Kayleigh Holden is graduate of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (2019). Her research interests lie in the study of right-wing extremism (RWE), and she has hopes of furthering our understanding of both the legal and social aspects of this phenomena. More specifically, she would be interested in studying the factors which played into the decisions of prosecutors when considering appropriate charges for cases involving violent extremism (e.g. Alek Minassian, Alexandre Bissonnette, and the Toronto 18). Given that 53 out of 54 of Canada’s terrorism prosecutions since the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Act (2001) have involved Islamic extremism,1 exclusively, there is arguably a desperate need to examine— at the source—the reasons for which the judicial system is declining to prosecute some of the most violent extremists as terrorists. Some of her additional interests include RWE in the Canadian Armed Forces, and contemporary intelligence and counterterrorism operations in the age of the internet.
