‘Real-world dangers’: Security memos reveal ‘intensified’ threats facing Canadian MPs – National

In March 2022, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was one of several Canadian officials named in an online threat posted to the far-right social network Gab.

The threat called for the named politicians to be executed for treason, claiming that the Canadian government had been “hijacked” by the World Economic Forum.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and his family have also been targeted by several online threats, linked to the federal government’s push to strengthen gun control. In one incident, an Instagram user replied to a post by the minister and threatened to shoot him.

And in early 2022, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — then still vying to lead his party — was among several MPs “targeted by online hate speech and threats” during the convoy protests that choked Ottawa’s downtown core for weeks and spawned blockades across the country.

The incidents are all documented in dozens of internal threat assessments prepared for senior federal government leaders and obtained by Global News through an access-to-information request.

Although they are heavily redacted, the documents provide a glimpse into a chilling trend, with elected officials facing a torrent of “violent rhetoric and intimidation tactics,” fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, extremist ideologies, and a tangled web of conspiracy theories.

And as the threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE) continues to grow in Canada, intelligence officials and experts are sounding the alarm on the potential spillover effects of online incivility.

“Pervasive online toxicity can lead to real-world dangers in low-security situations,” warn two of the assessments, citing the 2021 federal election and extremist-related activities during last year’s Freedom Convoy protests.

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Global News obtained a total of 71 threat assessments prepared between Jan. 4 and Aug. 31, 2022.

“That’s a significant number, and it does mean that people are worried,” said Dick Fadden, a former head of Canada’s spy agency, who also served as national security adviser to both former…