Donald Trump got shot.
After the usual condemnations, thoughts and prayers, it was business as usual — the left equating him with the devil, the right with a saviour. A few in-between saw him for what he was in the moment: a man, a husband and a father who is running for president of the United States and whose assassination attempt has fundamentally challenged the cornerstone of democratic values, not just in the U.S., but in every free nation, including Canada.
Death threats, harassment, violence and vandalism directed at Canadian politicians have been present for some time. As Canadians, however, we have convinced ourselves that it doesn’t happen here. That the politician who does make the news for a safety incident somehow deserved it. Still others prefer to contextualize and make excuses for why the incident occurred in the first place. Like in the U.S., the toxicity that exists in extremities of party politics can be found right here. It has to stop. Your political opponent is not the threat to democracy. Our collective ambivalence in stopping undemocratic incitements, however, is.
In the tragic comedy that was my life for three years, a woman was arrested not once, but three times, for describing in explicit detail how she was going to kill me. I was hurt, not angry or disappointed, when academics, fellow politicians and a coalition she belonged to all justified the harm that she caused me. I once locked myself in my Toronto apartment for three days, and by the time the past Ontario election rolled around, I couldn’t take anyone else’s desired harm toward me for a second more, so I harmed myself. Don’t underestimate the psychological impact that physical threats and acts can have.
That’s why it’s time we sound the alarm and have an adult conversation in Canada before someone in political office gets hurt, or, God forbid, something worse happens.
It is a major step in the right direction that RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme is urging federal legislation on the matter, and that later this summer the sergeant-at-arms of the Ontario Legislature, Tim McGough, will be convening a nationwide discussion on the issue. It will undoubtedly highlight sobering statistics from McGough’s House of Commons counterpart, Patrick McDonell, who earlier this year revealed that 530 files were opened on threats against MPs in 2023 — an increase of almost 800 per cent over five years.
Let’s put some names to that number: MPs Melissa Lantsman, Marco Mendicino, Arif Virani, Kevin Vuong, Mélanie Joly, Mark Miller, to name a few. It’s happening to our provincial politicians, too. Ontario Opposition Leader Marit Stiles had her office vandalized; former B.C. cabinet minister Selina Robinson, after leaving her cabinet post, dealt with death threats; and so, too, did Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. All of this is designed to intimidate effective politicians from doing their jobs effectively. You will notice as well, they come from different parts of the country and represent different political ideologies. The myopic mindset is not from a monolithic right or left wing. It’s present across the political spectrum and it must be dealt with.
Unfortunately, after the usual condemnations, the harassment by “the other side” picks up like clockwork until the next threat deemed credible comes around, prompting local police to stop by the politician’s constituency office or personal residence to discuss a shelter in place and evacuation plan.
We like to think we are nice and polite and, for the most part, as Canadians we are. Sure we can get passionate with our politics — I’ve been known to show my Celtic flair on occasion — but my fear is we have collectively remained complicit in not taking threats against politicians more seriously and in a timely manner.
Often we hear about threats to our democracy, whether it’s foreign influence, terrorism or war. Tellingly we don’t equate a threat to democracy as an assault on a politician who was elected in a free and fair vote. It’s at that moment, however, that our democracy is weakened and its resulting fragility made increasingly more difficult to reverse.
Whether you love or loathe Donald Trump, the act of attempted assassination weakened the democratic values of his country. For us to wait and see how this impacts Canada is both foolhardy and irresponsible. Canada’s enduring commitment to our democracy depends on action.
Special to National Post
Lisa MacLeod is the longtime Member of Provincial Parliament for the riding of Nepean.