Over the last few months, my social media feeds have been inundated with content targeting Canada’s South Asian and Sikh immigrants. Along with stereotypes, conspiracy theories, slurs, memes, you’ll also find that hoary old phrase: “go back to your country.”
It’s not just happening on social media. Recently, a Waterloo man captured a racist tirade in which a woman berated him about “not being Canadian,” and that “Indians are taking over.” The woman’s hateful rant encapsulated much of the rhetoric spreading online — that there are “too many” Indians in Canada, and that they should all “go back.”
Whether it’s posts about immigrants taking over parks and beaches, conspiracies around public pooping, or the re-emergence of tropes about immigrants stealing jobs from Canadians, it’s clear that members of Canada’s far-right have chosen a new target.