A Burlington, Ont., community group cancelled a federal election candidates meeting Monday, citing safety concerns over a protest planned outside the church where the meeting was set to occur that evening.
The Burlington candidate with the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), Michael Bator, organized a rally and promoted it on social media site X, inviting supporters to protest after organizers excluded him from fully participating in the meeting. In some posts, Bator called for a convoy from Hamilton’s Eastgate Square mall to the Port Nelson United Church in Burlington’s Roseland neighbourhood, where the event was to occur.
“Our concern was we didn’t know how big it would be. We didn’t know how disruptive it would be,” William Love, president of the Roseland Community Organization (RCO), told CBC Hamilton, referring to the protest.
He added the meeting organizers were concerned the protest would be disruptive to theirs and other events at the church, so decided Monday to cancel it.
Don Baxter, an RCO member who also helped organize the meeting, said the word “convoy” has associations with the 2022 Freedom Convoy — a disruptive, big-tent protest against public health restrictions and the government. It made the group worried a big protest may be headed their way, he said. Love and Baxter said they did not receive any threats.
Same criteria as federal leaders’ debate
The event was organized by a six-person team of members from the church, RCO and Roseland Park Country Club. The team has organized community discussions on topics such as homelessness, and held debates during the last municipal and provincial elections, too.
When they were planning this one, Love said, the committee decided they needed to adopt criteria on which candidates to invite. In some ridings, he noted, many candidates run, so to be fair going forward, they turned to the debate commission’s criteria, which he found reasonable. The PPC does not meet those criteria.
“I don’t object to anybody criticizing what we did,” Love said, adding that Bator and Burlington Parti Rhinocéros Party candidate Paul Harper both reached out to complain upon learning they weren’t invited.
After that, the organizers decided to invite Bator, Harper and Libertarian Party of Canada candidate Ocean Marshall to table at the event and meet people who were in attendance, even though they wouldn’t be invited to answer questions on stage like the Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green candidates.
“We weren’t making any attempt to silence them at all,” he said. “One hates to give into a bully, but I guess we did.”
Bator likened the organizers’ compromise to sitting at the “kiddie table.”
In an interview with CBC Hamilton, Bator said he disagrees with the debate commission criteria to begin with and thinks applying them at the local level is “disenfranchising,” because “everybody has a voice and everybody’s voice deserves to be heard.”
“You can’t have a two-tier system,” he said, adding that keeping independent and smaller-party candidates off the main stages prevents them from getting a leg up and becoming more widely known.
Protest went ahead
And on the issue of safety, Bator said he has “never harmed anybody” and organizers had “nothing to fear” from his protest, which went ahead anyway on Monday night across the street from the church.
Bator said he could understand some apprehension. He notes he participated in the Freedom Convoy and said he thinks it was a positive protest that has been unfairly maligned and gained a negative reputation.
He added police were present at his rally, along with about 50 attendees, and there were no safety issues.
Halton Regional Police Service spokesperson Ryan Anderson told CBC Hamilton the protest was “peaceful and concluded without incident.”
Video and photos Bator shared from the rally show him and others speaking about the importance of free speech and likening his exclusion to censorship. Photos also show PPC candidates for Hamilton Centre, David Speicher, and Oakville West, JD Meaney, in attendance.
Mostly, Bator said, he thinks cancelling the meeting was an excuse to avoid hearing his ideas.
Love disagrees. He said that in the end, Bator’s protest was not disruptive and people he interacted with were pleasant, but organizers had no way of knowing that would be the case, and things may have been different if people chose to protest inside the church.
Love said the candidates they had invited to speak on stage — NDP candidate Michael Beauchemin, Conservative Emily Brown, Liberal Karina Gould and Green candidate Kyle Hutton — all said they were still prepared to go ahead despite the protest, “to their credit.”
Green Party Co-Leader Jonathan Pedneault, speaking in Montreal on Day 23 of the election campaign, explains why the Green Party and all other parties should be welcomed at the upcoming federal election debates.
The organizers of the Burlington candidates meeting are not alone in facing scrutiny for decisions over who to include in candidate events.
For example, Canada’s Leaders’ Debates Commission defended its decision to invite Green Party co–leader Jonathan Pedneault to this week’s debates, even though the party does not have candidates in 90 per cent of ridings.
Parties must meet two of the following three criteria to be invited: Having at least one sitting MP elected as a party member, having at least four per cent national support in opinion polls and running candidates in at least 90 per cent of Canada’s 343 ridings.
Pedneault said his party should be included, and so should the PPC, which has not won a seat in the House.
According to CBC’s Poll Tracker, which provides a weighted average of public opinion polls, as of this week, the PPC were not projected to win any seats this election either.
“I believe that all candidates running in the riding should’ve been invited to participate, including Bator, [Harper and Marshall],” Hutton said in an email to CBC Hamilton.
“I think the criteria for the federal debates, which is what the organizers followed, is a set up for a much different context than an in-riding meeting. However, that’s their choice to make, I could only offer the suggestion.”
Hutton added he was “very disappointed” the event was cancelled but does not fault the organizers since the protest “was clearly meant to disrupt and do so with the help of folks from way outside the Burlington community, and now we’ve lost what was potentially the only local debate in our riding.”
“It’s doubly disappointing as I supported Michael Bator’s participation in the debate, and now none of us get to. [It’s] shameful conduct.”
Baxter said it’s too late to plan another event this election, but Love said the group would like to do more in the future.
“We think it’s important for people to get to hear their candidates,” Baxter said, adding it’s a lot of work to organize a candidates meeting, and there aren’t many local groups that do.
Other candidates react to cancellation
Here’s how the other major-party candidates for Burlington responded to the event’s cancellation, organized alphabetically by their last names.
Beauchemin: “I was excited for the opportunity to engage directly with voters and the other candidates at [Monday’s] all candidates event,” the NDP candidate said in an email. “As we move into the last few weeks of this campaign, I look forward to other opportunities to connect with voters and talk about why New Democrats like me are the right choice to fight for Canadian values.”
Brown: “This was a vital forum to hold the Liberal government to account for their failed policies and debate important issues facing Burlington constituents,” the Conservative candidate said on X Monday. “Intimidating the church and the surrounding neighbourhood, as done by another candidate, is completely unacceptable. I would welcome the opportunity for a similar forum to engage openly and respectfully with our community.”
Gould: “I am very sorry that we will not have the chance to gather as candidates to present our ideas and visions to our community. I understand completely why the meeting organizers felt the need to cancel for the security and well-being of the community and respect their decision,” the Liberal candidate said on Facebook Monday. “With two weeks to go until Election Day, let us all respect our differences. Elections are about convincing and persuading people to support you, intimidation and bullying is not how we should be engaging in politics in this country.”
