I’ve been reporting on right-wing politics over the last decade for PressProgress and have gone deep into the weeds on Canada’s online far-right. We are not simply seeing a rise in “conspiracies” and “misinformation” per se, I think we are witnessing tectonic shifts inside Canada’s conservative movement.

A decade or two ago, this was a movement that revolved around ideas about free markets, small government and reactionary social values. That’s all still there, but for a growing segment of the right, these ideas have been increasingly displaced by a sprawling, conspiratorial metanarrative that imagines an evil global cabal is using technocratic climate policies, authoritarian public health rules and gender-inclusive educational materials to control the world and keep ordinary people in their place—and yes, it is every bit as unhinged as that sounds.

In fact, I’m no longer sure the word “conspiracy” fully captures what’s really happening here.

The first thing you need to understand is that we can draw a direct line connecting the weirdness of B.C.’s 2024 election with the wave of anti-2SLGBTQ+ protests in 2023, the 2022 Freedom Convoy and the anti-public health protests throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These are all symptoms of the same problem.

This phenomenon is driven by the collapse of traditional media and the rise of digital platforms. Across Canada, including B.C., newsrooms are being decimated by layoffs, local newspapers are shutting down and what remains of our stripped-down media ecosystem is concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporations and wealthy individuals. At the same time, our public discourse is being shaped by mysterious, unregulated social media algorithms that are distorting our democracy in ways nobody seems to fully understand.