All political parties have a part to play in condemning violence, says researcher

A researcher who studies political violence says it's important for politicians across parties to condemn violence when it happens, after a Yukon politician's vehicle was vandalized.

NDP Leader Kate White says she woke Saturday morning to find three of her tires were slashed, and someone had also spray-painted threats on the hood and driver's side door.

The vandalism was condemned by both other Yukon parties, including Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon and Premier Ranj Pillai.

This is the third time a Yukon politician has dealt with vandalism in the past year. White said two of her tires were also slashed just before Christmas, but she wasn't sure then whether that incident was politically motivated. Liberal minister John Streicker had his home vandalized last spring. 

Chris Tenove is the assistant director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at University of British Columbia. 

In an interview, Tenove said he believes acts of targeted political violence are more common than they used to be, but he had some tips for what can be done to discourage this behaviour. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: I'm wondering how common are incidents like this in Canada right now?

A: I would say we don't know for sure how common these are, but there are a few things that make us think that we are seeing more threats and harassment of elected politicians. One is that there keep being these anecdotes about it. 

And as one example, here in British Columbia during our election in the fall back in October, there was a NDP politician running ... [there was] a sign made of him that was hanging on a noose out in a field with the eyes exed out. So pretty disturbing image.

And of course, we've seen online harassment as well as in person threats of federal cabinet ministers and certainly also of municipal politicians around Canada. So it does seem to be getting more common. 

In terms of, you know, hard data on these things, we don't really have anyone who's able to track that or has been tracking that in Canada. There is research in the United States out of the Brennan Centre and they've looked at state level officials and found that 43 per cent of them had faced some type of threats during their most recent term or election campaign. So a pretty high proportion.

Q: Do you think that this is more common than it used to be?

A: Yes, I do think it is.