Threats to politicians hurt us all

History shows there is a fine line between extreme political views and shocking violence

Politicians usually have a pretty thick skin when it comes to dealing with abuse, disrespect and insults from those who oppose their ideas or don't like what they're doing.

It's not always pleasant, but it sometimes comes with the rough-and-tumble territory of politics in a democratic society.

But lately the tone of public discourse has taken a nasty, shameful and alarming turn in Quebec. Last week, Pascal Bérubé, interim leader of the Parti Québécois, had to file a police report — twice, in fact — over online threats of violence aimed at him and his wife.

Premier François Legault has been subject to death threats several times over the last few months, prompting police investigations and a few arrests. Dr. Horacio Arruda, Quebec's director of public health, had his home address published by online trolls.

Independent MNA Catherine Fournier has also become a recent target, according to La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé.

The common denominator among these public figures is their stance on the pandemic, i.e. that there is one and the state must enact measures to protect lives, such as making masks mandatory in public places or limiting the size of private gatherings.

As we saw from a demonstration in Montreal two weekends ago and a smaller one outside the National Assembly in Quebec City last week, there is a shocking number of Quebecers who oppose these public health measures. Instead, they believe in bizarre conspiracy theories that COVID-19 is a hoax and the pandemic is a pretext to take away their freedoms. The details are even crazier.

Threatening politicians may not be a new phenomenon. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante has lamented the violent invective she is often subjected to as a woman.

Last fall, approaching the 30th anniversary of the Montreal massacre, Québec Solidaire MNA Christine Labrie read into the official record of the National Assembly a selection of hateful emails she has received. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had to wear a flak jacket at one campaign stop during the last federal election because of online hate.

Uttering threats of bodily harm or death is a crime in Canada, a reasonable limit, along with hate speech, on our cherished freedom of expression. Perhaps some of these menacing messages are just the idle vitriol of frustrated keyboard warriors with limited ability to articulate their views.

Or perhaps it's just another example of how the anonymity and distance of social media has poisoned reasoned political discourse. Still, there's no excuse and should be zero tolerance for trying to intimidate politicians, no matter how much we disagree with them.

But there's something new and ominous in the latest bile. The sheer volume and intensity of recent threats has many experts worried, according to CBC, as does the apparent widespread acceptance among Quebecers of the warped conspiracy theories behind them. According to several polls, surveys and studies, this is more than a small fringe movement.

And in the past, Quebec has been fertile ground for extreme political views to erupt into shocking violence.

We saw it with the Quebec City mosque shooter, who murdered six and injured scores of prayer-goers after consuming a steady diet of American conspiracy theories on social media as newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump was cracking down on travellers from Muslim countries.

We saw it with the anti-separatist gunman who killed an uninvolved bystander and injured another outside Metropolis on election night 2012, angered that the Parti Québécois under Pauline Marois had emerged victorious.

We saw it when a misogynist gunman took vengeance against 14 women at École Polytechnique in 1989 because he believed women were getting too much power in society.

If these attacks were the work of mentally unstable lone wolves, we've also seen organized terror cells turn to violence in an attempt to achieve their political aims.

We are weeks away from the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis, when the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped first British trade commissioner James Cross, who was eventually freed, and later Liberal cabinet minister Pierre Laporte, who was murdered.

Regardless of the fact the FLQ is viewed in a more sympathetic light by some mainstream sovereignists half a century later and the perpetrators of these appalling crimes have been romanticized in a new documentary, Les Rose, the long shadow of political violence ought to weigh heavily on today's political leaders.

Shooting sprees and assassinations are not just things that occur in distant lands. This can and has happened in Quebec, despite our proud democratic traditions.

We have conducted two sovereignty referendums peacefully. We frequently exercise our right to protest.

But the freedom, liberty and rights these anti-mask demonstrators claim to so fiercely defend — and, in fact, our very democracy — is dangerously undermined when elected officials are the target of ugly intimidation.

Threats to politicians are threats to us all.