Multiple community groups, along with the federal NDP, have called on the Munk Debates to scrap this Friday’s sold-out debate between former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and conservative commentator David Frum. The two are supposed to spar over the future viability of populism but voices have been calling on organizers to cancel the event due to Bannon’s participation.Bannon is widely known as the former executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart News and as an influential strategist behind Donald Trump’s political rise. Bannon has referred to Breitbart as “the platform of the alt-right” movement, which includes multiple far-right factions that are openly anti-Semitic. The NDP recently joined the chorus of protest after last Saturday’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.“Because of their supposed legitimacy as a platform of ideas, the Munk Debates is certainly helping this time to bring into the mainstream a much more extremist position,” says Charlie Angus, the NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay. He says he began questioning the Munk Debate’s choice after attending a vigil last Sunday for the Pittsburgh shooting.“I don’t think Steve Bannon is coming to Canada to debate ideas, he’s here because he’s found a platform to legitimize something that used to very much be on the fringe,” he says.A coalition of 35 community organizations also held a press conference earlier this week to express their opposition to include Bannon as part of Munk Debates. They also argue that the event provides Bannon with a prominent platform to further spread and “normalize” his extreme views and “hateful ideology.”“The very presence of Steve Bannon in Toronto poses threats to the safety of marginalized communities,” says Maya Menezes, the spokesperson for the coalition and a member of No One is Illegal Toronto, a migrant advocacy group.“People like Steve Bannon embolden white supremacists to come out and kill people, and it’s happening in real time. It’s tragic and horrific that this has to happen for people to make the connection between violence and hateful rhetoric,” she says.Bannon has insisted in the past that he holds no racist or discriminatory views toward any minority group, but also admits that Breitbart attracts plenty of racists and anti-Semites.“What we’ve always seen with these provocateurs is that they’re fairly careful with what they say but they’re setting the stage for people who are much more willing to act on their extremism,” Angus says. He adds that Bannon has helped the far-right “use and exploit” the tools of public debate and the electoral process to “instil a much more radical set of ideas into the public conversation.”The Munk Debates are organized semi-annually and typically feature high-profile speakers to debate polarizing topics. The organizers insist that the debate series offers a neutral space for ideas to be interrogated so as to inform people of what the participants stand for.“We believe we are providing a public service by allowing their ideas to be vigorously contested and letting the public draw their own conclusions from the debate,” states Munk Debates organizer and chair Rudyard Griffiths in a press release.
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The latest debate between Bannon and Frum drew protest almost immediately after it was announced in early September.Bannon was instrumental in pushing for the executive order issued last January, not long after Trump assumed office, that either suspended or banned entry into the United States by people from a number of Muslim-majority countries.“This whole so called ‘debate’ is not about an exchange of ideas,” Angus insists. “It’s about normalizing some very reprehensible causes of the radical right, causes that Steve Bannon has been travelling the world to promote and he needs to be called on it.”Cover image of former senior White House adviser Steve Bannon, speaking during the Red Tide Rising Rally supporting Republican candidates, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, in Elma, N.Y. Photo by Jeffrey T. Barnes/AP