them, when you're in their spaces, it is
00:27:56
Speaker
openly supportive of national socialism, openly supportive of some of the most radical and insane conspiracy theories about Jewish people, and of course, anti-Blackness, anti-LGBTQ. There's really no end to that. There have been several attempts at protests, again, within Calgary by WLM, by another very closely married organization called the Active Club.
00:28:26
Speaker
which is a white-only workout, again, decentralized movement. Here in Canada, my reporting uncovered that it was a recruiting front for the Hammerskin Nation or the Vinland Hammerskins, who is the Canadian iteration.
00:28:44
Speaker
So, various members associated with that kind of white power gang, like this very old skinhead group that is believed to be the largest white nationalist organization in the planet. They're essentially involved in the DNA of the active clubs.
00:28:59
Speaker
So, they've showed up to protest in Alberta, and I think the Ontario chapter did something as well. So, as much as I don't think that we can say that most of this movement is made up of neo-Nazis, they're certainly present, they're certainly interested, and a lot of times when it comes to the propaganda, they're driving it.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's an important point to remind ourselves of is that like, you know, is every person who shows up to these things, you know, a neo-Nazi with a swastika tattoo over their heart.
00:29:33
Speaker
Well, I try to be specific with that phrase. I don't begrudge people who call others Nazis. But certainly, if I'm saying it, especially in my writing, usually you got to be a guy who thinks Hitler is neat. You have to be an actual national socialist. It's not to say that there is
00:29:53
Speaker
It gives a pass or anything to Derek Remner or any of these people, but yeah, I try to use that phrase very specifically. But those forces are both present at these events, like in person, in real life. Absolutely. I think the point you make about the propaganda side of this and what they're driving it is incredibly important to remember as well. There is a reason why the far right in North America are targeting trans people.
00:30:22
Speaker
why they're targeting these drag queen story hours. It is a proven fascist strategy to go after non-gender conforming people.
00:30:36
Speaker
And it is exactly what happened in the 1930s in Germany. One of the premier universities, one of the biggest repositories of knowledge about trans people was destroyed by the Nazis in the 1930s. Right. Yeah, the Institute of Sexual Reason Craft, I'm pronouncing it wrong. But yeah, the famous footage of the book burnings is typically of
00:31:06
Speaker
of those novels. It's interesting that that was never discussed in my history class. Going after trans people, going after gender nonconforming people is like
00:31:21
Speaker
It's a divisive issue. It has a broad appeal along a lot of different types of the far right and even the mainstream right wing. Like the convoy was able to kind of latch on to just all of the grievance and upset that a lot of people felt over the course of the pandemic.
00:31:40
Speaker
like the yellow vest protest was able to seize on, in a lot of cases, outburton, but also kind of countrywide frustration over Ottawa's policies that impact business and then was immediately co-opted and used to spread other messages. Anti-trans and anti-drag advocacy is just
00:32:03
Speaker
I don't know. That's their sweet spot. That's the bullseye that they're able to hit all the time. No, it's a Trojan horse. It's the carrier in, right? Yeah. It's the entry level before you get to the hard stuff. I mean, I think it's worth, and because of all of this, because of everything that we've just said, I think it's extremely important to remember that this is a vector of struggle.
Community Support and Future Events
00:32:26
Speaker
That if you can, you should show up and defend these kids and these events and this community.
00:32:32
Speaker
And thankfully, the counter protests that have taken place all over Canada, not just in Alberta, have, people have shown up and they have shown that these people are, and they have shown that the people who are protesting these events are not welcome and that they are marginal. You know, if you are going to do something like that, there are best practices when it comes to counter protesting. I know, Peter, that some group recently put out kind of a guide for that. Do you have that handy?
00:32:59
Speaker
I do. It's good because I'm a professional journalist. I'm not a professional activist. I've had to learn a lot about protest over the past few years, especially counter protests. My personal philosophy is record everything. Make sure that it doesn't mean publish everything.
00:33:20
Speaker
But if you are in an event, everybody has a camera with them. Everybody can be a witness for what is going on, and that can help keep each other safe. Recently, Community Solidarity Ottawa, which is a community activist group that formed over the convoy, I believe, or formed after the convoy involving people who are
00:33:41
Speaker
involved organizing against it. They put out kind of a great safety planning guide. It's set up beautifully on their website, communitysolidarityottawa.ca. I don't have any affiliation with this group. I've spoken to them a couple of times. It is just
00:33:57
Speaker
an excellent resource. One of the most important things to remember is that any action, there are multiple roles that people can take and multiple ways to contribute to the success of that action. It doesn't matter if it's holding flags and banners on the front line, kind of being like a physical barrier sometimes between the far right or even police aggression and the people you're trying to protect, but it could also be handing out leaflets. It can be making sure everybody has water.
00:34:27
Speaker
Um, you know, very basic things that can be easy to forget when you're putting together something like this. Um, we will link to that in the show notes as well. I think that's, we'll make that handy for anyone who wants to see it. And, and ultimately, you know, a successful counter protest is a numbers game. If you don't know, if you don't number these losers 10 to one, 15 to one, 20 to one, you win. And it's a lot easier to win when you know, you show up.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, and I do think that we are at a particularly kind of high watermark, so to speak, when it comes to the counterprotest. And this is the time that we should be taking advantage of, to network with individuals, to learn the lessons that you kind of only get from showing up in real life and doing these things.
00:35:18
Speaker
And preparing for a time when perhaps support won't be as high or mobilization will be more difficult because we've seen that in the past and we'll see it again in the future. But it's not to take anything away from the moment that we're having right now and just kind of how powerful it can be. I go and I try to document things fairly. I talk to the protesters. I talk to the counter protesters.
00:35:46
Speaker
It's heartening to see so many people coming out in support of others and oftentimes pushing back against blatantly false disinformation that is being spread in real time at these places and is objectively false if you were to just walk into the library peacefully and take a look at what was going on.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So what's happening? We're recording this Friday afternoon. What's happening in Calgary this weekend? Is there more of these type of events scheduled? So there was, I believe, a drag story event that was postponed, as well as, I think, across from City Hall. I don't have a tremendous amount of deals about these, but across from City Hall, I think there is a protest against bathroom usage.
00:36:39
Speaker
bi-transgender people or accommodation, and there's a counter-protest being organized for that.
00:36:47
Speaker
I believe a drag brunch taking place at the craft beer hall. I don't have a tremendous amount of details about that either. It is an all ages event. I don't believe it's specifically geared towards families. But I know that there was a call I saw online going out for defenders for that as well. I'm not sure what the far right is planning on protesting or where they're focusing this weekend.
00:37:14
Speaker
There's always something it seems like right now. There's always something, yeah. In Edmonton, I know that there is a protest planned at the legislature that is against people going topless at city pools, which was just a story in the news recently, another moral panic.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:37:33
Speaker
I'll admit to not knowing as much about that one other than what I'm kind of broadly pro topless, I guess. You could take that statement to the bank where you do have to wear a top. There you go.
00:37:53
Speaker
I think it's important, though, as we kind of close out our chat, that, you know, you do have to draw a line in the sand here, the fascists, the religious, far right, Kristo nationalists, the actual neo Nazis, they have been out on the streets and in the halls of power for years now, you know, really since
00:38:14
Speaker
COVID fucked everything up. And it's not like these people are new, the yellow vests, the anti-Islamic, the anti-M103 stuff. They metastasize from one issue to the next, like a cancer cell. They pick up new followers, they discard old ones as they cycle through these issues. And I get it. No one necessarily wants to be out on the street.
00:38:37
Speaker
in Calgary, Edmonton in February or March, facing off, nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball against some of the like worst people in your particular city. But if it's not you, then who? Because, you know, our most vulnerable are under tech, children, queer, trans people, unhoused. These people are coming for them because they think they can. And it's important that we stand up and fight back. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more.
00:39:07
Speaker
I want to thank you for coming on, Peter. Now is the time to plug your pluggables. How could people follow along with your work? Yeah, most of my work is published on antihate.ca. We also have a Twitter account, antihateca. And then my personal Twitter is mysterypete, so M-I-S-T-E-R, the letter E, and then my name Pete, P-E-T-E. I thought it was very clever when I made it. I don't feel that way anymore.
00:39:36
Speaker
But yeah, DM me at me like I'm very happy to talk with anyone. And there is so much going on that don't hesitate if you see a protest, if you see a poster, if you see something going on, take a picture of it, record it, get the information you can and send it to us. If we've already seen it, then it's no problem. And if we haven't, it might be something that we report on.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network does great work. Follow them. Yeah, if you've got tips, send them their way. They're an incredible resource. We're glad to have them. And folks, if you like this podcast, you want to join the 500 or so other folks who help keep this independent media project going, it's very easy. There's a link in the show notes, or you can go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, put in your credit card, become a monthly recurring donor. Jim and I would really appreciate it.
00:40:24
Speaker
Also, if you have any notes or thoughts or comments, I am really easy to get ahold of. I am on Twitter at, at Duncan Kinney. And you can reach me by email at Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. Thank you to Jim story for the edit. Thank you to cosmic family communist for our theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.