Green Leader Paul calling out threats targeting her online

OTTAWA — Green Party Leader Annamie Paul said she has been receiving threats online from people saying they will show up to disrupt her party’s events.

Paul said in a news release her party has not had any hecklers at its events, but party members are alarmed about what they have seen on social media.

She said social media has made it easier to provoke people, adding there is a need for accountability and education strategies to address the issue.

“Recently there was an entire Facebook thread, on a public group, proposing that someone come and assault me at one of my events,” she said.

Paul said the RCMP should have provided protection to all party leaders during the election campaign.

“The RCMP should have offered a security detail to all leaders,” she said. “I certainly hope that someone is monitoring the online threats.”

The leaders of the federal Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois all currently travel with an RCMP detail throughout the campaign.

Online hate for candidates has been an issue during the current election campaign set to culminate on Sept. 20 when Canadians go to the polls. Research done by the Samara Centre for Democracy found that more than a quarter of the 350,000 Twitter comments sent to incumbent candidates during the first week of the federal election campaign were considered “toxic.”

Executive director Sabreena Delhon said the research, which looked only at Twitter, found 20% of the tweets were on the low or middle end of a toxicity scale, containing insults, sexist language or rude comments.

She said a further 7% of the tweets were “severely toxic,” and included hateful, aggressive comments or threats of violence. “If you’re on the receiving end of these messages, they are insidious. They are relentless. They are coming at a rate of dozens, hundreds or even thousands a day,” she said.

The project, which will run throughout the campaign, found Liberals were most often on the receiving end of toxic tweets, followed by the Conservatives, Greens, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats.

Delhon said the research found that women seeking re-election as Liberals faced the most toxicity during the period studied and were five times more likely to receive toxic tweets than men running as candidates for the same party.