(09-10-2021, 02:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(09-10-2021, 01:55 PM)jeffster Wrote: Yes, spitting is an assault. How easy is it to charge, though, another story (we were told not to bother the police, as back then, police didn't care about stuff like that). I believe it is covered in the second link:

Yelling isn't an assault though, unless you're uttering threats (then it isn't called yelling). It might be considered disturbing the peace though:
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-175.html

I believe following someone could be considered assault, depending on context. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-265.html

Again, easy conviction? Probably not, as this is sadly a common thing.

Again, being yelled at and chased off property seemed to be pretty normal. In speaking with some people, highest incidence seems to be Quebec.

Unfortunately we have a lot of goons in our society, and they're not just fascist (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/maxime-bernier-egged-no-charges-1.6168611) that are doing the attacking, it's all walks of life, and it seems that not many PM's can escape being attacked.

It's happened to both Trudeaus, it's happened to Mulroney, it's happened to Chrétien, it's happened to Harper (this one was a little more serious). I can't recall or Martin, Campbell. Too young for Clark.

Yelling isn't the problem, but pursuing someone *IS* a problem.

If these things aren't being prosecuted, that's a different issue, but that is going to be driven by our social acceptance of this harmful (and illegal) behaviour.

Frankly, I was extremely disturbed to hear our regional councillor Michael Harris agree with the idea that Candidates should just suck it up and accept that they're going to be assaulted on the campaign trail.

Normalizing and tolerating this behaviour *IS* the problem.

As for what happened to the PM, that's a different story. Yes, those kinds of things do happen on occasion, but it's not common at campaign events...yet in this election the liberals have repeatedly been shut down by violent protestors. I didn't see that happening in other elections.

Even worse, the person who threw the shoe, or the pie, a the PM was immediately arrested, the person who threw rocks has not been. Why?! That's unacceptable.

(09-10-2021, 03:31 PM)jeffster Wrote:

(09-10-2021, 02:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Yelling isn't the problem, but pursuing someone *IS* a problem.

If these things aren't being prosecuted, that's a different issue, but that is going to be driven by our social acceptance of this harmful (and illegal) behaviour.

Frankly, I was extremely disturbed to hear our regional councillor Michael Harris agree with the idea that Candidates should just suck it up and accept that they're going to be assaulted on the campaign trail.

Normalizing and tolerating this behaviour *IS* the problem.

As for what happened to the PM, that's a different story. Yes, those kinds of things do happen on occasion, but it's not common at campaign events...yet in this election the liberals have repeatedly been shut down by violent protestors. I didn't see that happening in other elections.

Even worse, the person who threw the shoe, or the pie, a the PM was immediately arrested, the person who threw rocks has not been. Why?! That's unacceptable.

Normalization has been happening for a long, long time. P.E.T. did it, Chretien did it (the pie incident, he didn't want talk), leader of the PPC just did it (egg incident), as did JT (gravel incident). Harpers case was different, since the nut job was pretty close to actually assonating the PM.

I agree it should never happen. And thugs like that should be charged. But in a system of equality, which we *should* have, we then need to be charging everyone that does this. Regardless of background.

Mike Harris, btw, is a Progressive Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga. He's had similar incidents happen to him. Unless you're talking about the other Mike Harris, same party, same riding, same incidents, different dude.

(09-10-2021, 03:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(09-10-2021, 03:31 PM)jeffster Wrote: Normalization has been happening for a long, long time. P.E.T. did it, Chretien did it (the pie incident, he didn't want talk), leader of the PPC just did it (egg incident), as did JT (gravel incident). Harpers case was different, since the nut job was pretty close to actually assonating the PM.

I agree it should never happen. And thugs like that should be charged. But in a system of equality, which we *should* have, we then need to be charging everyone that does this. Regardless of background.

Mike Harris, btw, is a Progressive Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga. He's had similar incidents happen to him. Unless you're talking about the other Mike Harris, same party, same riding, same incidents, different dude.

I know that Michael Harris was a candidate for PC MPP in K-C. I am sad that he has had similar incidents, nobody deserves to be harassed and assaulted. He should not tolerate, he should speak out against it, instead of complaining about those who do speak out against it.

And I don't believe the gravel incident is an example of normalizing. (The police not arresting is concerning, I don't know why that happened). But when you or Michael Harris just say that people should just suck it up when you're spit on, that's normalizing it.

(09-10-2021, 03:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(09-10-2021, 03:31 PM)jeffster Wrote: Normalization has been happening for a long, long time. P.E.T. did it, Chretien did it (the pie incident, he didn't want talk), leader of the PPC just did it (egg incident), as did JT (gravel incident). Harpers case was different, since the nut job was pretty close to actually assonating the PM.

I agree it should never happen. And thugs like that should be charged. But in a system of equality, which we *should* have, we then need to be charging everyone that does this. Regardless of background.

Mike Harris, btw, is a Progressive Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga. He's had similar incidents happen to him. Unless you're talking about the other Mike Harris, same party, same riding, same incidents, different dude.

I know that Michael Harris was a candidate for PC MPP in K-C. I am sad that he has had similar incidents, nobody deserves to be harassed and assaulted. He should not tolerate, he should speak out against it, instead of complaining about those who do speak out against it.

And I don't believe the gravel incident is an example of normalizing. (The police not arresting is concerning, I don't know why that happened). But when you or Michael Harris just say that people should just suck it up when you're spit on, that's normalizing it.

(09-16-2021, 02:07 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It looks like the conservative candidates in the region are declining to take part in any of the local debates or Q&A sessions, whether organized by the CBC or anyone else. Is this a mandate from party HQ to make sure the messaging comes only from O'Toole with no local mis-steps?

(09-16-2021, 02:28 PM)taylortbb Wrote:

(09-16-2021, 02:07 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It looks like the conservative candidates in the region are declining to take part in any of the local debates or Q&A sessions, whether organized by the CBC or anyone else. Is this a mandate from party HQ to make sure the messaging comes only from O'Toole with no local mis-steps?

Certainly not the first time. When I lived in Toronto 10+ years ago the rules were largely the same for local Conservative candidates. Don't show up to debates, avoid any small local media, etc.

While I dislike it, I'm also never going to vote for the Conservatives. As a strategy I think it's pretty logical. The kind of people that attend local candidate debates, or read their local CBC coverage, probably were never going to vote for the Conservatives anyways. So for them participation is pure downside (might say something dumb) and zero upside.

(09-16-2021, 02:42 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(09-16-2021, 02:28 PM)taylortbb Wrote: Certainly not the first time. When I lived in Toronto 10+ years ago the rules were largely the same for local Conservative candidates. Don't show up to debates, avoid any small local media, etc.

While I dislike it, I'm also never going to vote for the Conservatives. As a strategy I think it's pretty logical. The kind of people that attend local candidate debates, or read their local CBC coverage, probably were never going to vote for the Conservatives anyways. So for them participation is pure downside (might say something dumb) and zero upside.

The thing is, while I dislike it personally, I actually think it's harmful to our democracy.

(09-20-2021, 10:18 PM)tomh009 Wrote: 45 minutes after the polls closed (we think) and no results yet from the Kitchener or Waterloo ridings. Were there still lineups at 9:30 when the polls were due to close?

(09-20-2021, 10:24 PM)Vdanbrotherston Wrote:

(09-20-2021, 10:18 PM)tomh009 Wrote: 45 minutes after the polls closed (we think) and no results yet from the Kitchener or Waterloo ridings. Were there still lineups at 9:30 when the polls were due to close?

There were reports of lineups at polls in Waterloo, no idea if in KW as well.  But they cannot do counting until the lineup clears. There was a twitter post about Kingston polling place suggesting they wouldn't clear the line till at least 1 AM.

That being said, we now have one poll reporting, Mike Morris is leading.