Report says pandemic could cause decline in democracy & rise in extremism

A new Department of National Defence research report says that threats to democracy and extremism will become stronger if the pandemic continues in the years to come, Global News reports.

The report lays out a range of political, economic and security challenges that Canada could face, depending on how long the pandemic continues to impact our daily lives.

The best-case scenario sees the pandemic becoming controlled by the end of 2021. Other scenarios predict the pandemic will go past 2023, with the worst-case scenario anticipating it lasts until 2025.

In the best-case scenario, an effective vaccine rollout would occur, which would result in a strong economic relaunch. Trust in government, science, and international institutions would also rise.

However, the reports states that "we can expect that the adversarial states will remain those already identified as such prior to the pandemic, including China, Iran, North Korea and Russia."

The report highlights concerns about "right-wing extremism", which is on the rise, as people are losing trust in government's response to COVID-19.  Trudeau liberals state that right-wing extremism is a major threat to Canada.

Confidence in global organizations like the United Nations will also likely decrease. The report adds that, "the world will continue to experience conflict regardless of which future is closest to the events that transpire in the coming years."

"Clearly, conflict can be expected to be more prevalent and increasingly violent in a baseline and more still in a worst-case than in a best-case-type outcome."

The report adds that the international community will have more trouble responding to these conflicts, if trust in them in down. "Military planners would be wise to keep this metric in mind as they consider the challenges that their nations and the NATO alliance faces."