Why is Radio X Giving Airtime to a White Nationalist?

One of Quebec City’s most popular radio stations is playing a dangerous game.

That’s what two experts on political extremism said last week after Radio X hosted one of the intellectual leaders of white nationalism in Quebec.

Alexandre Cormier-Denis, 39, claims Quebecers are a “race” of white Catholics whose homeland is under threat from Muslim immigration. Cormier-Denis uses his livestream to monologue about immigrants “taking your pay” but also features interviews with overtly fascist groups like Atalante Québec — a band of middle-aged hooligans known to gang up on people outside bars and find a pretext to beat them.

He held court for 40 minutes on Radio X Aug. 17, railing against “Bolshevik” politicians in the National Assembly, a media culture dominated by “extreme leftists” and the dangers of immigration changing Quebec’s demographic makeup.

At no point did the program’s host challenge Cormier-Denis assertions.

In fact, the interview was posted online with a caption teasing that he may be the newest columnist at Radio X — a station that boasts an audience of about 100,000 listeners. Experts who monitor right-wing extremism in Canada say that by hosting someone with ties to right wing extremists, Radio X is normalizing a dangerous undercurrent in our politics.

“This is exactly what extreme right-wing movements in Quebec want,” said Sébastien Roback, a researcher with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. “(Cormier-Denis) has relationships with the who’s who of extremist organizations in Quebec.

“Sometimes, it feels like people expect fascists today to wear swastikas on their arms and do the (fascist) salute. So when one of them shows up in a suit and tells jokes, they have a hard time understanding.”

Cormier-Denis occupies a unique place in Quebec’s far-right. His livestream has become a sort of meeting point for “intellectuals” from factions that don’t otherwise interact.

There are the European-influenced groups like Atalante and la Fédération des Québecois de souche (FQS). They once had their own boxing club, they attend speeches, publish hateful newsletters and hold conferences in barns because no respectable business will host them. Their main focus is halting immigration and assaulting leftists. Five years ago, some Atalante members cornered a young man in Quebec City bar and savagely beat him — breaking his nose and leaving him with a brain injury. 

Then there are the MAGA-adjacent populists who came up through organizations like La Meute and Storm Alliance. Though slightly older and less polished, the populists far outnumber the European groups. Pre-pandemic, La Meute could mobilize hundreds of members to a protest in Quebec City. It disbanded years ago but its former members are still active in causes like protesting drag queens and fighting whatever is left of Quebec’s COVID-19 sanitary measures.

During his broadcasts, Cormier-Denis speaks to both these crowds.

Unlike the meandering Facebook Live broadcasts of the MAGA set, Cormier-Denis’ show is structured and carefully paced. Sitting at a desk in front a green screen, he wears a suit and monologues with ease; one moment he’s building tension with an anecdote and then he pounds his fist, points at the camera and shouts for emphasis. 

“Look at these BOLSHEVIKS, they’re our adversaries, these people, because they want YOUR quality of life and that of your children to be inferior,” he said, during a speech about environmentalists. 

“They want to TAKE your pay and redistribute it to Mamadou (Mamadou is a derisive term the European right uses for African immigrants). That’s socialism, bring Mamadou over and redistribute your pay to them. And they don’t want you to be able to choose what car you can buy.”

Speaking in a patois of Québécois French and Parisian slang, Cormier-Denis is one of the rare far-right leaders who has traction on both sides of the Atlantic.

“He’s friends with  Marine Le Pen (the former Front National leader), he has connections with far-right movements in Europe, which are much more well-organized than over here,” said Martin Geoffroy, a sociologist and one of the foremost researchers of Quebec’s far-right. “I hate to use this word to describe Alexandre Cormier-Denis but he is an intellectual. At least inside the neo-fascist movement. He’s more of a thinker than an action guy. He won’t march on the streets, he won’t show his face at protests.

“He doesn’t want to overthrow the government but he wants to overthrow ideologies and institutions. He wants to lead a cultural revolution and he wants to recruit white Quebec men to do it. When the culture shifts, we elect far-right governments and everybody’s happy. At least, that’s how he sees it.”

A former member of the Parti Québécois, Cormier-Denis was effectively kicked out of the party in 2016 because of his association with Le Pen — the far-right leader who ran for president of France in 2022, 2017 and 2012. One PQ source said Cormier-Denis’s presence inside the party was so bothersome that they modified their own rules to be able to kick out problematic members.

“We didn’t have that before he came along, we have tens of thousands of party members and that never happened before him,” the source said. “We didn’t want anything to do with him.”

Running for the Parti indépendantiste in a 2017 provincial byelection, Cormier-Denis postered the district with signs that places a woman in a hijab opposite a woman in a tuque, inviting voters to choose their Quebec. He garnered 0.6 per cent of the vote.

Despite his well-documented past, Radio X saw fit to give him nearly an hour of programming on its airwaves. Though the Radio X appearance was tame by Cormier-Denis standards, his extremist views are well known.

“I think it says a lot about Radio X’s shrinking relevance,” said one former government staffer, who dealt with Radio X for years. 

“They used to set the political agenda in Quebec. They advocated for years for the Troisième Lien commuter tunnel and essentially made it an election issue in 2018 and 2022. They fought hard against the construction of a tramway in Quebec City and that also caught fire. They turned it into a big political fight.

“But, in the end, the Troisième Lien they wanted isn’t going to happen and the tramway is. Three years ago, they had the pandemic to rant and rage about. Last year, there was the trucker convoy. But the COVID-19 restrictions are over and their ratings are tanking.

“They’re lost and if this is what they’re doing to try to find themselves, it’s pretty desperate.”

Further Reading

• The Notepad Vol. 4: Dragon Queens
• Protected: Radio Poubelle: Inside Quebec City’s Outrage Machine

Once a frontrunner in the ultra-competitive ratings battle on Quebec City’s airwaves, Radio X is now well behind Radio-Canada and 93.5 FM. They’ve lost star talent like Jeff Fillion — who left the station under nebulous circumstances last year — and they’ve squandered much of their political clout because of their borderline unhinged coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They maintain a fanatically devoted following in the capital city’s suburbs, the kinds of supporters who will relentlessly attack the station’s critics on social media. Staffers from three political parties refused to go on the record for an interview about Radio-X. Their reasons were all the same.

“Not worth it,” one of them said. “Their followers will find my accounts and spam me for at least two weeks and I just don’t have the energy for that.”

But even in Radio X’s desperation, it’s hard to imagine them leaning on someone as openly xenophobic as Cormier-Denis to reverse the station’s decline. After all, his content is so toxic that YouTube banned his channel two years ago. 

“This isn’t someone who is consorting with choirboys,” said Roback. “His links to groups like Atalante and FQS is scary, if you ask me. That’s a pretty direct connection to actual neo-nazis.”