BURST
Social media has increased polarization and the toxicity surrounding public life, experts said Friday, as politicians at all levels tell stories of harassment, vandalization of personal property and even death threats.
“I think that there’s good reason to think that these types of incidents are becoming more frequent in Canadian politics,” said Chris Tenove, assistant director at UBC’s centre for the study of democratic institutions.
“Two years ago now, the federal government commissioned an intelligence report on threats against politicians, and that noted that threats had become increasingly normalized because of extremist narratives, often prompted by people with grievances, often fuelled by misinformation or conspiracies.”
Tenove was commenting after police confirmed an explosive device had been set off outside B.C. Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma’s constituency office in North Vancouver early Friday morning.
In particular, Tenove said, high-profile women are frequent targets of these sorts of threats.
In 2023, then B.C. United MLA Elenore Sturko, who later joined the Conservatives, and former NDP cabinet minister Selina Robinson went public about threats of death and sexual violence they had both received.
Robinson said she received emails almost daily for several months with the subject line “I WILL KILL YOU SELINA ROBINSON” and threats to cut her genitalia. The individual sending the messages was eventually arrested.
Sturko said Friday that the pair’s advocacy ultimately led to changes in how members of the legislature and their staff are taught to handle these types of incidents and what information police are able to provide them.
Police “were able to obtain permission to allow us to be able to see what that person looks like, so that when we would go to events, we would know whether or not that person was there,” she said.
“The legislature is often doing security questionnaires and updates with members of their office staff to look at continuous improvement for our security so in terms of like physical security of our offices and even of the legislature. I think that they are doing quite a good job there.”
Sturko said training for new MLAs has also been updated to ensure MLAs and staff know they should report any and all suspicious emails to legislative security who will work with the appropriate police force on an investigation and risk assessment.
She said she reached out to Ma after Friday’s incident and wants to be clear that, whatever her disagreements with the policies of the NDP, nobody should ever face threats because of their job.
“The premier is someone that I often criticize on social media, going after the NDP’s policies, but as a human being and as a father and as a family person and member of the community, he’s not my enemy,” said Sturko.
“We have to be very mindful, even when things are tough, that we remind members of the public that that is the case, that we are not actually enemies.”
During last fall’s provincial election, then NDP cabinet minister Nathan Cullen reported to RCMP that someone had drawn a noose around his neck on a campaign sign.
Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has been under RCMP protective detail for 18 months after it was discovered that an Indian agent with ties to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang had him under close surveillance.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has had police protection, including being driven in a police vehicle, since November due to threats to his safety. Sim’s protective detail had cost taxpayers just under $225,000 as of the end of May.
Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West told Postmedia he has had several threatening incidents, including one where someone engaged in a dispute with the city threatened his family and showed up at his house while his wife and two young sons were home.
In another case, he said a man struggling with mental health issues told a local bylaw officer he had a gun and was going to shoot West, only for police to arrest him and find out it was a replica gun.
The mayor said he had to “fight like hell” to get police and prosecutors to lay charges following the gun incident only for the individual to get a conditional discharge and believes the public system is failing all British Columbians, not just politicians.
“It’s very easy for the system to to rationalize threats against individuals when they’re not the individual who’s having the threats against them,” said West.
“I mean when someone is threatening to kill your wife and young children you have a different perspective, and maybe take it more seriously, but our systems certainly don’t.”
With files from Dan Fumano