Canadian politics in throes of a furious fever

It’s getting pretty ugly out there for an elected official.

Charges pressed this week against a 72-year-old man for allegedly sending St. Johns MLA Nahanni Fontaine threatening, racist letters last summer have brought to light the reality that elected officials — particularly women and members of racialized groups — are facing growing vitriol.

The accused has been charged with criminal harassment and uttering threats, and has been released on an undertaking.

Fontaine, unfortunately, has faced this kind of cruelty before. She told the Free Press that threatening or other unacceptable messages have been sent her way in an “ongoing” fashion, ramping up after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is far from the first time Manitoba MLAs have been targeted. Housing Minister Bernadette Smith brought attention last fall to instances of vandalism and fires at constituency offices. A 35-year-old, Jesse Robert Shawn Wheatland, was charged in attacks on the offices, as well as fires that damaged downtown restaurants.

The problem is not confined to Manitoba. In 2022, then-deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland was subjected to an abusive tirade from a man in Grand Prairie, Alta., as she walked through the community’s city hall. In 2024, then-NDP leader Jagmeet Singh faced insults by a pair of protesters outside Parliament Hill, one of whom called him a “corrupted bastard.” (Singh, for his part, turned and confronted the man directly, quickly silencing him and calling him “a coward” when he refused to take ownership of his words.)

The Canadian Press reported last year that documents released by the Privy Council Office showed “the volume of threats made against the prime minister and cabinet ministerrs has exploded in recent years,” with 40 threats against the PM and cabinet in 2021, then rising each year, with the count reaching 311 in 2024.

Former prime minister Justin Trudeau was accosted by an angry crowd in Belleville, Ont., in 2023; he was pelted with gravel as protesters surrounded his campaign bus in London, Ont., two years earlier.

Recent years have seen an increase in security measures for Canadian politicians, including issuing them panic alarms in 2022. That same year, security and policing experts told parliamentarians that, during the pandemic, threats of violent extremism had risen, driven by online misinformation.

Manitoba’s legislature increased security during the COVID-19 pandemic, though some of those enhancements were rolled back earlier this year with the caveat that security arrangements can be flexible moving forward.

The causes of this vitriol are not the same from one politician to another. Fontaine faces vitriol of a specific kind — misogynistic and racist. Trudeau was far from a perfect prime minister and there were worthy criticisms of him to make. However, he seemed to be more the victim of a kind of anti-cult of personality, wherein among some Canadians, the fact of him being Justin Trudeau was enough to make them hate him practically from the beginning.

What these behaviours have in common is that, regardless of the particular flavour the abuse takes on, it is irrational and unacceptable. None of the aforementioned politicians is without flaw; that does not mean they must accept being berated, degraded or threatened by citizens who believe the public nature of their jobs means it is acceptable to hurl abuse at them.

It is past time for elected officials of all parties, for community organizers and for Canadians in general to push back against this rising tide of toxicity. It is true that politicians are accountable for their actions in office, but Canadians are also responsible for their own behaviour.

It’s time to lower the temperature, before words lead to tragic actions.