Finally. The focus is on the need to better ensure the security of elected officials. The sad reality is that the days of rose-colored glasses are over.
Unfortunately, Canada is not immune to verbal, and sometimes physical, violence against elected officials and journalists. Especially against women.
In Quebec, the security of the prime minister, ministers and opposition leaders has long been guaranteed. How it should be.
However, the September 4, 2012 attack in the Metropolis against the new sovereign Prime Minister Pauline Marois revealed major flaws in this regard. Hopefully that has now been corrected.
Ten years later we are struggling with an increasingly polarized social climate in which violence is normalizing within certain fringe groups of fanatics. For the election campaign, the reports also confirm a significant tightening of protection for party leaders.
However, no security is provided at the federal level for ministers or leaders of opposition parties. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was protected himself, had stones thrown at him during his last election campaign.
In Alberta, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was recently the victim of an incredibly violent verbal assault by a man who was as massive as he was menacing. Again zero security.
The Toxic Impact of Trumpism
There are numerous factors that explain this apparent rise in anti-democratic bigotry – threats, harassment, vulgar insults and intimidation against elected officials and journalists. No advanced country escapes it.
Still, it’s impossible not to point out the toxic influence of Trump’s intransigence on traditional media and democratic institutions.
From a deep grudge spread ad nauseam on so-called social media to the riot on Capitol Hill, this evidence is well documented.
The internet serves both as an exponential transmission line for all this hate and as a very effective network for propaganda, recruitment and funding.
Beefy warning
At the federal level, far-right politicians, including Maxime Bernier and Pierre Poilievre, have exploited the same bigotry for partisan and ideological purposes. The pandemic and its health measures have served as an accelerator.
On social media, some of Éric Duhaime’s more ardent supporters are already inundating elected officials and journalists with crude insults. The long illegal occupation of Ottawa by the so-called “freedom convoy” had warned us urgently.
It was a veritable wave of vandalism, threats, intimidation, hysterical calls for Prime Minister Trudeau to be impeached, verbal and physical violence against journalists, etc.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental value, but it cannot be used as a pass for verbal and/or physical threats or attacks against anyone.
There is no way out. The same behaviors of an active and growing minority of self-proclaimed patriots of freedom require increased security measures, increased policing of social media, indictments where appropriate, and dissuasive criminal penalties.
There is no such thing as zero risk. Nevertheless, it is possible to ensure that elected representatives are accessible to citizens without endangering their personal safety.
