Humiliation, harassment, intimidation, violence: violent behavior towards elected officials and municipal employees is becoming so problematic that insurance coverage specific to this scourge was created last June to finance the actions. justice of those who are victims.
The need for such insurance reveals the scale of the crisis, particularly acute since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the Sûreté du Québec received around 400 reports of harassment and intimidation against municipal employees and elected officials. The figure reflects an increase of 25% compared to 2019.
Many prefer to leave rather than let themselves be confined to a role of letting off steam. Less than 18 months after the last municipal elections, some 55 mayors decided to leave their posts, which led to the holding of by-elections each time.
“The number of resignations since the last election shows how much bigger the problem is than in the past,” believes Jacques Demers, president of the Fédération québécoise des municipalities (FQM). There have been more than 300 by-elections in recent years, including those resulting from the departure of a councilor. This is unheard of. Some elected officials left for personal reasons, but others simply decided to throw in the towel. »
The new insurance covers the legal procedures necessary to put an end to a situation of intimidation or harassment, from sending a formal notice to obtaining an injunction. “She is not there to obtain money in civil damages,” clarified the director of the subscription service at the Quebec Municipal Insurance Fund, Lila Beddar, during the FQM congress held at the end september.
With a budget of $2 million for its first year of operation, the insurance offers beneficiaries a limit of $100,000 per “event” up to a maximum of $250,000 per insured. The latter will have to pay a 25% deductible to take advantage of the fund.
Before the creation of the insurance fund, a municipality had to assume the legal costs necessary to protect its elected officials and employees against intimidation. The bill for this type of procedure can add up quickly, especially when the person behind the wrongful behavior hides behind their screen.
The Town of Mercier, located in the MRC of Roussillon, took great measures last year to discover the identity of the people hidden behind anonymous accounts who constantly attacked volunteers, elected officials and employees of the municipality. One of the profiles concerned turned out to be particularly cruel: it bore the name of the late sister of Mayor Lise Michaud.
Online harassment had been going on for several years when the City decided to put an end to it.
“In cases where the citizen hides behind an anonymous account,” explains M.e Rino Soucy, the lawyer who led the City’s case, it’s done in three steps. You must first call on a specialized firm to investigate and certify to the court that it is impossible to know who is hiding behind a a.k.a. »
Once this step has been completed, an application must then be made to obtain a Norwich type order. This makes it possible to force a third party to disclose information capable of revealing the identity of an anonymous person.
Meta, X and other platforms usually give the name of the Internet service provider of the offending users. A second Norwich type request still becomes necessary to force the Bells and Videotrons of this world to reveal the IP address associated with the user who launches insults on the Web. Once this information is in hand, you must again call on a specialized firm to identify the person associated with the IP address in question.
“It takes about two months to identify the person,” adds M.e Soucy. The cost of these procedures ranges between $20,000 and $25,000. This is only to discover the identity of the person: subsequently, it is still necessary to obtain an interlocutory injunction to force the behavior in question to stop. It could take two or three more months and add around $10,000 or $15,000 to the bill. »
The procedures to unmask and bring to justice the culprits will have cost more than $56,000 to the 13,000 taxpayers of the Town of Mercier. An expense that is increasing throughout Quebec: Me Soucy specifies that the DHC firm for which he works alone receives “at least one call every two months from an elected official who wants to use our services”.
The problem also affects small villages. In Sainte-Élisabeth, in Lanaudière, a group was causing havoc at municipal council meetings. “People think they can talk to us any way they want, treat us any way they want,” laments the mayor, Louis Bérard. They forget the respect and decorum they learned at school. »
In this aging municipality, some elected officials had the feeling of no longer even being considered human beings in the face of the anger of certain citizens. The existence of the insurance fund has brought some calm to the village.
“Now we have ammunition and we can threaten legal action,” continues the mayor. It will make a big difference: we do not want to spend our population’s money on prosecutions against people who do not respect their elected officials. »