Toronto mayoral election: no platform for Faith Goldy

There are about 18 candidates registered to run in Toronto’s 2018 mayoral election that is scheduled for October 22, and one of those includes the far-right activist Faith Goldy. Whereas the other 17 include a range of candidates across the political spectrum, whose views will be given a public platform for debate, Faith Goldy appeals to far-right violence and should not be given a platform.

Colonial and racist

Faith Goldy is a right-wing media personality who began on the Conservative Sun News Network, then joined Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media, and is a friend of Doug Ford. A self-described “Euro-Canadian Catholic Nationalist”, Faith Goldy creates video content that is anti-Indigenous, anti-migrant, anti-Black, anti-Islam, and anti-Feminism.

She has stated many times that she is afraid of becoming a minority in her own country, but neglects the fact that Canada, and her home city of Tkaronto, was never hers or her ancestors to begin with. In Goldy’s offensive narrative of Canada, the contributions of Indigenous peoples are ignored and Indigenous voices are non-existent. She claims that Canadian identity is strictly European, and refuses to call the early Europeans in Canada colonizers, incorrectly implying they had an inherent right to this land. These viewpoints lack historical accuracy and ignore the plight of Indigenous communities still challenging ongoing colonization.

She believes that minority groups should abandon their beliefs and assimilate to European identity, and does not think other cultures should have “ethnic enclaves” that can be found around Toronto such as Chinatown, Korea Town, Greektown, etc. It is clear that in Goldy’s vision of Canada, other cultures are not protected, safe, and do not belong. Goldy has also stated that if elected she wants to reinstate the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) task force, whose carding and aggressive “community engagement” was based on anti-Black racism.

Neo-nazi

Faith Goldy not only holds reactionary ideas, encouraged by mainstream media and politicians, but she uses her online platform to push hate. Faith Goldy has deep ties with the right-wing of Canada, as she relies on their sponsorship to financially support herself, and uses her online platform to spread their views. Goldy relies on the fringe right-wing to financially support her through bitcoin and email money transfers, and due to violating the terms and conditions against hate speech and harassment, she has been kicked off of the platform Patreon and most recently PayPal.

While she has publicly stated that she is not a racist or white supremacist, she openly promots Neo-Nazi YouTube channels such as DMS, and advocates for platforms that endorse nazi-ideology such as Freebird Media. She defends the “14 words”, a pro-White creed reading “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”. This sentence was created by David Lane, a well-known white supremacist and member of supremacist terrorist group The Order, who coined this phrase while serving jail time for killing a Jewish man and also for several armed robberies.

Faith Goldy champions right-wing conspiracy theories such as “white genocide,” sympathizes with Neo-Nazi ideology, and creates media content to fear monger and spread misinformation about Muslims and other marginalized groups. She was fired from Rebel Media after appearing on a podcast for the Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer where she laughed at anti-Semitic comments and made derogatory statements about Levant’s Jewish heritage. She currently creates politically reactionary videos on her own YouTube channel but also makes guest appearances on alt-right channels such as Info-Wars, Conservative Review Television, and Millennial Woes.

No platform for fascists

Clearly there is no way Faith Goldy can represent a city that is as diverse and culturally rich as Toronto. She will do nothing to advocate for Indigenous peoples, women, Muslims, refugees, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, workers, or the environment. Instead, her campaign will put communities in danger by supporting the ideas of racist hate groups and giving bigots legitimacy to keep organizing.

Her recent focus on securing the Canadian border has already earned her endorsements from groups like ID Canada, a self-described “Ethno-Nationalist and Identitarian youth movement.” Her insistence of Canada’s origins belonging to white Canadians align with active far-right groups such as Soldiers of Odin Canada, who are likely to endorse her mayoral campaign. Faith Goldy’s campaign will embolden far-right groups with a history of violence—such as the Patriots of Canada Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA Canada), the Jewish Defence League (JDL), Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens (CCCC), Soldiers of Odin Canada, and more to keep organizing public demonstrations and spread their Islamophobic and anti-immigrant ideas within Toronto and the general public—like a racist rally planned for August 11 outside City Hall.

Free speech for fascists means hate speech and violence against racialized people. Let’s not forget that hate crimes have been on the rise in Canada overall, and that hate crimes against the Muslim community jumped by 60 per cent in 2015. With incidents such as the beating of 39-year-old Mohammed Abu Marzouk just last month, and racist confrontations appearing in the news almost daily, it is clear that Goldy’s mayoral bid—under the ludicrous slogan “make Toronto safe again”—will make Toronto unsafe for many.

The solution is not to legitimize her views by providing her a platform for debate, or hope that small groups of activists can counter the fascist threat—but to organize broad multiracial mobilizations to drive her, and the rest of the far right, off the streets. Student protesters shut down her speaking events at Laurier in March and the University of Waterloo in April, and this is the same treatment her mayoral bid should receive this fall.

Join the Stop the Hate counter-demonstration Saturday August 11, 1:30pm at Nathan Phillips Square