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It's time that progressive politicians condemn left-wing extremist violence with the same lack of equivocation as most conservatives denounce right-wing extremism

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Former Conservative minister and senior RBC executive Michael Fortier and his family were asleep in their Montreal home at 1:30 a.m. on May 4, when he was woken by a neighbour banging on his drain pipe to warn him that the Jaguar and Land Rover parked in the driveway were on fire.

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The neighbours daughter had been studying for her final exams and saw the flames, alerting her parents. The warning allowed Fortier, his wife and three kids to get out of the house unscathed. One witness said someone could have died if the flames had engulfed the house.

The next day, surveillance footage showed two men pulling up on bikes, taking out a package and tossing it towards one car. They left as casually as if leaving an ice cream shop, said someone who saw the footage.

Responsibility for the attack was later claimed by anonymous extremists on the anarchist website MTL Counter-info, acting in the spirit of vengeance. They claimed to be supporting Wetsuweten land defenders trying to block the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in B.C. As glaciers melt and drought, fire and famine spread, Mr. Fortier thinks that his money and connections will protect him, his children and grandchildren. But the ecologically-dispossessed will know the names of those responsible. He must understand that no one is safe amid the storm, it concluded.

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RBC has become the focus for a number of acts of vandalism smashed windows and spray paint on bank branches and the home of RBC Quebecs president even though it is only one of 20 or so lenders to Coastal GasLink.

But the attack on Fortiers home was a noticeable escalation. It invites the question: what will these furtive eco-warriors do for an encore? How far will they go to prove the point that no one is safe?

This is not the first time that left-wing extremists have targeted the Coastal GasLink pipeline. On Feb. 17, around 20 hooded figures cut the locks on a construction site near Houston, B.C., before threatening workers and causing millions of dollars of damage to heavy equipment. Video footage showed attackers wielding axes, hitting a truck with an employee inside and firing off flares. The RCMP said last week that it has made no arrests and has no updates on the incident.

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While horrific hate crimes such as the mass shooting in Buffalo have, rightly, focused attention on the scourge of right-wing extremism, ideologically motivated violence on the far-left is often characterized as legitimate protest, perhaps because there are lingering sympathies with its goals among progressives. But it is not acceptable or justifiable.

To be clear, research across Western countries indicates that the number of victims claimed by right-wing extremists and jihadists is far, far higher than those killed by the left. But as Teun van Dongen, a senior research fellow at the International Centre of Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), wrote recently: Fairness means we hold all forms of extremism to the same standards, not that we consider all forms of terrorism to be equally dangerous and harmful.

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While left-wing extremism may kill fewer people, assessments by law enforcement in Western countries consider the threat to be increasing and evolving. Germany, for example, recorded a record number of crimes committed by left-wing extremists in 2020. Notably, violence is increasingly directed toward people, rather than symbolic targets like buildings and vehicles.

A survey by the ICCT suggested left-wing terror attacks far outnumber attacks by jihadists and right-wing extremists, particularly in Germany and Greece, even while the number of victims is a fraction.

The concern is that left-wing websites are incubators for hate that in time might spawn similar levels of violence as the white supremacy online breeding grounds.

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The U.S.-based Network Contagion Research Institute noted that some anarcho-socialist websites use the kind of violent rhetoric and dehumanizing insults usually associated with jihadists and right-wing extremists.

In Canada, ideologically motivated violent extremism has been dominated by extreme anti-authority rhetoric that in the words of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is often rooted in the weaponization of conspiracy theories. CSIS said it has observed a marked increase in violent threats to elected officials since the onset of the pandemic.

Statistics Canada said hate crimes in Canada rose by more than a third to 2,669 in the first year of COVID the largest number since comparable data became available in 2009.

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All reasonable people condemn the crimes committed against Black, Jewish, Indigenous and Asian populations by white supremacists.

But the same opprobrium should be awarded to anarcho-socialist violence, on the basis that all extremism should be held to the same standard.

As for the people the Montreal anarchists claim to be championing, many members of the five Wetsuweten bands, including elected chiefs and some hereditary chiefs, support the $6.2-billion pipeline and strongly resent the interference of outsiders who oppose it.

Im sick and tired of our people living off welfare were still living in poverty and people are just trying to work and make some money, said Theresa Tait Day, a hereditary sub chief. I ran into a few claiming to be land defenders coming to Smithers. I said go home, we dont need you here. But they did come and one even had a warrant out for their arrest.

Its time that progressive politicians condemn left-wing extremist violence with the same lack of equivocation as most conservatives denounce right-wing extremism.

Email: jivison@postmedia.com | Twitter: IvisonJ

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