Canada attends Trump extremism summit amid concerns over politicization

After days of keeping quiet about its plans, Global Affairs Canada revealed Thursday morning it had sent Sara Cohen, the embassy’s deputy head of mission for foreign policy and national security, to lead a Canadian delegation at the meeting.

While Rubio invited his ministerial counterparts, Canada chose not to send Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand because she had prior commitments. The government also consulted like-minded countries, many of which sent officials at a similar level, according to a government source who requested anonymity to speak freely.

The department also downplayed Canada’s attendance on Thursday, saying the country “regularly exchanges views with other countries on violent extremism trends” and noting the “long history” of cooperation against terrorism between Canada and the U.S. 

The initiative, which follows the high-profile assassination of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk, has raised concerns among experts who say there is little evidence that left-wing extremism poses a threat on the scale being claimed. They also question why U.S. officials are no longer speaking as openly about the significant threat posed by right-wing extremism.

“This kind of strikes most people who follow extremism as an opportunistic, politicized event to target certain kinds of activism, whether it’s Antifa or you know revolutionary socialist ideas or environmental or animal rights activists, or pro-Palestinian activists, and things like that,” said Queen’s University professor Amarnath Amarasingam, who argued Trump is trying to silence opponents of his political agenda.

“It kind of groups them all together under this broader far-left label, when all of these submovements within that would be completely ideologically diverse anyway.”

Stephanie Carvin, a professor at Carleton University and a former national security analyst for the federal government, said Canada’s attendance can be valuable to understand the U.S. perspective, and does not mean the Carney government or our national security agencies agree with the Trump administration.

But it does pose a risk of legitimizing their rhetoric, Carvin added.

NDP Leader Avi Lewis took aim at Canada’s attendance on Thursday, saying it puts progressive Canadians at risk.

“Trump is fuelling a new McCarthyism that is both delusional and dangerous” that is “clearly intended to crack down on Americans who are resisting his anti-democratic agenda: including deadly ICE raids and endless wars of aggression,” Lewis said.

“It’s outrageous, and the Prime Minister owes Canadians an explanation as to why he’s involving our country in this ugly episode.”

In his public remarks on Thursday, Rubio railed against a threat of “radical leftism” that is “distinctive and uniquely evil” and “driven” by a “hatred for civilization itself.” Miller, meanwhile, claimed that left-wing violence would lead to gulags if left unchecked.

They argued that Western counterterrorism strategies developed after 9/11 should shift away from a primary focus on Islamist extremism and toward left-wing violence.

“For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot, a blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left. Even today, the very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy,” Rubio told attendees at the meeting he called “unprecedented.”

Scott Bessent, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, said non-profit and charitable structures were being “exploited” to fund political terrorism and the U.S. needed to cut these groups’ access to the global financial system to stop the threat.

Notably absent from the remarks was any mention of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which was also supported in part through non-profit fundraising efforts, said Jessica Davis, the president of Insight Threat Intelligence and a former Canadian government security analyst.

Davis said she is concerned Canada could misuse the terrorist-listing process in response to pressure from Washington — something Canadian governments have done before, she said.

“If there isn’t operation information to be shared, the U.S. will be looking at us to do more symbolic things, like listings,” Davis told the Star.

Carvin said it’s not clear our national security apparatus agrees with the Trump administration’s assessment, but Canada’s support isn’t necessary for it to hit Canadians.

“If the U.S. wants to act, all they simply have to do is just list people and sanction them, and then their ability to exist in the 21st century becomes very difficult,” Carvin said, pointing to the sanctions put by the Trump administration on the Canadian International Criminal Court judge Kimberly Prost.

Neither the Canadian Security Intelligence Service nor the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have commented on the meeting or offered their perspective on the U.S.’ claims about rising left-wing terrorism.

CSIS did not outline the issue as a top threat in its latest annual report, and warned that ideologically motivated extremists are “progressively driven by a range of often seemingly contradictory grievances and personalized narratives from across the traditional left/right ideological spectrum that are often deeply intertwined with conspiracy theories.”