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Warning: The story details the experience and contains disturbing language.
One of the first times Ahona Mehdi visited Hamilton homes in an attempt to become a local public school board trustee was memorable for all the wrong reasons.
“I got spat in the face,” the 19-year-old told reporters earlier this week, recalling her experience on the campaign trail.
Mehdi, who is Muslim, said this was not her only hatred.
“Parents told me we need to get Muslim girls out of schools… [And] a few days before the election, they called me anonymously and told me to suffocate and die.”
Whether it was new candidates or lifelong politicians, the toxicity and hatred in Ontario’s municipal elections seemed more poisonous than in years past, especially for people from communities seeking justice, several candidates told CBC Hamilton after the vote on October 24.
“There was a lot more nastiness in this election,” said Nrinder Nunn, a re-elected councilor who in 2018 was the first colored woman to become a member of the Hamilton City Council.
“I know some of my friends in other cities who ran this year felt the same way. It’s happening everywhere.”
Nunn said this year, while going door-to-door, one resident “slammed the door in my face, saying, ‘That brown bitch.’
“We’ve also had people walking past our campaign office, banging on the windows, trying to intimidate and stir up trouble … we thought it was a one-off, but it’s become more frequent,” she said.
Hamilton Mayor-elect Andrea Horvath defaced a sign with misogynistic slurs and images, and Ward 14 candidate Kojo Dumpty placed a white preference sticker on one of his campaign ads. Both incidents led to police investigations.
The incidents come after several candidates — from Cambridge to Scarborough and Simcoe North — faced hate and vandalism while campaigning for Ontario’s June election.
Elected officials in Ontario, including Waterloo, Niagara Region and Ottawa, have received threats, especially during the height of the pandemic, which led some, like former Ottawa-Carleton District School Board member Keith Penney, to not run again last month.
Councilor privatizes Twitter account after election
Bitterness appeared in the network and this election campaign.
Sabrina Hill, who registered as a regional council candidate for St. Catharines earlier this year, said she was constantly criticized online for being an openly transgender candidate.
“I saw social media as the easiest and most effective way to reach potential voters,” Hill said.
Months later, she was only posting scheduled tweets amid the feud, which included accusing Hill of babysitting her, among other accusations.
“I didn’t feel like there could be a real purposeful dialogue,” she said.
Hill, who received 4,994 votes but was not elected as a member of the regional council, also said she felt uncomfortable handing out campaign posters for fear that supporters could become targets of hate.
Greg Miller has privatized his Twitter account after being re-elected as a councilor in St. Catharines.
Councilors work part-time in this municipality and often full-time elsewhere. Miller subsequently suspended his account because he was concerned that the trolling might affect his other career as an employment coach.
“I felt like I was being targeted for some kind of trolling in my tweets … it was getting very personal and frankly dangerous … for my profession and my family,” Miller said.
Some possible solutions
Blaine Haggart, an associate professor of political science at Brock University in Niagara-on-the-Lake, said hearing that Hill couldn’t use social media like others “hit a nerve,” given that she likely needs it to win.
He said that while some people oppose governments regulating social media because it could lead to dire consequences for free speech, it’s clear that users are already being silenced by toxicity.
“One of the things it shows is the degree to which we as a society have turned over our primary means of communication to essentially unaccountable, private, mostly American organizations that have no interest in promoting good social discourse,” Haggart said.
“Angry sells better than a happy one…we’ve left ourselves at the mercy of these companies.”
Karen Louise Smith, an assistant professor at Brock University who researches online privacy, said there are short-term solutions, such as trying to report problematic content, which could lead to users being kicked off the platform.
“Another thing we can do is go to alternative platforms,” she said.
“More alternative or ‘indie’ social media platforms such as Mastodon are now seeing a surge in new users moving away from Twitter…due to concerns about ownership rights and issues such as content moderation on Twitter.”
Haggart said politicians and governments may also want to rely less on social media and focus on growing their own websites and reaching out to local media.
Nunn suggested another answer might be for advisers and candidates to talk about the campaign.
“I’m concerned that it’s going to get worse … it has to be part of the discourse for us to move forward,” she said.
“I’m going to do everything I can on this council term to promote more community dialogue, to bring people together.”
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