‘God is a racist’—so goes a statement published in the literature of the Western Guard, a white-supremacist, anti-semitic group in Toronto. It is one of a number of racist organizations that have sprung up in Canada since the Second World War. Stanley Barrett points out in this disquieting study that although many of the principles of such organizations are offensive to the vast majority of Canadians, they represent a growing part of a broader political phenomenon that has recently surfaced in numerous nations.

In examining the rise of right wing extremism in Canada, a nation with a traditional reputation for tolerance, Barrett considers a wide range of political convictions, from confessed fascists to essentially ordinary, law-abiding, but highly conservative individuals who are deeply concerned about the future of Western Christian civilization.

Barrett’s study, grounded in a scientific tradition that has regularly exposed racial myths, is guided by humanist values that celebrate individual worth. It sheds new light on a growing phenomenon that threatens those values. 

Stanley R. Barrett is a professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph.

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