Manitoba tool kit addressing harassment, threats against local officials distributed at international meeting

The organization that represents elected municipal leaders in the province has put out a tool kit aimed at helping local officials and staff deal with increasing harassment and threats of violence.

The Association of Manitoba Municipalities and the Strong Cities Network — a group that works against extremism and hate — released the document at a meeting of mayors and community leaders from around the world in Toronto Wednesday.

“It really comes at a super critical time, when we’re seeing local elected officials and municipal staff in Manitoba, and really across Canada, they’re all facing some increased incivility, hate and harassment against them,” Kathy Valentino, the president of the association, said Thursday.

“We needed to do something and this tool kit offers some good recommendations, and I think some support for local elected officials and municipal staff.”

The document offers 130 recommendations to elected leaders or those running for local office on how to understand, handle and address threats, harassment, disruptions to meetings and vitriol on the internet.

Some of the tips include suggesting training sessions, discussions with law enforcement and creating standard procedures for responding to harassment, among many others.

“Even if one of the recommendations can make a difference for an elected official or a municipal staff who’s going through some kind of hate or harassment, it’s done its job,” said Valentino, who’s in her third term as a city councillor in Thompson.

The release of the guidance comes just weeks after two recent “horrible” incidents involving local officials in Manitoba, she noted.

A Halloween display in the Rural Municipality of Taché of life-sized dummies hanging from gallows — four of the five had municipal ward numbers painted on them — prompted an RCMP probe and a rebuke from local officials and Premier Wab Kinew. The property owner was not charged after he took down the display, Mounties later said.

In November, RM of Alexander officials said an unknown individual or a group shot at a road grader while it was being driven, municipal signs and a water station were vandalized and bull’s-eye target was spray-painted on a municipal employee’s vehicle.

Valentino said, a lot of the harassment local officials face, particularly on social media, doesn’t make headlines.

The association put together the tool kit after holding meetings in the spring and surveying its members.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca