Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson speaking with attendees at the 2023 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Source: Gage Skidmore/Wikicommons
Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson just completed his single-day, two-stop speaking tour in Alberta on Thursday, using his time to warn the audience that they are under attack.
“You should recognize what is happening to you,” Carlson told around 7,000 Calgarians. “This is not a political debate to which you have been invited to participate. This is a destruction of you and your culture and your beliefs and your children, and your future as a country.”
Part of his “Liberation” tour, Carlson travelled to arenas in Calgary and Edmonton to address throngs of people. Appearing alongside him were several notable Canadian figures including Jordan Peterson, Conrad Black, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith during the Edmonton stop. Conservative pundit Rex Murphy was scheduled to appear but dropped out.
John Carpay from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms also spoke during the Edmonton event. Carpay agreed to a civil Peace Bond Order barring him from practicing law for three years after it was revealed he had hired a private investigator to follow Manitoba Judge Glenn Joyal in 2021.
When Carlson sat down with Smith, they touched on several topics ranging from environmental policy, anti-conservative bias in Hollywood and universities, and a diversion led by Carlson into the issue of the “Coutts Four” — a group of men arrested near the Alberta-Montana border crossing in 2022, accused of planning to kill RCMP officers.
Black and Peterson both regularly appear in the National Post as columnists — of which Black is a founder. Reporting by Press Progress found the publication was telling investors that government support to the tune of $35 million were “key pillars” of its business strategy.
Despite this, Carlson maintained that Canadian news was bought and paid for by the Trudeau government, calling it “state media.”
“I can tune in any hour of the day and learn that I am racist for driving an SUV for not being trans,” he told the crowd in Calgary. “That’s the whole schedule of CBC programming. But, interpret that. That’s not woke. ‘Oh, it’s woke.’ I hate the woke crap, it doesn’t mean anything. They hate you, they are saying you are bad.”
During the Calgary speech, Carlson invoked the concept of white replacement — “They’re taking away your voting power by changing the population of your country” — and accused Justin Trudeau of being a “weird little cross-dresser.”
Carlson has used his popularity to spread conspiracy theories, misogyny, and racist talking points. A profile on the pundit by the Southern Poverty Law Center, details his numerous invocations of the “great replacement,” a conspiracy theory that paints demographic change in North America as a plot to strip white people of political power. The theory has led to multiple mass murders.
Carlson also went as far as to claim that the movement supporting stronger rights for transgender people was an attempt to “ritually humiliate” Christians.
“Swear allegiance to the new state religion, which is transgenderism,” he said.
Other claims include that the Province of British Columbia was giving fentanyl to children, tantamount to “trying to kill your children.”
As pointed out by Jeremy Appel, an Alberta journalist who attended the Edmonton event, this is likely a conflation of a recommendation from the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) to include minors in safe drug supply programs. BCCSU is not a governmental body and the recommendation is not currently policy.
Influence and Infamy
Carlson was once one of the biggest names in cable news, previously working for CNN and MSNBC. He rose to prominence on Fox News, where he had the most-viewed network television program up until its sudden cancellation, when Carlson was swiftly dismissed from the network.
The reasons for this were never explained officially by the company. Carlson reportedly claimed his dismissal was part of a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which sued Fox for claims made about election fraud in the 2020 US election.
Carlson has used his popularity to spread conspiracy theories, misogyny, and racist talking points. A profile on the pundit by the Southern Poverty Law Center, details his numerous invocations of the “great replacement,” a conspiracy theory that paints demographic change in North America as a plot to strip white people of political power. The theory has led to multiple mass murders.
He has downplayed the existence of white supremacy in the United States, stating “This is a hoax. Just like the Russia hoax. This is a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power,” according to the New York Times.
While still on cable, Carlson hosted anti-transgender activist “Billboard” Chris Elston, a Canadian man who first rose to prominence after he assisted in financing a billboard reading “I (heart) JK Rowling” and who has appeared at political events and outside of schools wearing sandwich boards objecting to the pervasiveness of “gender ideology.”
While on Carlson’s program in September 2022, Elston called gender-affirming care “the biggest child abuse scandal in modern medicine history.” Carlson used the segment to call the practice the “sexual mutilation of children.”
According to Media Matters For America, Carlson ran five other segments the following week about the DC’s Children’s National Hospital offering gender-affirming care.