Details
When: Tuesday, April 29, 2025. 1800h-2100h.
Where: The Livery, Goderich
What: An educational workshop with Hazel Woodrow from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, with local musical trio Upswing. The evening included special presentations from the United Way’s Your Voice Matters 2SLGBTQ+ survey and Huron County’s Local Immigration Partnership.
Objective
1) To learn as a community from national experts on the topic of far-right extremism: the current landscape of hate, and what we can do to resist it.
2) To continue strengthening our community bonds through local musical talent.
3) To celebrate and learn more about the great work of allied local community initiatives.
Significance
This event represented a significant new friendship for NHiH on the national scale. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network is the leading national source of current information about far-right extremist activity. It was a great honour to welcome our new friends to Huron County.
Challenges
An ongoing challenge for us has been promoting our events broadly enough to encourage participation while still maintaining sufficient discretion to protect each other’s safety. We have not encountered any safety issues so far (as of 2026-01-20). Minor logistical challenges in travel and accommodation related to this event were expected but easily overcome.
Result
The information shared by Hazel from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network was invaluable. Upswing gave us an awesome musical boost on an evening that carried some heavy topics. We were very proud to feature the Your Voice Matters survey and it was a joy to have our friends at the Local Immigration Partnership play an important role in the evening.
Lessons Learned
Hazel Woodrow shared many important insights about the state of hate in Canada. Some key points about far-right extremist ideologies we learned about:
- “White nationalism” tends to obsess about demographics, it tends to spike in response to liberation movements, and it is inextricable from settler colonialism.
- “Christian nationalism” believes that Christian beliefs are superior to all others and that nations should be governed according to them. Most Christians are not Christian nationalists.
- “Anti-gender and anti-rights groups” target sexual health and gender identity education. They also target 2SLGBTQ+ inclusive education policies.
- The ideology of “male supremacy” advocates for the subjugation of women and rigid gender roles.
- “White Nationalism 3.0” combines physical training with intellectualism.
- “Militant accelerationism” is an extremely violent and terroristic ideology linked to many murders. Examples of associated groups include The Base, Atomwaffen Division, Terrorgram.
Hazel also shared key points from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s “40 Ways to Fight the Far-Right.” Some examples include:
- Keep an eye on the local far-right.
- Prevent the far-right from crashing social justice events.
- Hold memorial events.
- Make it hard for far right groups to meet.
- Find new collaborators.
- Support communities pushing back against far-right recruitment.
- Aid the injured.
Check out what fabulous community is featured in #20!!
Future Implications
“What is happening in Goderich is magical and should be a model for the entire country.”
Hazel Woodrow, Canadian Anti-Hate Network
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