Commentary
At the University of Calgary this week, Prof. Tom Flanagan was assaulted by a masked individual as he participated in a panel discussion on residential schools. The same day, at the University of Victoria, Prof. Frances Widdowson was arrested and her cameraman assaulted (his attackers were not arrested) at an Orange Shirt Day event.
Canadians like to see themselves as peaceful and civil. In ways, that perception holds. Yet human nature is always vulnerable to polarization and divisive rhetoric, and those conditions can spill over into real-world harm. Intense polarization often fuels harsh aggressive language. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau endured sustained attacks that often crossed the line of civilized discourse, sometimes even including death threats. Profane stickers and flags targeting him became fixtures of public life.
This kind of political vilification poses a serious danger. We cannot draw a simple linear path from harsh rhetoric to physical violence, but dehumanization lowers social taboos against violence, erodes empathy and civic trust, and creates a “permission structure.” Violence against the “other” starts to seem understandable—even necessary—while violence against one’s own side remains intolerable. That mindset destroys the shared moral conviction that all political violence is wrong, regardless of who it targets.
That shared conviction, what political scientist Juan Linz called “democratic restraint,” recognizes that people who support certain policies are not evil. It calls for humility about our own limited perspective and for valuing relationships and social peace over winning every argument. It also presumes a shared understanding that not everything in life is political.
Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura’s concept of “moral disengagement” further explains how people justify harmful acts by recasting them as morally required, even as righteous self‑defence. Under this logic, some may portray Charlie Kirk as so hateful that he became a threat to the body politic, making his removal seem necessary. Similarly, when someone questions some element of trans ideology, others may redefine that disagreement as an existential threat to trans people. Beliefs become dangerously conflated with violence. These attitudes strip away internal and social constraints that normally prevent violence.
As polarization hardens, our civil society can fracture into hostile camps. We stop seeing fellow citizens as people with whom we disagree and start seeing them as enemies with no redeeming qualities. Online echo chambers intensify this process. Algorithms feed us confirming views and shut out dissenting ones.
Offline, we forget that our neighbours and co‑workers often hold very different political and ideological convictions yet remain our fellow Canadians. We lose sight of the fact that we share a common country and a responsibility to work together to improve it.
This slide from “opponent” to “enemy” appears clearly in the normalization of social media posts that dismiss, mock or even celebrate a rival’s death. Take Charlie Kirk, for example. After his assassination, many such comments circulated, including in Canada. It is even more alarming when this rhetoric comes from institutional voices. Manitoba MLA and cabinet minister Nahanni Fontaine faced widespread criticism for sharing a social media post that included remarks that appeared insensitive to his murder.
This mentality arises alongside a measurable shift in public attitudes, especially among younger people, toward greater acceptance of political violence. Polls in both the United States and Canada show this pattern—older adults are more likely to reject political violence while younger adults show more acceptance.
According to a 2024 survey by Digital Public Square and Nanos Research, 26 percent of Canadians aged 18 to 34 “agreed” or “somewhat agreed” that violence is sometimes necessary for social change, compared with 11 percent of Canadians over 55. Younger Canadians also expressed greater support for disruptive protest tactics than older Canadians. A 2025 Canadian Digital Media Research Network report similarly found that 33 percent of those aged 18 to 34 agreed that violence is sometimes necessary for social change.
Young people who identify with progressive causes can be particularly inclined to defend violence that they see as “liberation.”
These attitudes do not mean that these young adults are budding terrorists, but they do indicate a troubling loosening of the social and moral constraints that traditionally kept political violence off the table.
How, then, can we restore civility and lower the temperature?
We cannot unwind the clock on digital culture, nor should we want to erase its benefits. Instead, we should cultivate humility. People often discard civic norms when they become certain of their own righteousness. Institutions—schools, universities, media outlets, and civil society organizations—can remind us how much we do not know and help us test our assumptions against competing views.
We should deliberately push back against online echo chambers by seeking out diverse sources of information and real conversation across differences. Monocultures—such as the modern university environment—should actively foster intellectual and ideological diversity, not only racial and gender diversity. Exposure to good‑faith disagreement builds resilience and reduces the temptation to demonize those who think differently.
Finally, we must rebuild a shared moral understanding—a civic culture that counters online isolation and fragmentation. Public and private institutions alike should condemn rhetoric that trivializes, celebrates, or endorses political and ideological violence every time it appears. Such speech is not just another opinion; it corrodes trust and encourages dehumanization. Fortunately, strong public censure alone if often sufficient and legal tools should be used sparingly.
If we cannot recover a society where citizens disagree vigorously yet place shared moral bonds first, we risk waking up in a Canada without a common moral vocabulary—a country where political victory matters more than our capacity to live together in peace.
Joseph Quesnel is a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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