Ever since the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election, American politics have completely dominated the public conversation in the West. Back in the 20th Century, this conversation would have been the almost-exclusive domain of the mainstream media. In this digital age, however, the bulk of this exchange naturally takes place on the internet.
For over a decade now, independent citizen journalists have analyzed current events and preached their political principles (many of which deviate wildly from those espoused by the mainstream media) on YouTube and various social media platforms. In doing so, many of them have gained enormous followings, some of which now dwarf the audiences of major mainstream media companies.
Interestingly, a surprising number of the most prominent independent journalists on the conservative side of the political spectrum, despite the fact the bulk of their commentary often revolves around American politics, are actually Canadian citizens. To this author, at least, the process by which so many Canadians came to play such an important role in American alternative media is a bit of a mystery. That the Great White North’s most talented right-leaning political commentators would turn their attention towards the affairs of our country’s southern neighbour is totally understandable, as Canada has no mainstream conservative counterpart to the left-leaning CBC, and American politics are arguably far more interesting than the shenanigans which characterize the House of Commons. What’s more difficult to understand is how these Canadian commentators rose to such ascendency in a field in which their patriotic, red-blooded American counterparts likely outnumber them ten to one. Perhaps, like ice hockey, lacrosse, and comedy, right-wing American alternative media is a scene in which Canucks, through some mysterious process, are somehow predisposed to excel. If you have any ideas on why this is so, please let us know in the Comments below. Whatever the case, here are ten prominent Canadian political pundits who’ve made quite the splash in the alternative media community.
Without a doubt, the most outrageous political pundit on our list is Gavin McInnes, the scrappy, scruffy, self-styled “Godfather of Hipsterdom”.
Before he entered the world of citizen journalism in 2015, Gavin McInnes was a well-established media veteran with a wealth of experience under his belt, much of which he detailed in his 2012 memoir How to Piss in Public. Born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1970, he immigrated with his family to Ottawa, Ontario, when he was four years old. In 1994, he co-founded VICE magazine, a Montreal-based publication once famous for its provocative, politically-incorrect pieces. Throughout the 2000’s, he worked stand-up comedy gigs, wrote articles for various conservative magazines, and took on a number of acting roles for Canadian TV programs. And throughout the first half of the 2010’s, he was a regular on Greg Gutfield’s rowdy Fox News show Red Eye.
In April 2015, Gavin McInnes joined The Rebel Media, then a fledgling conservative Canadian alternative media company. He immediately became one of the show’s main stars, entertaining his audience with his unique brand of comedic journalism. In many of his videos, he took on alternate personas, like his belligerent, foul-mouthed, tartan-clad Scottish father ‘Jimmy McInnis’, or his left-leaning, Communistic, Palestinian-keffiyeh-wearing brother ‘Miles McInnis’. He regaled his audience with hilarious, honest vulgarity, constantly venturing into the wild frontier well beyond the boundaries of political correctness, yet always tempering his crudeness with bouts of serious political and social commentary. In his videos, he championed libertarian conservatism, and classified himself as “alt-light” (as opposed to “alt-right”, an ideology with which some of his critics have attempted to connect him), a new Trumpian right-wing political ideology which rejects white nationalism.
In 2016, Gavin McInnes founded the Proud Boys, a right-leaning, pro-Western fraternity. Gavin established four hierarchical degrees within the Proud Boys’ organization. Initiates hoping to attain the First Degree are required to declare “I am a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world.” In order to advance to the Second Degree, members must name five breakfast cereals while being ‘jumped in’ by fellow fraternity members. To attain the Third Degree, members must get ‘Proud Boy’ tattoos. And to elevate themselves to the Fourth and final Degree, each member must get into a physical fight with an Antifa militant (Antifa being a radical far-left organization characterized by an opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters). One prominent member of the Proud Boys organization is Kyle Chapman, better known by his nicknames “Based Stickman” and the “Alt-Knight”- a right-wing street fighter famous for wielding a stick and shield during the 2017 anti-Trump protests at Berkeley, California.
In 2017, Gavin McInnes left The Rebel Media to join CRTV, a conservative American media company comprised of media celebrities like Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin, and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson. Ever since, he has hosted his own show Get Off My Lawn, in which he entertains and informs his audience much as he did at The Rebel Media.
One of Gavin McGinnis’ co-stars at The Rebel Media was Faith Goldy, a journalist and Toronto native of Ukrainian and Greek extraction.
While working for The Rebel, Faith hosted her own show, On the Hunt with Faith Goldy. On her program, she frequently praised the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. She extolled Judeo-Christian values, supported Israel’s right to self-determination, and displayed a deep respect for history and tradition.
In addition to being a hardcore conservative, Faith is also a staunch, traditional Roman Catholic. In many of her videos, articles, and social media messages, she has used the motto “Deus vult” (Latin for “God wills it”), a battle cry adopted by Christian knights during the First Crusade.
In early 2017, Faith Goldy became the first journalist to report on the flood of illegal migrants across Canada’s southern border- a story of which certain major mainstream media companies were almost certainly aware, yet inexplicably failed to cover. She and her cameraman recorded historic footage of RCMP officers serving as de facto bellboys for self-proclaimed “refugees” from the United States, carrying their luggage for them across the border into Canada. Since her scoop, other Canadian media companies like CBC and the Toronto Star have picked up the story of Canada’s ongoing border crisis.
In August 2017, Faith Goldy, acting against the advice of her employer, attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in her capacity as a journalist. The rally was organized by alt-right leaders Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, and was intended as a protest against the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee. During the rally, Faith captured footage of an infamous vehicular attack which left one woman dead and ten people injured.
Following the Charlottesville rally, Faith Goldy appeared for an interview on the Daily Stormer, an alt-right podcast with white nationalist leanings. In the interview, she criticized the Charlottesville police for their poor conduct during the rally, commented upon the police’s apparent leniency towards the far-left Antifa militants who attended it, and acknowledged that the alt-right was a growing force in American politics. Her behavior was apparently too rebellious for The Rebel, as her employer fired her shortly after the incident.
Today, Faith continues her work as an independent journalist on her Twitter and YouTube accounts.
One alternative media channel on which both Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy have appeared as guests is Freedomain Radio, a philosophy show which prides itself on being “the largest and most popular” of its kind in the world. Freedomain Radio is run by a bald-headed history buff, drama enthusiast, and tech company CEO-turned-philosopher named Stefan Molyneux.
Stefan Molyneux is an Irish-Canadian immigrant of French and Celtic pedigree who grew up in Ontario and Quebec. Although he considers himself a libertarian (i.e. a proponent of limited government involvement in the affairs of its citizens) as opposed to a conservative, he has hosted many guests over the past few years who identify as right-wing. An advocate of free speech and fair debate, he has given a platform to scientists, academics, and intellectuals who propose unsettling theses on subjects considered taboo in polite society. Some of these ideas include the notion that there are general correlations between race and intelligence, the concept that multiculturalism creates division by promoting tribalism, and the idea that the feminist movement resulted in a general decrease in women’s happiness.
In addition to hosting guests on his show, Stefan often performs eloquent analyses of current events, interpreting them through the filters of Aristotelian philosophy, anti-authoritarianism, and a staunch adherence to free market principles. He frequently takes calls from his listeners who appeal to him for advice regarding their careers and relationships. A believer that abusive parenting has a gravely deleterious impact on childhood development, he often attempts to psychoanalyze his callers in an effort to connect their current problems with their upbringing. And every once in a while, he creates lengthy, well-researched presentations which purport to explain “The Truth About” certain historic events of which popular perception is ostensibly skewed.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Stefan Molyneux was a vocal supporter of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He believed that the Syrian migrant crisis was in the process of destroying Europe, and feared that the United States- and, by extension, the rest of the Western World- would meet a similar fate if Third World immigration to America (an issue which Trump addressed during his campaign) was not curtailed.
One of Stefan Molyneux’s many guests is a young lady who goes by the alias “Roaming Millennial”.
Born in Canada in the 1990’s to a white Canadian mother and a Chinese-Canadian father, Roaming moved to Hong Kong during infancy and lived there for the next ten years. Throughout the 2000’s, she and her family moved all over the world, living briefly in Shanghai, London, and Singapore, before finally settling down on Canada’s West Coast.
After attaining a degree in political science at an American university, Roaming began creating YouTube videos in which she criticized transgenderism, third-wave feminism, Black Lives Matter, and social justice culture in general. She quickly gained a considerable following, and began interviewing prominent conservative, libertarian, and classical liberal pundits like Dennis Prager, Christina Hoff Summers, Dave Rubin, and Milo Yiannopoulos.
In December 2017, Roaming Millennial signed on with CRTV, joining the ranks of Gavin McInnes and Michelle Malkin. Today, she hosts the CRTV show Roaming Millennial: Uncensored.
Another prominent female Canadian commentator allied with pundits on the right side of the political spectrum is Karen Straughan, an anti-feminist and men’s rights activist from Edmonton, Alberta.
Karen first discovered the world of men’s rights activism while in the middle of a divorce. She realized, to her horror, how easy it would be for her to financially ruin her ex-husband, as divorce laws hugely favour women over men, and decided to do some research to see if there were others like her who similarly took issue with the lopsidedness of divorce courts. She subsequently stumbled upon several men’s rights activism communities online and began to participate in them. Eventually, she began to create YouTube videos of her own, in which she attempted to “red pill” her audience, shedding light on issues affecting men and boys and combatting aspects of the feminist ideology which she deemed destructive. She quickly developed a considerable following, and acquired the nickname “The Honey Badger”.
Along with most of the pundits on this list, Karen supported then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 American presidential race.
Another ally of conservative pundits is Dr. Gad Saad, a Jewish Lebanese-Canadian who currently resides in Montreal, Quebec.
In 1975, when he was eleven years old, Gad and his family fled to Canada in order to escape antisemitism and the Lebanese Civil War. Gad subsequently obtained several degrees in science and mathematics from McGill University, as well as a Ph.D in cognitive psychology from Cornell University. He went on to become professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, where he taught courses on marketing psychology. He has since explored the effects of hormones on consumer decision-making, and has written several books on the subject.
Gad Saad’s involvement in the world of alternative media takes place on his YouTube channel, on which he hosts a series entitled The Saad Truth. In this series, he has criticized political correctness, multiculturalism, third-wave feminism, Islam, and social justice culture. Some guests who have appeared on his show include prominent conservative, libertarian, and classical liberal pundits like former Rebel Media contributor Tommy Robinson, neuroscientist Sam Harris, and activist Candace Owens.
No list of conservative Canadian alternative media personalities would be complete without a nod to Ezra Levant, co-founder of The Rebel Media.
Ezra Levant is a broadcaster, political activist, practicing Jew, and non-practicing lawyer who currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. A native of Calgary, Alberta, Ezra has involved himself in right-wing Canadian politics since his days as an undergraduate student at the University of Calgary, during which he campaigned for the Reform Party of Canada (a former conservative Western Canadian federal political party) and debated alongside Naheed Nenshi, Calgary’s current mayor. Several years after attaining his law degree at Edmonton’s University of Alberta, he founded the Western Standard, a right-leaning magazine specializing in Western Canadian issues.
In 2010, Ezra Levant joined Toronto’s Sun News Network as a columnist. When the Network was shut down in 2015, Ezra and his Sun News colleague Brian Lilley founded The Rebel Media, Canada’s first major conservative alternative media company. For two years, Rebel Media commentators and journalists produced videos and articles on politics, culture, and current events. Although Ezra allowed his employees a considerable degree of freedom in the content they created, most Rebel Media videos and articles were pro-Trump, pro-Israel, pro-gun, and pro-life, and were vigorously opposed to social justice culture, radical Islam, and the narrative put forth by left-leaning mainstream media outlets like CBC and CNN.
During the campaign for the 2016 U.S. presidential election, The Rebel Media exploded in popularity, gaining upwards of 600,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel. By August 2017, this number had climbed to 873, 800.
The company experienced a succession of major setbacks later that month, when several of its most prominent journalists, including Faith Goldy, Gavin McInnes, Lauren Southern (who we will detail later on in this article), and co-founder Brian Lilley either left or were fired. To make matters worse, former Rebel Media employee Caolin Robertson published a video in which he claimed that the company (and Ezra in particular) was more concerned with making money than it was with covering the truth. In spite of all of this, The Rebel Media experienced only a minor dip in subscriptions, and has been growing steadily ever since. Today, the company’s YouTube channel, which Ezra Levant continues to spearhead, has more than 970,000 subscribers.
One of the most famous conservative Canadian political pundits on our list is Steven Crowder, host of the enormously popular YouTube show Louder with Crowder.
Born in Michigan and raised in Greenfield Park, Quebec, Steven Crowder often refers to himself as a “Roman Catholic French Canadian”. In his early years, he worked as a voice actor and a film actor. By the age of 15, he was performing stand-up comedy, and by the age of 21, he began appearing as a regular guest on Fox News. In October 2013, Fox fired Steven for criticizing the performance of Fox News host Shawn Hannity in interviews with filmmaker Michael Moore and disgraced Democratic politician Anthony Weiner.
Ever since his release from Fox News, Steven Crowder has hosted his own YouTube comedy show Louder with Crowder, in which he and his co-host “Not Gay Jared” discuss culture, politics, and current events; present comedic skits on contemporary topics; and interview a variety of guests from different cultural and political backgrounds. Several months ago, Steven Crowder visited various American college campuses and invited students with opposing viewpoints to change his mind on issues like abortion, gun control, socialism, and transgenderism.
Although he has hosted guests from all sides of the political spectrum, Steven Crowder himself espouses an old-fashioned variety of conservatism. Similar to other traditional conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck, and unlike most of the Canadian commentators on this list, he did not support presidential candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 American election, and has remained critical of President Trump throughout the first two years of his presidency.
In 2017, Steven Crowder, like Gavin McInnes and Roaming Millennial, joined CRTV.
Another Canadian public figure popular with the right-wing crowd is Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto.
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Jordan Peterson grew up in the town of Fairview, in the heart of Alberta’s Peace River country. As a teenager, he was introduced to the works of anarchist George Orwell, anti-Communist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and libertarian Ayn Rand by his school librarian, the mother of Alberta’s current Premier Rachel Notley. These readings steered him towards the democratic socialistic side of the political spectrum, and for a time, Jordan Peterson worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP), Alberta’s social democratic political party. By the age of 18, he had become disenchanted with the culture of the NDP and decided to leave the party.
Jordan Peterson acquired degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Alberta, and earned himself a Ph.D in clinical psychology at McGill University. Following a research job in Massachusetts, he became a professor at the University of Toronto and has taught there ever since. In his psychology lectures, he often attempts to extract universal human truths from folktales and sacred scripture.
In 2017, Jordan Peterson publicly criticized Canada’s Bill C-16, a law introduced by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government which, among other things, requires professors to address transsexual students by their preferred gender pronouns. His critique, which stemmed from his belief in the importance of free speech, attracted the attention of the mainstream media in both Canada and the United States, and almost overnight, Jordan Peterson became a mainstream media sensation. Ever since, he has publicly criticized feminism, socialism, environmentalism, academic culture, the concept of white privilege, the notion of cultural appropriation, and other ideas and ideologies typically championed by the progressive left.
Last, but certainly not least on our list of conservative Canadian political pundits is Lauren Southern, a native of Surrey, British Columbia.
In 2015, 20-year-old Lauren Southern joined The Rebel Media and quickly became one of its most prominent journalists. While working for The Rebel, she was assaulted at Vancouver’s 2015 feminist SlutWalk rally, had urine poured over her head by an activist at a 2016 LGBT rally in Vancouver, legally changed her gender to ‘male’ in an effort to reveal the inanity of Ontario’s gender identity laws, covered the violent 2017 Berkeley protests, and reported on the migrant crisis in Europe. Throughout the course of her journalistic work for The Rebel, Lauren displayed extraordinary physical and moral courage, braving violence and reputational danger in an effort to bring to light stories she deemed important.
In December 2016, Lauren Southern published her first book Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants, and Islam Screwed my Generation. In this book, she outlines her background, her libertarian conservative political philosophy, and her ideas regarding the origins of various problems facing the Western World today.
In August 2016, Lauren Southern left The Rebel Media to pursue work as an independent journalist. Ever since, she has uploaded her work to her YouTube channel.
In May, 2017, Lauren and a group of French nationalists called Les Identitaires attempted to prevent a ship from bringing North African migrants into Italy, stating “if the politicians don’t stop the boats, we’ll stop the boats.”
In March 2018, Lauren Southern, along with American nationalist pundit Brittany Pettibone and the latter’s boyfriend, were detained at the U.K. border on account of their having distributed fliers saying “Allah is a Gay God” in Luton, England, the month prior (this social experiment was inspired by a VICE article claiming that Jesus Christ was gay). The British border guards treated them as terrorists, denying them their right to an attorney during their interrogations.
Last month, Lauren independently produced a documentary entitled Farmlands, which she uploaded in its entirety to her YouTube channel. Farmlands focuses on the plight of white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa, whom raiders routinely rob and murder with impunity, and who are discriminated against by the South African government on account of their ethnicity.
And that is the end of our list of 10 conservative Canadian political pundits. If you know of other right-wing, libertarian, or classical liberal Canadian commentators who deserve a place on this list, please let us know in the Comments below.
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