The torrent of online threats against public officials has led some Canadians to believe they can threaten, encourage and cheer on political violence with impunity, newly released government documents warn.
Canadian intelligence officials say threatening rhetoric is increasingly seen as a legitimate way to express frustrations, grievances and dissent, fuelling a surge of often violent threats against elected and public officials.
The documents raise yet more questions about how social media companies, police and political parties should respond to online violence, with security officials warning that it can lead to real-world physical harm.
“Vulnerable individuals — notably those experiencing personal or economic stressors — can be heavily influenced by disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories that focus on symbols of authority, including political figures and uniformed personnel,” reads a memo prepared ahead of Canada Day celebrations in 2022.
“These narratives can inspire an act of violence,” the memo says.
Global News obtained dozens of threat assessments prepared between May 2022 and June 2023 by the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC), a federal body bringing together experts from across Canada’s intelligence and security agencies.
Several of the assessments prepared in December 2022 highlight the sense of impunity apparently felt by those who post threats and other violent content online.
“The sustained high volume of violent anti-authority online rhetoric against public officials has fostered a culture in which individuals feel that they can threaten, incite and celebrate political violence online without consequence,” ITAC concluded.
Global News has previously reported that the threats facing Canada’s public officials have ebbed after surging during the COVID-19 pandemic, with attacks now considered “unlikely” according to more recent government documents.
Still, governments and law enforcement agencies are grappling with social media platforms and the false, divisive or hateful content they often amplify, including the ridicule of political opponents, vicious character attacks and threats to personal safety.
As threats to elected officials multiply, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme has encouraged the federal government to consider drafting new legislation to make it easier for police to press charges.
Uttering threats and harassment are already criminal offences, but Duheme said the behaviour reported to police often doesn’t meet the Criminal Code threshold to lay a charge.
That assessment rings true to former Conservative senator Vern White, who served as an assistant commissioner in the RCMP and as Ottawa’s police chief before his stint as a parliamentarian.
“There is an expected level that you have to put up with before the Crown and maybe even the police would say, ‘Well, you know what? That’s crossed the criminal threshold,’” White said of threats levelled at elected officials.
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“If that were a business or if that were an individual or a doctor or a lawyer’s office, you probably would act more quickly and try to do something.”
White says there’s no question that elected officials are facing more threats today than a decade ago, recalling the invective he saw hurled at his fellow parliamentarians.
“People would yell and scream things in their face on the streets post-COVID that I never witnessed in my first six or seven years in the Senate. Never came up,” he said.
“Growing out of COVID, I think we saw an acceptance level — from the general public even — that you could harass or harangue anybody you wanted to,” White said.
Several Liberal, Conservative and NDP MPs have said that they — and their staff — often have to deal with a firehose of hateful messages, including death threats.
Liberal MP Pam Damoff announced earlier this year that she won’t seek re-election because of the “threats and misogyny” she has experienced, describing politics as increasingly “hyper-partisan.”
Global News has reviewed more than two dozen profanity-laden messages Damoff’s office said were left for her, either by email or by phone.
“I’m coming after you guys,” threatened one caller in a voicemail, saying he was upset that Damoff’s “rude b-tch” assistant had hung up on him.
“What you just did to me right now, that was it. You’re done,” the caller said.
Damoff said she reported “a couple” of incidents to local police, but was told that they did not “cross the line” — an experience she says is shared by some of her colleagues in the House.
“The messages they get is that we’re going to rape your wife,” Damoff said. “I’m sorry — that’s just not OK, and the police should be able to act on that.”
Justice Minister Arif Virani has pushed back against the RCMP commissioner’s suggestion that new legislation is needed to better respond to threats against politicians.
“I believe that there are strong tools that are in place, for example, in the Criminal Code,” Virani said last month, adding the federal government already provides police with resources to do their jobs.
But Damoff says there appears to be “some kind of disconnect” preventing a more muscular response to the threats and intimidation that she and others have faced.
“If the minister of justice thinks that there are adequate laws in place, I think (there should be) some kind of training with police services across the country and working with the RCMP to make sure that they understand what’s going on,” she said.
In June, Quebec adopted a law that allows fines up to $1,500 for anyone who intimidates or harasses a municipal or provincial politician, despite concerns the legislation could threaten free speech.
White sees Quebec’s new law as “a step in the right direction” and said that parliamentarians in Ottawa should consider passing similar legislation.
“It might be a bit of a damp cloth to politicians about what they’re allowed or permitted to say,” he said, suggesting it might help snuff out the hyper-partisan rhetoric that can lead to calls for violence.
“If it’s not civil at the top, how do you expect everyone else to be civil?”
With the political arena becoming angrier, nastier and increasingly unmoored from past norms of civility, experts say social media companies need to do their part.
“We are dependent on social media self-governance, and they can do — and should do — a lot more to improve the safety for everyone in these spaces,” said Emily Laidlaw, a law professor at the University of Calgary who holds the Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law.
Earlier this year, the federal government introduced its Online Harms Act, which would require social media companies to mitigate the risk that users on their platforms could be exposed to harmful content, including incitement to violence.
Laidlaw says that while the proposed legislation will have a “tremendous impact” in improving the online ecosystem for elected officials, the bill could go even further.
“Amendments could be made to strengthen the particular vulnerabilities when it comes to elected officials and other high-profile individuals who are on social media,” she said, suggesting that social media companies could be required to spell out the specific steps they’re taking to mitigate risks against at-risk individuals.
Laidlaw isn’t alone in pointing the finger at social media companies for failing to police the content they host on their platforms.
Speaking to a parliamentary committee in May, the officer in charge of security at the House of Commons said social media companies were ignoring calls by his office flagging malicious or harassing posts targeting MPs.
“The social media platforms are either not taking our call or taking our call and saying they’ll look into it and it ends there,” said Patrick McDonell, sergeant-at-arms and corporate security officer for the House of Commons.
The committee heard that McDonell’s office has been overwhelmed by reports of threats targeting MPs — mostly online — with harassment by members of the public soaring between 700 and 800 per cent in the last five years.
McDonell said his office opened 530 files on threats against MPs in 2023 — up from eight in 2019.
“It’s come to the point where we’re bulk filing reports of harassment of MPs online,” he said.
“There’s just so much of it.”
Meta, TikTok and X did not respond to Global News’ request for comment.
— With files from The Canadian Press