LETTER FROM CANADA

Before heading to Moscow to "land" the interview with Vladimir Putin broadcast on February 8, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson made a detour to Canada. It was a more private stopover, but one which offered a striking digest of the rhetoric of this American herald of the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) right-wing. In the US's northern neighbor, he accused Justin Trudeau's Liberal government of "causing the deaths of children in British Columbia by providing them with Fentanyl," of "murdering tens of thousands of elderly people with the assisted-dying law," or of "killing the Canadian middle class by being the most immigrationist country in the world." As for Moscow, he listened without flinching to the peculiar and biased history lessons unrolled by the Russian dictator.

On January 24, 4,000 people came to the Calgary Convention Centre (Alberta) to applaud the show by the ultraconservative journalist, as part of his "Liberation Tour." To get a taste of the event, spectators had to fork out between $224 and $442 (€155 and €305). But to hell with stinginess, they were sure to get their money's worth. The day before his arrival, Tucker Carlson had filmed himself leaving a message on the answering machine of the Canadian prime minister's office. "Can you let him know that we're coming to liberate Canada, and that we'll be there soon?" he said in a video shared on his Instagram account.

Trudeau – one of his favorite targets when he was still at the helm of his flagship Fox News show before being curtly dismissed in April 2023 – represents just about everything Carlson hates: provaccinator during the Covid pandemic, ardent defender of immigration and the multicultural model, supporter of LGBT+ rights and, on the international scene, unwavering supporter of Ukraine against the "barbaric attack" led by Russia. In Calgary, Carlson relished one of his favorite refrains: the racist theory of "great replacement." "If you change the population of your country, you're changing your country," he told an enthusiastic audience. He stepped up his homophobic remarks, calling the Canadian PM "ridiculous" and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland a "mentally deficient fascist." But the highlight of the show was still to come, when Alberta PM Danielle Smith joined him for a question-and-answer session.

This former journalist took up the reins of power in the grain- and oil-rich province of western Canada in October 2022. A product of the Wild Rose Party, the far-right wing of the Alberta Conservatives, she still relies on the most extreme fringes of her electorate. This includes those on the margins calling for a "Wexit," i.e. Alberta's secession from Canada; those within the "Take Back Alberta" movement advocating "freedom" from the country's ruling elites; or those behind the "truckers' movement," known as the "Freedom Convoy," which organized a siege of the federal capital, Ottawa, for over three weeks in the winter of 2022, to protest against the federal government's anti-Covid health measures. This movement was financially supported at the time by American far-right movements.

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