Federal Law Minister Arif Virani said he would not go anywhere without a portable emergency alert device in his pocket.
He never moves around without informing someone beforehand, even when he attends public events.
He doesn’t just work with the Justice Department’s security team, he has a separate security team at the House of Representatives.
“Unfortunately, that’s the situation Canadian society finds itself in right now,” Villani said in an interview Wednesday as lawmakers prepared for their summer recess.
“What’s even more shocking is that it’s not just ministers who have to do this – there are many female colleagues who have been doing so for over a year now.”
Villani said he wishes things had been different, but he doesn’t support a recent proposal by the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to make it easier for police to prosecute people who make threats to elected office.
“I believe we have strong tools in place, such as the criminal code,” Villani said, adding that the federal government provides police with the resources to do their jobs.
“I think the combination of these two things is enough to address the current situation.”
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Mike Duhem expressed concern about the rise in threats against elected officials in an interview with The Canadian Press last month.
He said that under Canadian law, an individual’s conduct often does not meet the threshold for prosecution.
Duhem said he expects Public Safety Canada and Justice Canada to work with the RCMP to develop new regulations to address the growing problem.
An intelligence report from June last year described extremist rhetoric linked to personal grievances, fuelled by outright lies and misinformation that spreads easily online, as making threats against politicians “increasingly normalised”.
The report noted that violent rhetoric was often directed at prominent women.
Villani says his family shouldn’t be harassed
Liberal MP Pam Damoff said she would not seek re-election due to the threats and harassment she had faced. A growing number of MPs, including Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lanzmann, have been seen with security forces on Parliament Hill.
In April, a small group of protesters demonstrated outside Villani’s Toronto home in protest at the government’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
He condemned their actions and said his wife and two sons “do not deserve to be harassed.”
Toronto police said no arrests have been made and that they are aware protesters were in the area for a short period of time.
Protests on the same issue also took place outside Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly’s home in Montreal, drawing criticism from lawmakers across the board who said the actions had gone too far.
Villani said his message to Duem was that the government was always looking for ways to better address the challenges facing the police.
Villani said one approach would be to “empower” hate crime units to combat threats against elected officials and other Canadians.
“There aren’t as many as we need,” he said.
The minister also pointed to provisions in a long-promised bill, the Online Harms Act, which she said would make social media giants more accountable for harms suffered by users on their platforms.
The bill also proposes tougher penalties for hate-related crimes, measures that civil society activists and other legal experts have warned could stifle free speech. Villani defended the measures as necessary to prevent online hate from escalating into real-life violence.
“I support that document as a comprehensive response to address the underlying causes of the concerns (Duhem) raised,” he said.
The House of Representatives went into summer recess on Wednesday but there has been little progress on the bill, which has yet to be sent to a parliamentary committee for consideration despite being introduced nearly four months ago.
Government House of Commons leader Stephen McKinnon suggested Conservative procedural tactics were to blame, adding that “time for debate had simply run out”.
A spokesman for Conservative Leader Pierre Poirierbre said a political pact with the minority Liberals and New Democrats gives the government the power to prioritize or block any bill it wants, “despite their complaints.”
“Any delays are the responsibility of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,” New Democratic Party Leader Peter Julien said in a statement, noting the Liberals initially promised to introduce the legislation within 100 days of winning the 2021 election.
