Let’s talk about a word that’s been popping up more and more lately at kitchen tables, community rallies, and across our news feeds: fascism.
The Separatists and those who hard-line support the UCP Government are upset at the use of the word. They are loudly complaining and using a lot of eye rolls to say that the word is being used out of context, that those using the word against the government “don’t understand the meaning of it.”
It’s easy to see why people get so defensive.
Mention “fascism” and most people immediately picture 1930s Europe, military boots, and total state control. So for the Albertans who pride themselves on “freedom,” hearing that label hits like a slap in the face. Their immediate defense? “Look around! We still have elections. Nobody’s marching down the street. You’re being ridiculous.”
BUT they are marching down the street. Have you seen the men in white masks marching in Alberta? They call themselves the Second Sons. They gather on our overpasses, show up in our public spaces, conceal their faces behind white masks, and promote extreme white-nationalist rhetoric while performing military-style fitness drills.
Fascism doesn’t start with a fully formed dictatorship dropping out of the sky on day one. It starts in the streets with masked groups testing how much hate a public will tolerate. And it starts in the legislature when a government creates the exact political and ideological conditions that allow those movements to feel emboldened.
When community advocates and everyday folks use this word, it isn’t a cheap insult. It is a deliberate warning label. Here is why that label fits the pattern we are watching unfold in Alberta today.
1. Stripping Away Local Democracy and Freedom
While hardline supporters claim Alberta is the land of local freedom, the provincial government has been systematically grabbing control from our communities:
Bill 20 (Overriding Local Votes): The provincial cabinet gave itself the unilateral power to fire democratically elected municipal councillors and wipe out local bylaws, without court oversight or community input.
Bill 28 (Government Oversight in Public Libraries): In one of the most direct attacks on community autonomy and intellectual freedom, the UCP passed Bill 28, giving a single provincial minister the power to appoint inspectors to enter local public libraries, audit collections, examine records, and dictate what materials people can access or borrow based on age restrictions. By overriding local, community-appointed library boards, the province is introducing centralized censorship, age-verification hurdles, and serious privacy concerns into one of the last truly democratic public spaces We have left.
Bill 18 (Controlling the Funds): The province now demands veto power over federal funding meant for municipalities, housing, post-secondary schools, and local boards. If a local community project doesn’t line up with cabinet’s political ideology, the tap gets turned off.
Parties in Local Politics: Pushing provincial party slates into municipal races breaks down independent, neighbor-to-neighbor local governance.
When local mayors, city councils, and school boards can only operate at the whim of the provincial cabinet, democratic checks and balances are actively being dismantled.
2. Using Vulnerable Groups as Political Targets
Authoritarian strategies always rely on scapegoating. When a government wants to consolidate its base, it singles out specific, vulnerable groups to manufacture an “us vs. them” crisis.
Targeting Trans and Non-Binary Youth: Mandating restrictions on gender-affirming healthcare and forcing schools to out students over name or pronoun changes.
Cultural “Us vs. Them” Rhetoric: Key figures in power regularly use language framing federal institutions, urban centers, and newcomer communities as threats to “authentic” Albertan values.
Instead of bringing communities together to solve real problems, this strategy intentionally creates division, so people stay focused on culture wars rather than leadership accountability.
AND WE NEED TO BE ANGRIER ABOUT THIS!
3. Pushing Past the Rule of Law
A healthy democracy relies on constitutional boundaries and independent courts. When leaders treat the law like an optional suggestion, alarms should ring loudly.
The Sovereignty Act: Giving the provincial cabinet a mechanism to bypass federal legislation and judicial oversight whenever they declare a law “harmful” to provincial interests.
Executive Interference: Persistent concerns surrounding executive pressure on prosecutors and public institutions show an ongoing pattern of testing how far unchecked power can reach.
4. The Distraction Game: Culture Wars vs. Real Community Needs
It’s no coincidence that these high-emotion cultural battles are hitting at the exact same time our daily lives are feeling the squeeze. Modern authoritarian messaging thrives when social and economic anxieties are high.
By keeping the public outraged over Ottawa feuds, municipal takeovers, and culture wars, the focus gets pulled away from the issues that actually matter at our kitchen tables:
A healthcare system stretched past its limits.
Unaffordable housing and rising living costs.
Underfunded public schools and volatile energy revenues.
It’s a classic playbook: keep people fighting each other so nobody pays attention to who’s holding the wheel.
Let’s be completely real, nobody is saying Alberta has turned into 1930s Germany overnight. Nobody is saying we don’t still have elections or that the army is running the province.
That’s the old-school version of fascism. Modern authoritarianism doesn’t show up with a dictator in a military uniform taking over everything in a single afternoon. It happens step by step, right inside the legal system.
Instead of banning elections, it changes the election rules to make sure the party in power stays in power. Instead of shutting down newspapers by force, it attacks journalists, starves public services, and bullies institutions into staying quiet. Instead of tanks in the street, it uses legislation, government inspectors, and cabinet mandates to take away your local voice.
By the time people realize what’s happening, the system has already been quietly rewritten.
Bottom Line
The eye rolls that claim “people don’t know what fascism means” miss the entire point.
Masked hate groups marching through our communities aren’t happening in a vacuum. They are the visible symptom of a broader shift where executive power centralizes, local democracy gets gutted, vulnerable neighbors get targeted, and the rule of law gets sidelined.
Calling it out isn’t a huge exaggeration, it’s about naming the pattern so we can stand up, protect our neighbors, and defend our local democracy before those freedoms are chipped away entirely.
For more background on the extremist presence mentioned in the piece, this reporting breaks down the strategy behind the group: Exposing fight clubs in Canada and U.S.. This video details the growth of masked white nationalist groups like the Second Sons and their tactics across Canadian communities.