What we have witnessed in Canada and other Western democracies over the last year and a half is the rapid establishment of social licence.
Social licence for the type of violent extremism that resulted in the assassination of two Israeli embassy diplomats, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, in Washington last week. Social licence for the open celebration and justification of the murders – from extremist voices, yes, but also from academics, influencers and a former Green Party candidate in the recent Canadian election – by people convinced that emptying a gun into two people on an American sidewalk is a defensible form of “resistance” against the actions of a foreign government half a world away.
