In recent months, and in the wake of alarming killings elsewhere, some politicians say fear of violence has become a regular hazard of the job.
It’s a climate that has observers worried about the future of politics in this country — about how willing people will be to seek public office in the face of such tension and threats, and about what the toll will be of a festering anti-institutional sentiment that one researcher has coined the “anti-politics” for society at large.
“Some of these ministers are actually accosted at home,” he says. “People showing up and knocking on their front door. People parking outside on their street and staring at their kids.It’s not just Liberals.
There was also the 2014 attack on Parliament, when a lone gunman killed an army corporal guarding the National War Memorial before he was shot down inside Centre Block. Serré has since installed a new security system with cameras at his home. He and his staff also carry panic buttons. “You can shrug and say, well, it’s only a car, but it’s at my home. So it was a message: ‘We know where you live. And we know what car you drive,’ right? Because they didn’t spray-paint my wife’s car.”
What’s concerning to him about the current situation is that, while Canada remains “a society with an enormous amount of consensus,” Wernick says political rhetoric has become more combative and social media has made it easier for people to make threats. That social media element is part of what distinguishes the aggrieved groups of today from the anger directed at politicians in previous years, says Steve Hewitt, a historian who studies political violence in Canada and elsewhere at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
“This can lead to extremist views, radicalist views, that are fuelled by social media. And people get angry, and they take it out on the government, they take it out on authority, but they also take it out on other groups,” he says, citing rising reports misogyny, Islamophobia and antisemitism.
“You’re not seeing people have a dialogue anymore. It’s all sound bytes, and it’s unfortunate, because I think the vast majority of Canadians expect more than what they’re seeing,” she says. “She would have won, I think, if she wanted to run again, so it’s not lost on me that she chose not to …I think it is reasonable to hypothesize that there is a chilling effect.”Women are disproportionally affected by online threats, and especially women of colour, Thomas says.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Opinion | The anti-vax, anti-science and anti-reality campaign: Meet Danielle Smith, the favourite to be Alberta’s next premierSmith is promising confrontation and defiance, even when it makes no sense, but the United Conservative Party insiders wonder if she can be stopped, writes Graham Thomson.
Read more »
Nova Scotia shooter’s spouse tells inquiry she lived in fear of her partnerSpeaking publicly for the first time, Lisa Banfield describes a relationship of violence, intimidation and manipulation with the Nova Scotia shooter
Read more »
Chaos is becoming the rational base case in market ruled by fear - BNN BloombergAsk paid stock forecasters what the market will do next, and the answers aren’t reassuring. Anything from plunge 12% to jump 32%, say S&P 500 strategists tracked by Bloomberg, among the widest ranges on record.
Read more »
Mitch Marner opens up about carjacking: 'I don't think the fear hits you until after'Mitch Marner’s support of mental health initiatives has taken on a more personal turn this off-season, as he has had flashbacks of being carjacked in May. (By lukefoxjukebox)
Read more »
LILLEY: Trudeau government's air travel rules based on fear, not scienceRandom testing and 10 day isolation rules that exist nowhere else are coming back for Canadian air travelers and it makes no sense at all.
Read more »
Opinion | The anti-vax, anti-science and anti-reality campaign: Meet Danielle Smith, the favourite to be Alberta’s next premierSmith is promising confrontation and defiance, even when it makes no sense, but the United Conservative Party insiders wonder if she can be stopped, writes Graham Thomson.
Read more »