Below is a speech I gave on September 21st, 2023 at the Regional Municipality of Niagara in favour of Agenda Item 11.5 – CSC-C 18-2023 Motion – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Damaging Impacts of Hate and Intolerance

Thank you, Chair, for providing me with time to speak in favour of Agenda Item 11.5.

Over the last few years, some of us seem to have forgotten how to communicate with each other. Some unfortunate elements in our community have managed to forget the lessons that most of us learned in primary school: those lessons on being civil, and kind, speaking not unless adding value; that listening is as valuable as speaking, if not more.

Shortly after I submitted my application to present before you, I was informed by the Region that I was only permitted five minutes to speak, so I don’t have time to discuss the well-established link between those who harass and bully online and a propensity for real world, domestic violence offline. 

Likewise, I don’t have time to point out the glaring hypocrisy between those who stand against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Governance and a fundamental lack of understanding of our Charter of Rights. While many of these hate-filled goblins cite their “free speech immunity,” they have seemed to have skipped over what comes before in our Charter, in other words, section one. For those unschooled in our Charter, that is known as the ‘reasonable limits clause.’ My absurd five-minute restriction doesn’t permit me time to explain in meaningful detail what that is, why it’s there, or how it is applied. 

At Corporate Services, it was raised that the NRPS are ‘failing to take their lawful investigative duty seriously.’ After being threatened with lynching by some stooge using his real Facebook profile and reporting it to the police (and having to wait nearly 14 hours for a uniformed officer to show up), I had this young officer tell me it would be “impossible to track this person down.” In the over half a day since I reported the s.264.1 criminal code offence and when the NRPS bothered to show up, a number of my concerned followers on Facebook found out where he lived and worked, and many of them reported his behaviour to his employer. His employer later called me and informed me they would require him to participate in counselling and an anger management and a sensitivity program. Again, tracking down this offender was ‘too monumental’ for our local well-remunerated detectives.

As a practical example, let’s engage in a quick hypothetical. I wonder what some on Council here would have to say about the NRPS should, a run-down, dingy gas station they own gets robbed and – the NRPS callously dismiss the owner’s concerns. Imagine what that owner would do or say should some officer inform them that it would be “too hard to figure out who the assailant was.” 

But it’s different, I suppose, in that stealing money or watered-down, low-grade gas differs from threatening to hang someone from a tree. One is an ‘actual’ crime, and the other is just some ‘Internet tomfoolery’ otherwise referred to as “political discourse” by disingenuous bigots.

Let’s Talk About Stochastic Terrorism. Quoting Bryan Nelson from Scientific American, “A week and a half before the midterm elections, a man broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house, screaming “Where’s Nancy?” and attacked her husband with a hammer. David DePape, charged in the attack, had posted a slew of rants that included references to a sprawling conspiracy theory known as QAnon, which claims that Democratic, Satan-worshipping pedophiles are trying to control the world’s politics and media.” Kooky ideas he sponged up by right-wing legacy media and from demented extremists on Twitter.

Mark Follman, National Affairs Editor for Mother Jones, notes, “[Stochastic Terrorism] is a method of political incitement that provokes random acts of extremist violence, in which the instigator uses rhetoric ambiguous enough to give himself and his allies plausible deniability for any resulting bloodshed. Violent threats or attacks linked to the rhetoric usually generate muted denials, equivocal denunciations, or claims to have been “joking.”

Since I announced my candidacy for the 2022 municipal election, a Niagara-based goblin has embarked on a campaign to dehumanize and troll me. This same sad, irredeemable, twice-convicted petty criminal has launched into even more egregious, sustained attacks targeting others here on Council, and of course, unsurprisingly, not based broadly on principles or policies, but because [we] are women, because [we] collectively believe in equity, and more importantly, because [we] have compassion; and kindness; and want to serve all of our community.

I will close with the following proverb, the Bible, a book often cited by those who claim righteousness (or even divinity) but often seem to miss the message; “Thoughtless words can wound as deeply as any sword, but wisely spoken words can heal.”