Threats, abuse move from online to real world, McKenna now requires security
6660 Comments Commenting is now closed for this story.
Andy Scott I might believe her.. but thousands wouldn’t
Content disabled
I could not save what I posted when I refreshed the page because all the content within the thread of the ghost of the dude I ran against in the election of the 39th Parliament were disabled not just mine and I had forgotten what I posted. However my other comments were obviously read because they had recieved serval "dislikes" before they went "POOF" so I gave up and went to the article about Trudeau and debates that was still open after 2 days and continued to agrue the Conservative Trolls there
Catherine Ridley Though I am in complete opposition to her politics, she does not deserve the threats to herself and her family.
Mark Stanford Reply
to @Catherine Ridley: agreed, but how is she allowed armed security and
I can’t carry a concealed hand gun , the lib want to take our guns away
but it’s fine for them to be protected but men with guns.
David Amos
Content disabled
Reply to @Mark
stanford: Methinks a lot of folks don't believe anything this politcal
lawyer has to say about anything N'esy Pas?
Rhea
Montgomery Threats are NEVER ok. Doesn't matter where you sit on politics.
Nav Saloojee Reply
to @Rhea Montgomery: Comments echoing yours should be the only posts
here. Those who are providing justifications should take a long look at
themselves in the mirror.
Renoto Y Schultz
Reply to @Rhea
Montgomery: To quote Dawn McNeil below: "Civilized society helps us all
live together peacefully with no duels or showdowns at noon. We don't
want a free for all, we want a decent life with respect for everyone."
Jack Slate
So were you outraged when republican and rebup supporters were getting harassed at restaurants and even at their own home?
Jack Slate
I agree that these
politicians should be left alone in their private lives. Just that we've
seen it south of the border and nobody seemed to care cause they leaned
right.
Bill Andreas
Content disabled
Aaron Morris
Reply to @Bill Andreas:
Everybody agrees. Now can we see examples of actual threats?
Alex Forbes
Reply to @Rhea Montgomery: Most of the stuff in the articles isn't even threats. It's just rude behavior.
Rhea
Montgomery
Reply to @Jack Slate:
Yes. As stated above, no one should be harassed or bullied. There is a
way to deal with what you don't agree with and that is by voting.
Dalton Forest
Reply to @Rhea Montgomery:
"...Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said "in no way does our
government condone any form of abuse, verbal or otherwise, towards
private citizens or elected officials."
Better to say that they condemn that kind of behavior.
Stanley Baird
Reply to @Rhea
Montgomery: agree totally. And the PM was caught lying and
interfering with a trial over SNC and she (a lawyer who took an oath)
did not have the courage to stand up for what's right with the minister
of justice. This tells me everything I need to know about McKenna's
character.
David Amos
Content disabled
Reply to @Rhea
Montgomery: Methinks I should ask why all the cops and politicians
laughed at me when my children were threatened N'esy Pas?
James Bilodeau Poor politicians. Make a mess of Canada and wonder why people are angry.
David Amos
Reply to @James Bilodeau: Methinks common sense is a rare thing to be found in the minds of political lawyers N'esy Pas?
Kevin Delaney Cars have license plates. No tolerance for abuse. No anonymity for abusive people.
David Amos Reply to @Kevin Delaney: Exactly so why wasn't the dude at least questioned by the cops?
Threats, abuse move from online to real world, McKenna now requires security
Minister was confronted outside a movie theatre while walking with her children
Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna now has to be accompanied by security. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna
says she was recently walking outside a movie theatre with her children
when a car slowly pulled to a stop beside them.
The driver rolled down his window and then he let fly.
"F--k you, Climate Barbie," he shouted, as she tried to back away from his car and get her kids away from him.
Much
has been written about the online abuse and threatening behaviour
politicians — especially female politicians — and others in the public
eye face every day. But McKenna says as the heat around climate change
continues to grow, that abuse is going from anonymous online vitriol to
terrifying in-person verbal assaults.
The incident at the movie
theatre is just one of several times her kids have been with her when
someone in public began to yell at her. She has been called the C-word, a
traitor, an enemy and a "communist piece of garbage." Her family's
safety has been threatened more than once. Some people have wished she
and her children will get fatal diseases. She has received sexualized
messages so hateful they could be enough to make even the hardest of
hearts skip a beat.
"Tick Tock, Barbie B---h," one read.
"You're a stain on this country and I hope you rot in hell," said another.
The
threats have become real enough that McKenna sometimes now requires a
security detail, a level of protection even cabinet ministers don't
usually get.
"There are places, yes, that I have to have
security now and I don't think that's a great situation," she said. "I'm
someone who is trying to do my job, live my life, and talk and engage
with people, and it makes it harder. I'm not going to let this stop me
but I wish it would stop."
McKenna
would not elaborate on the security needs, so as not to reveal when she
has less protection. She said the online abuse in particular has been
going on since she was elected, but that in recent months it has gotten
much worse in person.
"The challenges, the increases of this, is worrying for everyone," she said.
A worrying trend
McKenna
is not alone in fearing for her safety. Tzeporah Berman, international
program co-ordinator for Stand.Earth, said earlier this summer that she
has received death threats and was physically assaulted in the Edmonton
airport by a man angry about her campaign to close down the oil sands.
Catherine
Abreu, the executive director of Climate Action Network, Canada, said
the issue is a constant source of frustration and fear for
environmentalists.
"We talk about it every single day," said Abreu. "There are many people in my community who feel they are under threat."
Abreu
and Berman both point to politicians as stoking the fires. Abreu said
U.S. President Donald Trump's rhetorical attacks have emboldened people
who now feel it is perfectly acceptable to insult, abuse and threaten
people they disagree with.
Berman said the threats and attacks
against her worsened after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney launched his
"war room," a $30-million project to discredit people he says are using
foreign funding to undermine Canada's energy sector. Berman and others
are being named by the Alberta government and called enemies for
opposing the oil industry.
Anti-pipeline activist Tzeporah Berman speaking to reporters in 2018. (CBC)
"Since
Kenney announced his $30 million warroom to attack environmental
advocates & this poster of me was held up at his press conference I
have had death threats, misogynist & sexual attacks on social
media," she tweeted in June. "This is what that kind of fear mongering
& hate does."
An attached image shows a sheet of paper with a
photo of her speaking into a bullhorn in front of a banner reading "NO
TARSANDS PIPELINE." Below the photo are the words "Tzeporah Berman:
Enemy of the oilsands." Kenney didn't hold it up but a supporter
introducing him at a pro-oilsands news conference in June did.
A
spokeswoman for Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said "in no way
does our government condone any form of abuse, verbal or otherwise,
towards private citizens or elected officials."
Samantha Peck
said the "Fight Back Strategy" is in development but the war room itself
has not yet been established and hasn't issued any publications naming
any specific individuals.
The United Conservative Party has named at least one individual in a fundraising pitch to supporters.
Emma
Jackson, who works from Climate Justice Edmonton, shared the letter on
Aug. 30, which named her as a "radical anti-oil and gas activist."
Berman's
tweet was itself met with a torrent of abuse, many of which called her a
liar or said she deserved everything she got. A handful of people said
while they disagreed vehemently with Berman's activities, the threats
and abuse were not acceptable. They, too, were then attacked.
'Climate Barbie'
McKenna
said she doesn't call this sort of thing out often because she fears
giving abusers attention. In 2017, she did stop to call foul when
Conservative MP Gerry Ritz referred to her on Twitter as "Climate
Barbie."
The insult was coined by the right-wing website, The
Rebel, shortly after McKenna was named environment minister and has been
used in hundreds, if not thousands, of insults hurled her direction.
Ritz,
a former agriculture minister who has since resigned from Parliament,
deleted his tweet and apologized for the slur when it was met with
outrage.
McKenna said the fact that climate-change deniers have
now verbally attacked Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate
activist, proves just how low some will go to discredit their opponents.
People's
Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier was among them, accusing Thunberg
in a tweet of being mentally unstable. He later said he wasn't trying
to insult her, just show that she was a pawn being used by adults to put
an unassailable face on their lies that climate change is a
human-caused emergency.
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