Senior officials at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) say anti-feminist ideology is becoming “increasingly relevant” to Canada’s national security landscape and may lead to radicalization and violent extremism, but added that the ideology alone does not yet rise to the level of a security threat.
The comments came during testimony last week to the House of Commons standing committee on the status of women, which is conducting a study on the anti-feminism movement that has sprung up in some online circles and advocates for regressive roles for women in society and relationships.
In a rare move, the two witnesses were only identified by their first names and titles, which committee chair and Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu said was meant to “protect their identity.”
Multiple committee members commented that it was “very weird” and “a little uncomfortable” to address Jean-Pierre, the director-general for counterterrorism at CSIS, and Luc, the director-general of assessments at the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC), by their first names, given their senior positions.
Both witnesses appeared by videoconference, but only Luc appeared on camera.
“Anti-feminist ideology is increasingly relevant to Canada’s national security landscape” in the context of broader gender-based violent extremism, Luc said.
He added that ideology by itself — including the expression of controversial beliefs — does not constitute a national security threat in the eyes of the ITAC, whose mandate includes setting Canada’s terrorism threat level.
“However, our assessments indicate that in certain contexts, anti-feminist ideology can function as an enabling factor along pathways to violent extremism,” Luc continued. “These narratives can provide grievance frameworks that legitimize hostility toward women and gender equality, and elements of them are consistent with those observed in ideologically motivated violent extremism.”
The testimony came just over two months after Canada marked the 36th anniversary of the École Polytechnique Montréal mass shooting that killed 14 women, which is considered an anti-feminist attack. The shooter, Marc Lépine, had ranted about feminists ruining his life before carrying out the attack and taking his own life afterwards.
Since that tragedy, the rise of online communities and especially social media has helped propel radicalization, security officials and researchers say.
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The Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women says it has identified a rise of regressive and anti-feminist groups in Canada in recent years, which use social media and online platforms to spread their messages and recruit members.
Those groups seek to dismantle feminist and gender equality movements in favour of male superiority and recreating a “romanticized” vision of the past, a 2025 report said.
“These regressive ideologies blame the current problems we face today on progressive policies and activism, and women’s rights and social justice organizations, rather than on ongoing structural inequality and injustice,” it said.
Luc told MPs the online environment has “expedited the exposure to violent extremist beliefs,” and has increased in the past few years since the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that all age groups are prone to falling into algorithm-fuelled echo chambers where those beliefs are further reinforced.
CSIS has identified gender identity-driven violence, which includes violent misogyny and anti-LGBTQ2 violence, as a distinct category of ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE).
Jean-Pierre, the CSIS counterterrorism director, told the committee that IVME “continues to pose a significant threat to Canada’s national security.”
Yet he added that “much of what happens in the broader threat landscape is criminal” but doesn’t rise to meet the national security threshold, or is “what we often call ‘awful but lawful’ — falling below the threshold of both criminal and national security.”
He added that most investigations CSIS carries out into potential threats against women are referred to the RCMP or provincial and municipal police.
“Our staff receives training” on anti-feminist ideology, he said, but “we don’t investigate violence against women on a criminal level.”
Luc later added that “the fact that you’re an anti-feminist does not necessarily mean that you are inherently violent or a violent extremist.”
“I do think that, as abhorrent as it is, there is a need for a distinguishing between controversial speech and violent behaviour,” he said.
In his annual speech to Canadians last fall, CSIS Director Dan Rogers noted that today’s violent extremists are motivated by “an increasingly diverse, often personalized, set of extreme beliefs” and ideologies — including misogyny — that can overlap and be used to justify personal grievances.
Those mixtures of ideologies are primarily what CSIS investigates, the officials said in their testimony.
“The vast majority of Canadians are not within our purview,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’re talking about a small number of individuals in the country that are ready to act on their ideology.”
Both witnesses told the committee they had all the tools necessary to confront current threats, but that they will always welcome more resources.
“Anti-feminist ideology in and of itself is not necessarily something that will hurt national security,” Luc said.
“I can’t make any predictions about the future. That said, given what we’re seeing at the time being, most attacks in the last 10 years have been mixed ideology.”
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