On Fascism with Jon Weier

October 10, 2025

This far-right surge has politically taken the form of fascism: an authoritarian and nationalist political ideology that has undermined democracy around the world. But what is fascism exactly?

The first annual convention of the Union of Canadian Fascists. Adrien Arcand was named first national leader of the party (seated, left). Photo from the July 5, 1938, issue of the Kingston Whig-Standard.

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In September 2025 the Broadbent Institute joined left–wing think tanks from Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain to support the establishment of a global network of think tanks that produce rigorous analysis, foster data-driven debate, and contribute to the search for proposals in defense of democracy.

In the declarative agreement behind the establishment of the new Red Internacional de Pensamiento Democratico or International Network of Democratic Thought, progressive civil society groups acknowledged that although the new radical right is heterogeneous and shifting at the local level, it is rapidly expanding its ideas elsewhere, undermining the institutional foundations of representative democracy.

While viewing the democratic regime as an obstacle to progress, the far-right promotes climate and pandemic denialism, delegitimizes the struggle for women’s equality, fosters rejection of and hatred for immigration and asylum seekers, and upholds economic nationalism as a supreme value.

This far-right surge has politically taken the form of fascism: an authoritarian and nationalist political ideology that has undermined democracy around the world.

But what is fascism exactly?

Here’s Broadbent Research Fellow and Labour Historian, Jon Weier, of George Brown College, to help us define fascist ideology and what this means for Canada.