Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attracts mixed reactions from a comment he made after a protester shouted a vulgar and misogynistic comment about his wife yesterday while campaigning.
The incident took place outside the Global television Monday in Burnaby, BC, where Trudeau was due to do an interview.
The only heckler shouted profanations against the leader’s wife and challenged him to fight. In response, Trudeau asked, “Isn’t there a hospital you should bother with right now?”
The comment alluded to the anti-vaccine protests that were taking place in several cities across Canada. Earlier in the day, Trudeau said he would criminalize protests that blocked access to hospitals and intimidated health workers.
The incident with the heckler generated mixed reactions on social media.
The increase in abuse at campaign stops is “political violence,” says the expert
When reporters asked him about Tuesday’s verbal attack, Trudeau did not apologize for his choice of words.
“He went looking for my family. He said hateful and misogynistic things about my wife. I signed up for it. My family believes deeply in what I’m doing and I support it a lot. But everyone has limits. I’ll always be there. Try step back when someone crosses those lines.Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
Melanee Thomas, an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary, says the types of racist and sexist comments being thrown at protests during this latest campaign trail illustrate what is really going on with a particular stream of undemocratic thinking. .
She explains that sexist violence in the political literature is clear how this type of harassment, violent protest, vandalism of campaign signs, disruption to a candidate’s office, and online harassment is the most common form of violence.
“It’s called psychological violence,” she says. “The goal is to get people, who are more likely to be racialized women, to leave or make their political work difficult.”
In the context of an election campaign, the campaign is a democratic political work. And while the right to protest is part of a democracy, Thomas says that kind of protest is not democratic because it seeks to prevent politicians from doing their job.
“The question is, when you are in front of someone who is involved in anti-democratic actions, who is considered political violence and uses misogyny as part of it, how do we hope to respond,” he asks.
Thomas adds that while politicians currently campaigning denounce such protests, they are not addressing the motivation behind it.
The tone of the protests is very different from that of the last 2019 elections, as it was prior to COVID and conspiratorial thinking around vaccines was not present. However, there was a clear tone regarding the candidates and the tendency to certain campaign messages.
“There was this idea that if you weren’t part of my support team, you were my enemy,” Thomas says. “It’s an existential threat if (the other party wins). This kind of polarized partisan narrative is really problematic.”