Voter anger not unexpected but still shocking

‘The more you see it happen ... the more it becomes normalized’

After watching the anger and vitriol build over the past few elections, Liam Midzain-Gobin was expecting to see growing hostilities during the current federal election campaign.

But the assistant political science professor at Brock University didn’t expect it to devolve to the point that homes of local political leaders would be targeted by vandals, or that someone would throw stones at the prime minister.

“Honestly, it’s been even shocking for me,” Midzain-Gobin said, after the vehicle of St. Catharines Liberal candidate Chris Bittle was spray painted on the weekend, and St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik’s home was vandalized early Tuesday morning hours after he condemned the crime during city council’s Monday night meeting.

Midzain-Gobin said much of the vitriol has been targeting Justin Trudeau, who was hit by gravel thrown by anti-COVID-19 vaccination protesters during a campaign stop in London, Ont., last week.

“He’s become such a lightning rod for this for a lot of reasons, but it’s become so much worse in the last few years, and with the lockdowns and COVID and vaccinations it’s kind of given a whole other life to this, frankly, quite fringe kind of hatred,” he said.

The anger, he added, has been increasing over the past few elections, but “it has really exploded in this election.”

While it’s not limited to social media, he said it’s prevalent on Facebook, Twitter and other online forums.

“There’s this echo chamber of this kind of hate, and that just continues feeding on itself,” he said.

That hatred is then being “legitimized” by fringe political groups that echo the sentiments expressed in those forums.

“People are told their feelings are correct and that emboldens them to go out and commit this kind of, frankly, horrific vandalism,” he said.

“The more you see it happen without serious repercussions, the more it becomes normalized, and I think that is a really dangerous place for us to be pushing up against.”

Midzain-Gobin fears cracking down on that behaviour with “a heavy hand is only going to make it worse.”

“What we really need in this moment, and what I think is good to see are political leaders that people look up to and take their views from condemning this.”

While Canada’s mainstream parties are doing that, MidzainGobin said the fringe parties the majority of protesters support are not.

“It really is about finding potential leadership in this country that will stand up (to vandals) and say, ‘You’re not welcome here,’ ” he said.