The Great Canadian Paradox: Jordan Peterson, Right-Wing Canadian Internet Personalities, and the End of Canadian Exceptionalism?

Canada is known for its moderate liberal-left stance, lacking a deeply entrenched far-right movement or extreme right-wing media—a phenomenon termed Canadian exceptionalism (Peker and Winter 2024). Despite this, Canada has produced a globally famous conservative intellectual, Jordan Peterson, and Canada was the site of the 2022 Freedom Convoy where truckers shut down the Canadian capital, Ottawa, for days in protest against vaccine mandates. This has led some to view Canada as a breeding ground for right-wing extremism even though the far right remains marginal in Canada compared to Germany, France, or the USA. This paper argues that the paradox of Canada producing Peterson and a massive populist revolt can be explained by exploring the prominence of Canadian conservative and far-right internet personalities, such as Ezra Levant and Lauren Southern. This Canadian paradox flows from the weakness of right-wing parties and media, coupled with Trudeau’s elitist liberalism administration and a progressive-leaning media. These conditions and the lack of open debate they create, assisted by the international reach of the English language, facilitated the remarkable rise of multiple Canadian figures in global right-wing discourse online, despite the relative weakness of the organized political right. Peterson’s fame highlights how elitist liberalism can produce an internet-based reaction against itself. The internet has functioned as a place of refuge for Canadian conservatives deemed to be beyond the pale of the domestic political culture. Whether or not these figures can leverage their global internet popularity to spark a populist movement within the mainstream Canadian political sphere is explored in this article.