Noxious hot air being kind of their thing, members of the far-right group La Meute may have felt at home in the sweltering Quebec City parking garage where they waited on Sunday for the chaos outside to die down. Sadly, when they finally emerged, rather than skulking away, as one might have hoped, they declared victory – and they weren’t entirely wrong. A few violent counter-protesters had made this deplorable group seem almost like victims.

La Meute had organized a rally in protest of the influx of border-crossers coming from the United States into Quebec, and of the efforts of every level of government to accommodate the refugees. Theirs was among a number of protests organized over the weekend by racist groups emboldened by the tragedy in Charlottesville and its aftermath. Like the others, it ought to have been a failure.

In Boston, Berlin and Vancouver, counter-protests managed to peacefully drown out messages of hate and put far-right extremists in their rightfully diminished place. But in Quebec City, a few fringe elements among the anti-fascists initiated violence, throwing bricks and unleashing chemical irritants on the assembled crowd. Police eventually declared the counter-protest illegal and allowed members of La Meute to emerge from their hiding place and engage in a silent march near the National Assembly.

This did the anti-fascist cause a double-disservice. By initiating violence, this small minority of counter-protesters paved the way for La Meute to position itself, horribly and absurdly, as the more reasonable of the parties. It must be remembered that it was La Meute that worked to block the creation of a Muslim cemetery after the Quebec City mosque shooting. Its mission is not reasonable, but reprehensible; anything that makes it seem otherwise is counter-productive.

Moreover, the chaos and violence may actually lead some to believe the group’s claim that the “the scourge of illegal immigration” has become a crisis in the province. This is utter nonsense.

Roughly 8,000 people have crossed into Quebec so far this year in search of asylum, a notable increase over last year, but hardly unprecedented. In 2008, an even larger group, around 12,000 people, walked into the province over the same period. In the larger scheme of things, the current uptick barely begins to strain our capacity. Canada plans to take in some 300,000 immigrants this year, including 40,000 refugees.

Most of the border-crossers are Haitians running from a change of policy in the U.S. that will rescind temporary protections put in place after an earthquake devastated their homeland in 2010. This will affect some 40,000 people. Of those, many won’t come here and of those who do, many will not be granted asylum. (Canada withdrew the same protection in 2014.) As the mayor of Montreal, the premier of Quebec and the prime minister have all noted again and again, we can manage these numbers fairly and with compassion.

Indeed, as the Star has argued before, we can accommodate a great many more immigrants and refugees than we currently do. In fact, doing so may be not only the moral thing amid the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, but also in our economic interests, as our population ages and our birth rate declines.

There are of course legitimate debates to be had about the best use of our immigration and refugee system to achieve our economic and humanitarian goals. But just as the Charlottesville neo-Nazis’ stated interest in free speech or the preservation of history was mere pretext for their vile views, La Meute’s hate and misinformation have nothing to add to our immigration debate.

In the wake of Charlottesville, it is heartening and important that so many are now standing up to bigotry. Silence and equivocation are not options. But the violence in Quebec City teaches us that hate wins when we amplify its voice.

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