As Canada marks International Women’s Day, political leaders and advocates who are encouraging more women to get into politics are also stepping up their efforts to promote greater civility amid continued reports of hateful messages and content being shared on social media platforms.
Marianne Meed Ward, a former councillor who was elected mayor of Burlington, Ont., in 2018 after a tough campaign, is among the female politicians who have publicly reported being subjected to death threats and threats of physical harm.
“There’s been a huge decline in civility in discourse. Social media is a huge part of that,” she said.
“I don’t want to have to leave because it’s not safe, because if it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for anyone, any woman, any person who wants to put their name on a ballot. We have to be better.”
Meed Ward recalled receiving a threat through a direct message on Instagram.
“Somebody was threatening to set me on fire if I went to a public meeting about a development application they didn’t like. It wasn’t approved yet. It was just an information meeting,” she said.
“I was told, actually, not to go to that meeting because my safety was at risk and this is now affecting my ability to serve my community.”
Meed Ward said the issue was reported to Halton Regional Police and officers went to speak with the person who sent the message.
She said COVID-19 “changed everything,” leading to a sharp decline in the political discourse.
“(There was) such incredible anxiety and fear during that period, and so people channelled that into online dialogue and it just didn’t take long for it to become very vicious, lots of misinformation. That was the first time I experienced a death threat. I was told that I should be hanging from the rafters at city hall,” Meed Ward said.
“I was threatened with bodily violence. I was threatened with (a) citizen’s arrest. I was told to carry a key fob. I still have it on my keys. I call it a screamer; you pull it apart, it makes a huge noise. I was afraid to go to the grocery store.”
Before the Ford government cancelled the Ontario speed camera program, she recalled getting responses on Facebook from as far away as Texas.
If you’re breaking the law, you pay — not everybody else. But who knew that was such a divisive debate when I put that up there … and when you would look into the accounts that were making these horrible comments, they had profiles that were suspicious. They had locations that were suspicious. There were no posts,” Meed Ward said.
“This use of fake accounts to try and drive a narrative, that’s the social media world that we live in. It is it is very damaging to our ability to get good information out there.”
Other politicians have reported instances of toxic insults and behaviour too.
“There are always those that want to participate in the civic conversation to make the city better. Democracy is about bringing people together, having ideas, and moving the city forward,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told CityNews when asked about what she has experienced.
“But then there are those that are very divisive. They’re angry. They don’t understand that you can channel your anger into hope. They become divisive.
“There are, from time to time, people that come and yell at me for whatever reason. But then for one of those, I get 100 hugs, 100 ‘thank yous for doing what you’re doing. Keep going. You represent me. Love the work you’ve done,’ so you get both.”
Chow, like Meed Ward, said it has been difficult to discern real complaints from digital bots, adding she takes those comments “with a complete grain of salt.”
Velma Morgan heads up Operation Black Vote Canada (OBVC), a non-profit that helps Black candidates run for public office. She said the current political climate has forced her organization to change the training workshops.
“We say not if, but when you get discriminated against, these are some of the things that you need to do. We’ve seen campaign offices ruined. We’ve seen signs being pulled down, but we’ve also seen a lot of that on social media where you don’t even know who the person is because their face is hidden. They say a lot of hateful things,” Morgan said.
“We try to prepare our candidates by saying, ‘Look, don’t try not to read those things. Let somebody else on your campaign readers and rotate who’s going to be reading that kind of information because you don’t want the same person getting that toxicity all the time.’”
She said an OBVC study found more than 51 per cent of those candidates surveyed reported being the subject of some form of discrimination.
“We often will tap people who we think should run and say, ‘This election is coming up, thinking of running iin your riding?’ and they’ll say, ‘I can’t do that. I can’t do that to myself. I can’t do that to my family. It’s just too toxic. I don’t have the skin for it,’ and so we’re losing a lot of good people because of the toxicity that’s happening in our in our political system,” Morgan said.
“We tell them that this type of racism, sexism, discrimination is targeted to throw you off your game, to throw you off your plan on winning, so it’s going to happen. Figure out a plan and keep it moving. Keep moving. Keep campaigning, and don’t let that distract you.”
Initiatives in Canada to support women running for office, promote respectful dialogue
On the back of her experience, Meed Ward co-founded an organization called Elect Respect with a mission to “restore civility in the public square” across Canada.
“The job (as a politician) itself is incredible. Public Service, seeing the decisions you’ve been a part of make a better difference. There’s nothing like that, but there is this other dark side that we’re trying to change,” she said.
“This is a pledge that municipal councils, boards, individuals can take to say, ‘I am going to treat other people in my community with respect on the issues we face. Focus on policy, not personal attacks. Make sure we create a respectful environment for our democratic discourse that we have to have.”
To date, Meed Ward said 228 politicians, 11 candidates, more than 50 municipalities and 13 private boards in Canada have signed onto the Elect Respect pledge. It also encourages allies of women to participate. She said the initiative hosts events to bring politicians, current candidates and prospective politicians together to strategize and provide support.
“This is a huge movement of people that have come together to say, ‘We demand better,’” she said.
“Part of the challenge in elected office is that you do feel alone and that if you do speak up, you are just going to get even worse. People see that and it makes them kind of withdraw from the public space. This is actually saying, ‘No, we have strength in numbers. We’re going to come together and say enough.’”
The ongoing efforts to promote civility and encourage new voices at all levels of government in Canada comes ahead of elections scheduled to be held across the country. At different points throughout 2026, residents in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island along with parts of the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan are set to vote in municipal elections. Quebec is also scheduled to have a provincial election in October.
Equal Voice, a national and multi-partisan organization, is focused on getting more women into government. It offers various political training and support programs.
“I wish I had the silver bullet answer for you on that one, but we see a lot of initiatives across the board and different stakeholders and voters calling for more civility,” interim executive director Lindsay Brumwell said when asked about the best way to address concerns about toxicity in politics.
“We can’t fix society and online. However, we can equip women with services and tools and tactics to be able to do this, as well as just recognizing that politics is a profession. There is a whole industry that comes into it.”
Brumwell encouraged women interested in running to start networking and seeking information as soon as possible.
“There is still a lot of room for improvement to be able to get women around those decision-making tables,” she said.
“We don’t want to discourage women from getting involved. Just come find us if you’re even a little bit curious about putting your foot forward … we always recommend having people volunteer on a campaign. There isn’t a campaign out there that doesn’t want an extra volunteer to go knock on doors and meet people, and just get a taste for what it’s actually like.”
The idea of shaping a more respectful political discourse is something the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has taken on with its Healthy Democracy program.
AMO has published resources for politicians and bureaucrats, focusing on topics like interacting with constituents, chairing meetings more effectively, using social media and self-care best practices.
“AMO identified that harassment and toxic behaviour are no longer occasional outbursts but have become systemic barriers to effective governance and service delivery,” organization staff wrote in one of their signature guidebooks.
“We heard clearly that while local governments continue to deliver essential services, the system is increasingly strained by mistrust, misinformation, fatigue, and incivility.”
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities also developed its Women in Local Government program, which is aimed at increasing female representation and participation in politics across Canada.
CityNews spoke with three advocates who are pushing for more women across Canada to register and run for public office. Canada
As Canada marks International Women’s Day, political leaders and advocates who are encouraging more women to get into politics are also stepping up their efforts to promote greater civility amid continued reports of hateful messages and content being shared on social media platforms.
Marianne Meed Ward, a former councillor who was elected mayor of Burlington, Ont., in 2018 after a tough campaign, is among the female politicians who have publicly reported being subjected to death threats and threats of physical harm.
“There’s been a huge decline in civility in discourse. Social media is a huge part of that,” she said.
“I don’t want to have to leave because it’s not safe, because if it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for anyone, any woman, any person who wants to put their name on a ballot. We have to be better.”
Meed Ward recalled receiving a threat through a direct message on Instagram.
“Somebody was threatening to set me on fire if I went to a public meeting about a development application they didn’t like. It wasn’t approved yet. It was just an information meeting,” she said.
“I was told, actually, not to go to that meeting because my safety was at risk and this is now affecting my ability to serve my community.”
Meed Ward said the issue was reported to Halton Regional Police and officers went to speak with the person who sent the message.
She said COVID-19 “changed everything,” leading to a sharp decline in the political discourse.
“(There was) such incredible anxiety and fear during that period, and so people channelled that into online dialogue and it just didn’t take long for it to become very vicious, lots of misinformation. That was the first time I experienced a death threat. I was told that I should be hanging from the rafters at city hall,” Meed Ward said.
“I was threatened with bodily violence. I was threatened with (a) citizen’s arrest. I was told to carry a key fob. I still have it on my keys. I call it a screamer; you pull it apart, it makes a huge noise. I was afraid to go to the grocery store.”
Before the Ford government cancelled the Ontario speed camera program, she recalled getting responses on Facebook from as far away as Texas.
If you’re breaking the law, you pay — not everybody else. But who knew that was such a divisive debate when I put that up there … and when you would look into the accounts that were making these horrible comments, they had profiles that were suspicious. They had locations that were suspicious. There were no posts,” Meed Ward said.
“This use of fake accounts to try and drive a narrative, that’s the social media world that we live in. It is it is very damaging to our ability to get good information out there.”
Other politicians have reported instances of toxic insults and behaviour too.
“There are always those that want to participate in the civic conversation to make the city better. Democracy is about bringing people together, having ideas, and moving the city forward,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told CityNews when asked about what she has experienced.
“But then there are those that are very divisive. They’re angry. They don’t understand that you can channel your anger into hope. They become divisive.
“There are, from time to time, people that come and yell at me for whatever reason. But then for one of those, I get 100 hugs, 100 ‘thank yous for doing what you’re doing. Keep going. You represent me. Love the work you’ve done,’ so you get both.”
Chow, like Meed Ward, said it has been difficult to discern real complaints from digital bots, adding she takes those comments “with a complete grain of salt.”
Velma Morgan heads up Operation Black Vote Canada (OBVC), a non-profit that helps Black candidates run for public office. She said the current political climate has forced her organization to change the training workshops.
“We say not if, but when you get discriminated against, these are some of the things that you need to do. We’ve seen campaign offices ruined. We’ve seen signs being pulled down, but we’ve also seen a lot of that on social media where you don’t even know who the person is because their face is hidden. They say a lot of hateful things,” Morgan said.
“We try to prepare our candidates by saying, ‘Look, don’t try not to read those things. Let somebody else on your campaign readers and rotate who’s going to be reading that kind of information because you don’t want the same person getting that toxicity all the time.’”
She said an OBVC study found more than 51 per cent of those candidates surveyed reported being the subject of some form of discrimination.
“We often will tap people who we think should run and say, ‘This election is coming up, thinking of running iin your riding?’ and they’ll say, ‘I can’t do that. I can’t do that to myself. I can’t do that to my family. It’s just too toxic. I don’t have the skin for it,’ and so we’re losing a lot of good people because of the toxicity that’s happening in our in our political system,” Morgan said.
“We tell them that this type of racism, sexism, discrimination is targeted to throw you off your game, to throw you off your plan on winning, so it’s going to happen. Figure out a plan and keep it moving. Keep moving. Keep campaigning, and don’t let that distract you.”
Initiatives in Canada to support women running for office, promote respectful dialogue
On the back of her experience, Meed Ward co-founded an organization called Elect Respect with a mission to “restore civility in the public square” across Canada.
“The job (as a politician) itself is incredible. Public Service, seeing the decisions you’ve been a part of make a better difference. There’s nothing like that, but there is this other dark side that we’re trying to change,” she said.
“This is a pledge that municipal councils, boards, individuals can take to say, ‘I am going to treat other people in my community with respect on the issues we face. Focus on policy, not personal attacks. Make sure we create a respectful environment for our democratic discourse that we have to have.”
To date, Meed Ward said 228 politicians, 11 candidates, more than 50 municipalities and 13 private boards in Canada have signed onto the Elect Respect pledge. It also encourages allies of women to participate. She said the initiative hosts events to bring politicians, current candidates and prospective politicians together to strategize and provide support.
“This is a huge movement of people that have come together to say, ‘We demand better,’” she said.
“Part of the challenge in elected office is that you do feel alone and that if you do speak up, you are just going to get even worse. People see that and it makes them kind of withdraw from the public space. This is actually saying, ‘No, we have strength in numbers. We’re going to come together and say enough.’”
The ongoing efforts to promote civility and encourage new voices at all levels of government in Canada comes ahead of elections scheduled to be held across the country. At different points throughout 2026, residents in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island along with parts of the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan are set to vote in municipal elections. Quebec is also scheduled to have a provincial election in October.
Equal Voice, a national and multi-partisan organization, is focused on getting more women into government. It offers various political training and support programs.
“I wish I had the silver bullet answer for you on that one, but we see a lot of initiatives across the board and different stakeholders and voters calling for more civility,” interim executive director Lindsay Brumwell said when asked about the best way to address concerns about toxicity in politics.
“We can’t fix society and online. However, we can equip women with services and tools and tactics to be able to do this, as well as just recognizing that politics is a profession. There is a whole industry that comes into it.”
Brumwell encouraged women interested in running to start networking and seeking information as soon as possible.
“There is still a lot of room for improvement to be able to get women around those decision-making tables,” she said.
“We don’t want to discourage women from getting involved. Just come find us if you’re even a little bit curious about putting your foot forward … we always recommend having people volunteer on a campaign. There isn’t a campaign out there that doesn’t want an extra volunteer to go knock on doors and meet people, and just get a taste for what it’s actually like.”
The idea of shaping a more respectful political discourse is something the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has taken on with its Healthy Democracy program.
AMO has published resources for politicians and bureaucrats, focusing on topics like interacting with constituents, chairing meetings more effectively, using social media and self-care best practices.
“AMO identified that harassment and toxic behaviour are no longer occasional outbursts but have become systemic barriers to effective governance and service delivery,” organization staff wrote in one of their signature guidebooks.
“We heard clearly that while local governments continue to deliver essential services, the system is increasingly strained by mistrust, misinformation, fatigue, and incivility.”
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities also developed its Women in Local Government program, which is aimed at increasing female representation and participation in politics across Canada.
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