A Conservative MP wants to identify federal public servants or members of the Canadian Armed Forces who sympathize with the left-wing antifa movement.
Edmonton MP Garnett Genuis has asked federal departments and agencies, as well as the military, if any of their employees are now, or have ever been, members of the decentralized protest movement that stands in opposition to fascist and far-right ideologies.
“Antifa” is not a formal organization, but an umbrella term for political movements that oppose far-right, racist and fascist groups.
Antifa has become a fixation for U.S. President Donald Trump, and a lightning rod for right-wing websites and commentators, who depict the counter-protesters as violent mobs. The administration has controversially declared antifa a domestic terrorist organization, although the designation does not appear to have a basis in U.S. law.
Genuis has asked the Canadian government for a formal response on whether it permits “membership or involvement” with antifa for public servants or members of the CAF, and how many “people active in Antifa activities” Ottawa employs.
The Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan MP also wants to know if any bureaucrats or CAF members have been “disciplined … for Antifa-related activities.”
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Bernie Farber, a longtime social justice and anti-hate advocate, noted that going back decades, most CAF members would be considered anti-fascist.
“The vast majority of Canadians who helped build this country in the last century were [anti-fascist],” Farber said in an interview.
“[Antifa is] not a card-carrying organization … it’s a concept. It’s a concept that has been strong ever since democracy has been strong; it’s society’s way of saying strongly and clearly that they are against dictatorship, against hatred and against racism.”
The U.S.-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies noted that violent acts connected to antifa have typically involved groups counter-protesting fascist and far-right groups.
But according to a 2025 study by the think tank, while broadly “left-wing” political violence has risen in the U.S. over the last decade, it remains at a lower level than “right-wing” or “jihadist” extremist violence over that same period.
With Trump’s extreme unpopularity in Canada, most Canadian Conservatives try to avoid any appearance of ideological overlap with U.S. Republicans. At the same time, antifa has not become the mainstream political target in Canada to the extent it has south of the border.
On Parliament Hill Monday afternoon, Genuis declined to answer questions about what prompted the antifa probe, suggesting Global News contact his office, which had not responded to Global’s questions as of Thursday morning.
Genuis put his questions to the government via the Order Paper, a process that allows any MP to submit written queries to federal departments and agencies. The written questions are typically used by opposition MPs to get factual and detailed responses about government programs, policy or spending. The government has 45 sitting days to reply, meaning Genuis can expect his response in April.
Public servants are permitted to participate in “any political activity so long as it does not impair, or is not perceived as impairing, the employee’s ability to perform his or her duties in a politically impartial manner,” according to federal law.
That would include peaceful demonstrations against fascist movements and groups, although the government cautions that public servants’ political activity “must be balanced with [their] responsibility to maintain the political impartiality of the public service.”
Regular members of the Canadian Armed Forces are more limited in their extracurricular political activities, requiring permission to participate at the municipal level and being barred from participating in provincial or federal politics.
Reserve members are not restricted from political activities, although they are still subject to the CAF’s general rules when engaging in civilian activity.
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