Former Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black says months of harassment made serving in public office increasingly difficult. His experience echoes concerns raised in a new report examining abuse directed at municipal officials across New Brunswick.
“I had an individual tell me that I should go kill myself,” Black said. “I had several people tell me that my family and I should move out of town or something bad might happen.”
The threats continued for months.
“And then I consistently had one person for three months, every single morning, that I would wake up to a message of them telling me to go F myself. Every single morning for months,” he said.
Black’s experience reflects concerns raised in Respect in Action, a report released by the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick and the Association Francophone des Municipalités du Nouveau-Brunswick. The report followed consultations with elected officials across the province and a symposium held last fall to examine growing concerns about harassment and intimidation in local government.
Black says the harassment took a personal toll.
“It stressed me out, brought forward a lot of anxiety,” he said. “The bigger issue is that it made me stop to really dislike my job as mayor. It just made me kind of question why I was doing this in the first place.”
Black served on Tantramar council for a decade, including as mayor. He says accepting a job as executive director of Open Sky Cooperative was the main reason he decided not to seek another term, but years of harassment added to the strain of serving in public office.
Black says disagreement is part of public office, but harassment crosses a line.
“I never shied away from criticism,” he said. “That is part of the public discourse. That’s part of being an elected official.”
Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick president Brittany Merrifield says Black’s experience is consistent with what municipal leaders have been telling the organization.
“This is something that we’ve heard from our members as being an issue, and it’s not just a New Brunswick issue, it’s a national issue,” she said. “We hear this in every corner of the country.”
The report identifies social media as a major source of harassment and recommends changes it says could help improve civility in local government.
The associations have submitted the report to the provincial minister responsible for local government and the Local Governance Commission, and say they will review its recommendations with members in the coming months.
Black says the symposium where the report was presented showed him he wasn’t the only one dealing with the issue.
“The conversation in the room was that this kind of stuff happens to everyone, for the most part,” he said. “The message was loud and clear.”
Merrifield says the issue reaches beyond the people currently serving in office.
“We’re seeing good people say exactly that: Why would I do this work, which is becoming increasingly complex and difficult, and I’ll be potentially facing harassment either online or in person?” she said. “That’s one of the reasons that it’s so incredibly important for us to deal with this issue head-on, because it is essentially a threat to our democracy.”
