Liberal MPs tell committee some Conservatives are driving the harassment they face

Two Liberal MPs provided a parliamentary committee with multiple examples Thursday of threatening abuse they say they have received from members of the public — some of which they claim was in reaction to public messaging by Conservative MPs.

Pam Damoff and Iqra Khalid were testifying before the House of Commons procedures and House affairs committee as part of its review of the House of Commons workplace harassment and violence prevention policy.

The policy holds members of Parliament accountable for how they treat their employees. It does not govern conduct between MPs.

Damoff and Khalid said that while some of the abuse they get is not driven by MPs’ messaging, they want the House harassment policy expanded to crack down on MPs whose messages outside of Parliament drive some of that abuse.

The multiple examples of harassing messages they read out to the committee contained insulting and vulgar language referring to them and their family members, some of it sexually explicit. Other messages were violent and threatened the MPs’ lives.

Earlier in the week, the committee heard from Patrick McDonell, sergeant-at-arms and corporate security officer for the House of Commons.

He said that in the last five years, the harassment MPs face from the public has spiked by 700 to 800 per cent, driven by incidents that are “mostly online but also in person and at events.”

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the abuse elected officials at all levels of government face is “unacceptable.”

“The current atmosphere of polarization, of toxicity, of misinformation, of disinformation, of anger directed at individuals and institutions is not a healthy trend line for democracy in Canada,” he said in Toronto.

Damoff told MPs Thursday that she has been the target of “the gun lobby” for years and has received many harassing messages. She blames a 2023 tweet by Conservative MP Blaine Calkins for “directly causing an influx of hate through social media, emails and phone calls.”

In that May 11, 2023 tweet on X (formerly Twitter), Calkins posted a video of an exchange between himself and Damoff during a committee debate about banning certain ammunition magazines.

“Pam Damoff just compared every #hunter in Canada to the Danforth shooter,” the tweet said, adding that hunters should “take note of exactly what she really thinks of you.”

Damoff told the committee Thursday that the post resulted in her being exposed to a torrent of abuse. 

She offered one example of the sort of message she received: “I hope and pray to God that you will die a horrible painful death and your family too because you and your genes are a piece of shit and need to be removed from the planet.”

Damoff said that in 2018, Conservative MP Rachael Thomas sent out flyers to houses in Damoff’s riding of Oakville North—Burlington with the heading: “MP Pam Damoff fails to stand up for victims of rape and sex trafficking.” 

She said the opening line of the flier claims Damoff and the Liberal Party are “committed to welcoming ISIS terrorists back to Canada.”

Damoff also said that Conservative MPs have accused her of being corrupt and have posted her email addresses online, encouraging the public to contact her.

Damoff said her office was subsequently inundated with harassing emails from the public that called her a “bitch,” repeatedly used “the c-word” and threatened her.

The Liberal MP, who recently said she wouldn’t run in the next election because of the climate of harassment, said that only some Conservative MPs engaged in such conduct and that she has friends “across the aisle.” 

She also said that “every MP needs to look at what they’ve done” and “there have been instances when individuals in my party have done things.”

‘The politics of agitation’

Khalid told MPs Thursday that after she introduced her 2017 non-binding motion condemning Islamophobia, systemic racism and religious discrimination, she received “multiple death threats.”

“Police were stationed outside of my house for weeks. My staff were harassed to the [point] that we had to lock our office doors,” she said, adding that she received more than 90,000 emails.

“All of that happened because Conservative MPs running for (the 2017 party) leadership felt that this was a plug,” she said. “The politics of agitation is not helpful to how we conduct ourselves and Canadians and as parliamentarians.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s spokesperson Sebastian Skamski told CBC News that “any suggestion that legitimate criticism of the Liberal government and MPs makes someone responsible for online harassment is ridiculous and false.”

“It is unfortunate that Liberals are trying to use a serious issue like harassment, something that we all condemn, to launch baseless partisan attacks,” he added.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said the abuse the Liberal MPs received is “unacceptable” and that while people have been charged with threatening her life, she’s chosen not to share her own harassment experiences with the committee.

She did say that she has been the subject of harassment after Liberal MPs have directed similar messages at her. 

Some of the abuse that has come the Liberals’ way, Rempel Garner said, has been fuelled by Trudeau dismissing her questions in the House of Commons as “misinformation.”

“We need to drive to solutions here,” she said. “I would just respectfully ask that going to your caucus … when the Opposition asks for information, the line, ‘That is misinformation,’ is not productive.”

Rempel Garner said that any solution to online harassment had to extend not just to MPs but to all Canadians and should not be governed by a “partisan body.”