Canadian senators have been issued with panic buttons amid growing concerns about their safety, CBC News has learned.
The senators have been the target of an online harassment campaign and threatening phone calls in recent weeks. In November, Conservative senator Don Plett was on his way to a Conservative party meeting on Parliament Hill when his car was surrounded by pro-Palestinian protesters who banged on his car window and climbed on its bonnet.
Sen. Peter Boehm, a career diplomat, said senators used to think they were protected from the kinds of security risks that members of Congress sometimes faced.
“All I’ve noticed during my time in the Senate is that the threat level is increasing,” he said. “There is concern for the senator’s safety.”
Boehm said senators first began to feel the security environment was changing during the motorcade protests that paralyzed downtown Ottawa for weeks in early 2022.
“It’s been a hassle a few times, but I’m a tall white guy,” he said. “Some of my colleagues — brown, black, women — were wearing masks to reflect the diversity that the Senate now reflects, which was very disturbing.”
Early last fall, more than a year after the House of Representatives provided members with handheld duress devices, senators were given handheld duress devices, also known as panic buttons.
Boehm said acceptance of the button is voluntary and that some senators feel it is not necessary. Some people have received them, but they say they don’t need to keep them on hand all the time.
The Senate and the Congressional Protective Service have not said why they decided to provide panic buttons to senators or how much the measure will cost.
“The Senate has taken steps to provide additional support to senators to ensure their safety when they are away from the Capitol,” said Alison Cohn, spokeswoman for the Senate Economic Affairs Committee. “For security reasons, detailed information about these programs and services is [is] Not shared publicly. ”
During a debate earlier this month over the Senate’s spending plan, Sen. Lucie Montsion said security costs for the Red House are increasing.
“We have security challenges now that didn’t exist 10 years ago,” she told senators. “Security elements that were not there before are now part of the budget.”
Monsion did not elaborate on the new security costs and declined an interview request from CBC News.
The Senate is not the only government in Canada increasing spending on security.
The cost for the RCMP to protect Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family has soared to $30 million a year, making the cost of protecting MPs the highest on record.
Sen. Bernadette Clement said she initially didn’t think she would need the panic button issued to her. But that was before she became the target of online harassment last fall and received threatening phone calls that forced her to leave her home for several days.
“After the threat was communicated, [the panic button] It’s fully charged and always with me,” said Clement, who was nominated to the Senate in 2021.
The harassment and intimidation occurred after she moved to postpone consideration of Bill C-234 in the Senate. Bill C-234 is a Conservative private member’s bill that would extend the carbon tax exemption that farmers receive on gasoline and diesel to natural gas and propane.
A post by Conservative House of Commons Leader Andrew Scheer encouraged Canadians to contact Clement and fellow senator Chantal Petitclerc to tell them their thoughts.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is relying on every trick in the book to prevent farmers from receiving carbon tax carve-outs for drying grain, heating barns and other farm operations. A tax on farmers is a tax on food. #TrudeauMustGo #Pierre4PM #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/OuV7VsjvjW
Clement has been in politics for many years, but said his experience in November changed his perspective on security.
“That event really changed the way I looked at things,” she said. “And online, many, if not all, of the vitriolic comments I hear are tinged with racism and misogyny because I am a black female politician.”
Clement said he had noticed a shift in the tone online even before the incident.
“I’ve been in the Senate for two years now, and even in those two years I feel like more and more anger and aggression is being unleashed,” she said.
“And that meant I went into a room with a different view. I now go into a room and look very carefully at who is in there.”
Sen. Paula Simmons said she hasn’t noticed much of a change in the atmosphere around her senators, but she recently had to deal with an incident while attending an event in Edmonton.
“A group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators came to an event I was moderating and, I believe because I have a Jewish family background, disrupted the event and yelled at me.” Simmons said. “But I was surprised, and frankly, this was my first time as a senator, so I never felt like I was in any danger.”
Simons said the Senate should provide more training and develop a plan on how to respond to security incidents.
“It would be good for the Senate to come up with some protocol to prepare senators in a world where there could be more protests. How do we deal with protests? ?” she said.
“Imagine if I had pressed the duress button on my phone because the protesters were yelling at me. I mean, it would have been a complete overreaction. Still, if that theater If anyone there had any ill will towards me, I knew in that moment that I had no defense against them.”
Senator Plett raised the issue of security in the Senate in early November after an encounter with pro-Palestinian protesters.
“They actually jumped in my car,” he told the Senate Economic Affairs Committee. “They were banging on my windows. They were lying on the hood of the car. They were trying to prevent me from moving… There was no security around to help me. I felt very, very unsafe.”
Plett, who was appointed to the Senate in 2009, told the committee that he felt senators were becoming “less and less protected.”
“The public needs to know what’s going on here and how dangerous we really are.”
