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Canadaland

They Asked Me To Join The Mili­tia (Rebroad­cast)

Con­spir­a­cies! They’re out there… and Vice Cana­das Mack Lam­oureux is get­ting to the bot­tom of them.

You name it, he’s cov­ered it: The Berenst(a)ein Bears. Hol­low Earth The­o­ry. Iraq Star­gate

But what hap­pens when these twist­ed nar­ra­tives stop being just kooky, and start get­ting scary? As extrem­ist right-wing groups grow their pres­ence in Cana­da, and around the world, there’s a per­son­al cost to cov­er­ing conspiracists.

Mack’s eight-months-long inves­ti­ga­tion into Canada’s armed, anti-Islam­ic patri­ot” group — the III%ers’— is alarming:

Con­nect­ed to the anti-Islam sen­ti­ment is a sense of para­noia in the group, one that is rein­forced by the shar­ing of debunked news sto­ries and far-right wing com­men­tary from sites like Rebel Media or Infowars. The mem­bers of the group, like their coun­ter­parts world­wide, are dis­trust­ful of main­stream news and often stray into extreme con­spir­a­to­r­i­al territory.”

Mack Lam­oureux joins guest host Omar Mouallem.

For more on extrem­ist right-wing groups in Cana­da, check out COM­MONS’ deep dive from this past July.