ROTHENBURGER: We’ve now crossed the line of incivility into death threats

That’s what he did in the case of a condominium development, which had been defeated at a meeting from which a member of council had been absent. With a full council, the project was approved.

The decision didn’t sit well with those who opposed the controversial plan. As part of a Facebook discussion on the decision, a commenter suggested someone should “put a bullet” in Basran. Another commenter, to her credit, replied, “I hate Basra as much as anyone… but death threats are maybe a bit out of line here.”

Personal hatred of a politician is, in itself, edging into the extreme side of things but at least she drew a line.

In the heat of public debate, it might be tempting at times to say something similar to the threat against the Kelowna mayor. It might not be meant literally but how is anyone supposed to know?

Basran wasn’t taking any chances, and called out the man who posted the comment. Police got involved. He called a press conference. And, on Instagram, he said the threat brought him to tears. “I’m scared, angry, sad and everything in between,” he wrote.

When you run for public office, he said, you have to expect criticism but this one was beyond what should be expected.

“This may not be a big deal to some, but this is incredibly hurtful to my family and I.”

Grammatical error aside, he makes an important point. It would be easy to say, “The guy was surely not serious. Just man up.”

Well, wait a minute. There have been far too many incidents of violence in which there were warning signs nobody acted upon. Just as important, by going public with it in a big way, Basran is drawing a line in the sand on public commenting.

He’s holding the incident up as the ultimate example of the incivility that has crept into the relationship between the public and the people chosen to represent us.

Basran’s situation demonstrates the corrosive effect of this free-wheeling, anything-goes attitude toward lipping off in public forums. The threat might have been simply the last straw for him — he recently described last fall’s civic election campaign as “one of the worst experiences of my life” due to “negative personal attacks.”

This, despite the fact he won the election by several thousand votes over his nearest opponent.

The death threat has prompted him to reconsider his priorities, he says. “If this is the new norm for elected officials, I want no part of it.”

Whether that means he’s considering leaving politics is unclear, but online abuse has certainly influenced the career decisions of other politicians and would-be politicians. Lots has been written about that. To my knowledge, there’s never been a similar case in Kamloops in which a

mayor or other local politician has gone public with a death threat. I’d be very surprised if such threats haven’t been made, though.

Mayors of major cities get them. The mayor of Medicine Hat got one last year; a man was arrested for it. The mayor of Courtenay got one, too.

Not everyone feels Basran’s pain. Social media commenters brush off the threat (example, “Mayor needs to grow a pair”) and continue to trash him. Marshall Jones, the editor of InfoNews.ca’s Kelowna page, which published the original comment that caused all the controversy, wrote an unsympathetic column vaguely headlined “Sorry Mayor Basran but I’m not buying it.”

Jones points a finger of blame at Facebook for not providing a way for Facebook comments to be moderated before they’re published. I agree on that point but I’ve come around to the opinion that media who experience an over-abundance of trolling and don’t or aren’t able to moderate comments should block them altogether.

The tone of many of the comments made after Basran went public on the threat makes it clear there’s no appetite to self-police civility. We’ve now crossed the line into threatening violence.

High-level politicians are used to such threats. Arrests and prosecutions are common. Death threats against Justin Trudeau — such as “Trudeau needs to be shot”— on a Yellow Vests page made news earlier this year.

But the “hateful rhetoric,” to use Trudeau’s words, continues. And now we’ve graduated from federal politicians to the ultimate grassroots democracy — City Hall down the street.

We have a right to disagree with our politicians. We can hate their decisions and their policies, and we can even hate them as people but they’re the ones we’ve chosen to lead us.

Basran is right. Ignoring the threat as just another rant and doing nothing about it would have been tantamount to condoning it. He did the right thing by making a big deal out of it, because it is.

Unless people start getting arrested and charged for this kind of crap, it’s going to get worse.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: We’ve now crossed the line of incivility into death threats

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