Canadian investment advances Christchurch Call’s work to tackle violent extremist content risk in emerging technologies and to support small and medium sized platforms to counter TVEC.

12 November 2025

The work of the Christchurch Call community to eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content (TVEC) online has been strengthened through the investment announced by Honourable Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State for Combatting Crime on behalf of the Government of Canada through the Community Resilience Fund (CRF).

 The Christchurch Call Foundation (CCF) welcomes the news of the investment of over $1.3mCAD to enable work to both counter TVEC risks associated with emerging technologies, and to support smaller platforms to counter TVEC.

 “By working with the Call’s global network and collaborating with ROOST, the Elevate initiative aims to mitigate the risk that new and emerging technologies are misused to store, disseminate, and create TVEC, and that human interaction with these technologies then creates opportunities for radicalization to violence.” Christchurch Call Foundation Chief Executive Paul Ash says.

 “I acknowledge the Canadian government’s strong support of the Christchurch Call since it was stood up in 2019. This funding through the CRF reinforces Canada’s role in shaping international efforts on technology governance and countering online violent extremism.” Paul Ash says.

 The Christchurch Call was established following the March 15 terror attacks in New Zealand in 2019 and is a growing multistakeholder community working together to eliminate TVEC. It has become a leading model for multistakeholder digital governance.

In 2022 and 2023, Christchurch Call leaders identified work on TVEC risks in emerging technologies as a priority. ​This included a direction to examine TVEC risk in immersive technologies, distributed platforms, and generative AI.

 Elevate is a three-year project that seeks to build on existing research, and draw on the capabilities of the Call Community, by piloting positive interventions, supporting development of open-source tools for TVEC risk mitigation, contributing to the development of safety benchmarks, and supporting capacity building.

 "We’re encouraged to see open-source safety solutions recognized for their role in building safer online spaces. This investment underscores the importance of auditable, transparent innovation to address violent extremist content across platforms and technologies. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Christchurch Call Foundation to make open-source tools the default foundation for how the world approaches online safety." President of ROOST Camille François says.

 CCF will now undertake comprehensive engagement with the Call community to contribute its deep expertise to tackling this challenge.

 Attributable Quote 

1.      Honourable Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State for Combatting Crime: “We know that Canadians are concerned about the growing risk of radicalization to violence we are seeing both online and in our communities. Through the Community Resilience Fund, we are making targeted investments directly into communities through organizations doing the critical, on-the-groundwork to identify and prevent radicalization to violence in all its forms." 

 Notes to Editors:

1.      On October 20, 2025, The Honourable Ruby Sahota, Secretary of State for Combatting Crime, announced a federal investment of $36,912,380 through the Community Resilience Fund (CRF), which supports partnerships and innovation in preventing violent extremism in Canada.

2.      Ministerial Announcement link is here: Government of Canada announces $36 million in funding to counter radicalization to violence - Canada.ca

3.      France and New Zealand co-founded the Christchurch Call on May 15, 2019, with online service providers and other governments.

4.      The Call has 25 commitments made by governments and online service providers to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. 

5.      The Call Community comprises 56 governments, 19 online service providers, 12 partner organisations, and a Christchurch Call Advisory Network of more than 50 civil society organisations and individuals.