PERILS OF PUBLIC LIFE

Egan: Abuse out of control

Has there ever been a worse time to be in public life in Ottawa?

Quite shocking, really, the amount of abuse that’s been hurled at elected officials this summer — and now at every level, as though our outbursts of crazy are both non-partisan and blind to jurisdiction.

There was a rock for a city councillor, a truck attack directed at the prime minister, a threat and act of vandalism toward a local MPP and a vicious verbal assault aimed at the MP for Ottawa Centre and her staff. All that, probably more, since Canada Day.

“Someone is going to get killed,” was a headline on a column in the National Post on Thursday. It wasn’t about gang violence in Toronto, it was about a pattern of threats to MPs on Parliament Hill.

The local attacks are not connected, we safely assume, but share similarities: all the targets are politicians (three are women), they all occurred in the suffocating climate of a pandemic and, as forms of protest, were wildly disproportionate. That three occurred at or near their homes is all the worse. Is nowhere safe for them?

How can one not wonder how much COVID-19 conditions have fuelled all this lashing out?

According to a report from Global News, it was certainly a factor in the brazen attack on Rideau Hall on July 2 when a man crashed his truck through the ceremonial gates, not far from where both the prime minister and governor general reside.

The man had four loaded weapons in the vehicle and explained his motives in a two-page letter that said Canada was turning into a communist dictatorship, with the pandemic contributing to a lack of accountability, just as it was ruining the economy, his job, his prospects.

The pandemic was not specifically mentioned in the rant at MP Catherine McKenna’s office but what was striking was this: an unbridled rage at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government. How does anyone live with that much hate?

Motive or not, the cumulative effect of pandemic adaptation is catching up with all of us. I have to be honest. I’ve been working in an upstairs bedroom at home since March and pretty much loathe it. Today, for instance, I have yet to see another human being. I regularly leave the radio on because the silence is so damn deafening.

The knowledge that tomorrow won’t be so very different is not helping.

People are tired and cranky, if email is any indication. Just this week, an intelligent-sounding reader called my last column the work of a “disgusting flunkie.” OK then.

On the weekend, after expressing the view that the GG should move into Rideau Hall — how is that even controversial? — a reader responded by using several words that rhyme with “truck,” adding I should just keep on “trucking,” if you get the drift.

(You learn quickly this is part of the job. Want to make people really angry? Tell them something they don’t want to hear.)

A psychologist told me two things Thursday that certainly resonated. The first is that she believes the realization that this is a long, long haul is finally hitting home. No, it is not ending by Labour Day, which sounded possible in March. The start of school, in fact, is only going to add to parent stress.

(And when the first COVID-19 case hits a school — and we all know it will — there will be some level of fresh freakout.)

The second point is that every individual has vulnerabilities, maybe depression or anxiety.

The pandemic, she added, has the potential to prey on these conditions.

Think of it: the workplace has been disrupted, the school year was chopped, summer travel was all messed up, July was an uncomfortable oven, and any holidays — at least in my case — were not very restful, COVID-19 being that bad smell that wouldn’t go away.

And this is the story of the lucky ones, by the way.

I’m beginning to think there are two classes of pandemic survivors in town: those who continue to draw regular salaries, don’t mind working at home and view masks and sector closures as a minor inconvenience; and those who are broke, isolated, desperate and suffering, maybe with a great deal to be mad about.

“I’ve always said,” commented Dr. Suzanne Filion, a hospital executive and practising psychologist, “the second pandemic is mental health.”

And you know what? It’s arrived, in a mood quite foul.

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-291-6265 or email kegan@ postmedia.com

Twitter.com/ kellyegancolumn