Canada’s white supremacist community is moving increasingly offline through “active clubs“—a decentralized network promoting camaraderie and fitness. 

Canada’s National Observer spoke to ISD Senior Manager Steven Rai about active clubs, their rise and their role as a gateway to white supremacy activism.  

“The active clubs are an important story to be following when it comes to hate and extremism in Canada because of how rapidly they’ve been growing over the past several years,” Steven said. 

These groups often downplay their extremist beliefs, which has drawn people into the groups who would not normally associate with white supremacist networks. Active clubs also aim to indoctrinate members into false conspiracy theories. 

“One of the things that has been most alarming to me in monitoring these white supremacist groups is not just the groups themselves, which have been around for a long time in Canada, but how some of these really hateful ideas around immigration are becoming mainstreamed and normalized,” Steven said. 

The full article is available on the National Observer.