Nova Scotia·NewHalifax is bringing together front-line workers and youth to find new ways to combat hate and extremist violence in the city, hoping the lessons learned will help families, police and service providers throughout Atlantic Canada. City one of 10 communities taking part in Project UPSTREAMHaley Ryan · CBC News · Posted: Nov 26, 2025 5:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.The Halifax municipality is working on strategies to prevent social isolation and extremist violence as part of a new national project. (Brian MacKay/CBC)Front-line workers and youth in Halifax are working together under a federal pilot project to combat hate and extremist violence in the city, hoping their work can help families, police and service providers throughout Atlantic Canada.The municipality is one of 10 communities across Canada chosen to take part in Project UPSTREAM, a federally-funded pilot aimed at violence prevention and delivered through the Canadian Centre for Safer Communities (CCFSC).The project connects national experts in violent extremism, community justice, and trauma with towns, cities and Indigenous communities looking to build local strategies.“That’s an opportunity that doesn’t present itself to us too often. And so I’m really grateful,” Amy Siciliano, public safety advisor for the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), said in a recent interview.Amy Siciliano is public safety advisor for the Halifax Regional Municipality (CBC)Halifax has seen a rise in hate crimes and hate-related incidents in recent years, and there have been two recent cases in Nova Scotia of online groups coercing children into harming themselves.Siciliano said city officials have already learned a lot through two recent workshops — one involving dozens of organizations serving youth, and another for young people themselves.Siciliano said young people are clearly feeling the effects of increasing social polarization and extremist discourse, both online and in physical spaces. But she said more work is needed to understand the scale of the issue locally.“We’ve begun that work, but there’s still a lot more to do for us to be able to say with any certainty what the trend is, and how it’s moving,” Siciliano said.Stacey Colliver, director of research and services at CCFSC, said Halifax was chosen for the pilot because it has a history of working with groups and people across various sectors on violence prevention.”We felt it was important to try and continue and build on that work,” she said.Zeina Ismail-Allouche, director of program development and partnerships at the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Violent Extremism (CPN-PREV), is one of the experts working with Halifax officials on the project.She said Halifax already has a strong network of people from all levels of government, schools, police and professional organizations willing to collaborate on the issue. Zeina Ismail-Allouche is director of program development and partnerships at the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Violent Extremism (CPN-PREV) (CPN-PREV)But young people also grow up facing a unique and complex history of racism, violence and discrimination affecting Black, Indigenous and newcomer communities in Halifax, she said.“It’s not history, it’s vivid. Those aspects of violence are very vivid,” said Ismail-Allouche in a recent interview from Montreal. Ismail-Allouche said youth have shared that it feels hard to make headway against systemic issues like racism, poverty, inequities in healthcare, and over-policing. She said simple solutions like improving safety on public transit or in shelters, peer support programs, and job-skill classes can often help protect youth against violence, or equip them to not use violence themselves.She said improvements aimed at preventing extremist violence can also prevent “all types of violence.”“We blame youth, but we don’t address the systemic factors that are vulnerablizing them,” she said.“Because these are traps, and traps are made to catch those who are most vulnerable.” Artwork created through the September 2025 youth workshop in Halifax, where youth shared spaces and situations where they do not feel safe. The event was organized by the municipality, local community organizations, and the Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Violent Extremism (CPN-PREV) (CPN-PREV)Over the next two years, Siciliano said Halifax will undergo a needs assessment to look at the risk factors and positive protective features the city has, training workshops for community-based groups and other professionals dealing with youth, and wrap up with a “concrete action plan” to deliver.Siciliano said she hopes this work can address the resource gap in Atlantic Canada that faces providers, or families who believe a young person may be on the path toward extremism or radicalization.“Families are the first line of defence against this issue … there needs to be circles of support that can help that person with the challenges they’re facing,” Siciliano said.“That expertise could be shared province-wide.”The other Atlantic communities in the project include the Kent Region in eastern New Brunswick, and Mount Pearl in Newfoundland and Labrador.Public Safety Canada is spending about $2.9 million overall on the project across three years through its Community Resilience Fund.MORE TOP STORIES ABOUT THE AUTHORHaley Ryan is the municipal affairs reporter for CBC covering mainland Nova Scotia. Got a story idea? Send an email to haley.ryan@cbc.ca, or reach out on Twitter @hkryan17.
National project brings Halifax advocates, youth together to prevent extremist violence
