OTTAWA -(CTV) The federal government is adding 13 new extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, to the Criminal Code list of terrorist entities, freezing their assets and opening up people who are affiliated with them to criminal sanctions.
The move is a major step towards combatting ideologically-motivated extremist sentiment in Canada, and officials suggested Canada is the first country to make the decision to label the Proud Boys as a serious terror threat.
In addition to several al Qaeda and Daesh affiliates as well as one new international terror group being added to the list, the federal government is moving to list four ideologically motivated violent extremist (IMVE) organizations.
They are:
Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group founded in the U.S. in 2013 that was present at the 2017 Charlottesville rally;
Russian Imperial Movement, a nationalist group that trained those who bombed a left-wing bookstore and asylum facilities in Sweden in 2016;
Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group founded by a Canadian and formed in 2016 that, according to the government, played “a pivotal role” in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6; and
The Base, a neo-Nazi group founded in 2018, primarily active in the U.S., and whose members plotted to carry out attacks at a January rally in Virginia.
All four of these groups have called for, or engaged in acts of violence against those who are perceived to be opposed to their ideological beliefs, says the government.