How several Barrie Council members (and others) tried to disrupt democracy in the 2022 Municipal Election

This is a long one, folks – for the “TL:DR” version, please visit the Open Letter to Candidates

Below is a deep dive into 2022’s “Slanderpalooza” — in which two outgoing Council members, three incumbents, and at least one Mayoral candidate (among others) played a series of dirty tricks on their fellow candidates, the electorate and the non-profit organization created to hold Council accountable, resulting in:

1. protection of the Mayoral candidate at the centre of the City’s Workplace Harassment scandal (found to have repeatedly sexually harassed a staff member) from having to answer to his actions
    
2. undermining the only All-Candidates meetings being held, thereby:
   1. allowing them to avoid having to face questions on their voting patterns and other official actions (including, but not limited to their role in protecting the known-abuser candidate)
   2. preventing other candidates from having their voices and ideas heard
3. tarnishing the reputation of the non-profit organization working to hold Council accountable for their actions as public representatives (in particular, though not exclusively, in its continued work holding Council’s feet to the fire around its poor handling of the Workplace Harassment case)

Why bring this up now?

Well, first of all, because we’re back in election season.  As many of the people who pulled off Slanderpalooza in 2022 are still in office and seeking re-election — and because they were able to get away with this behaviour once — I wanted to make sure that the other candidates and the public are aware of what happened, in the hopes of averting a similar situation keeping this year’s candidates from having their voices heard or the public being able to make an informed decision at the ballot box.  (Edited to add:  nope, Sergio's doing it again:  https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19tWYMJtGi/ )

Secondly, as decided at the time by both the Board and Election Committee of Engage Barrie in 2022, speaking out or arguing against the accusations at the time would have kept the “scandal” at the forefront, instead of the candidates and their platforms.  My stepping away from the All-Candidates Meetings and taking a leave from Engage Barrie was our attempt to take the focus off of me and put it back on the candidates, where it belonged.  (Little did we know at the beginning, they would keep taking to the media with more side-show nonsense.)  Getting into endless line-by-line fact checking and analysis would be feeding into what we realized fairly early was their goal of disrupting the all-candidates meetings, and we didn’t want to fall into that trap and assist them in that sabotage.  Brandolini’s Law was already proving to be overwhelming, and preventing us from getting our planned work done.  So the Board decided to keep silent at that time, and make a formal complaint to the Integrity Commissioner after the “election blackout” period.

Thirdly, I was still on the Board of Engage Barrie Organization through 2025, which limited what I could say due to the conflict of interest outlined in the “Why didn’t you sue for libel and slander?” section below.  Engage Barrie had bounced back from the 2022 debacle with much more community and financial support than they’d had before Slanderpalooza.  I wanted to wait until my speaking up could no longer be tied to the organization in any way, so it was one hundred percent clear I was speaking for myself and not EBO.

Also, while there are a number of “meet and greets” organized for this year’s candidates, as well as CARP’s mayoral debate (which sent out questions to candidates in advance), to the best of my knowledge neither Engage Barrie nor any other organization is hosting any event where candidates are asked direct, unprepared questions in front of an audience.  Meaning the very same incumbents who slandered me and Engage Barrie in 2022 do not have to face accountability for their voting patterns and Council decisions again this election.  So it seems their 2022 stunt managed to squelch a second round of true election accountability, which pisses me off to no end.

Further, I have been hearing reports of the very same incumbents pulling dirty tricks to silence other candidates or opposition, and I’m absolutely furious that they continue to get away with this — if you know you can’t win without lying and cheating, maybe you shouldn’t be the one in office.  As my brother-in-truth-telling, Toby Morton, said to Newsweek recently, “I’m doing this for the people who’ve been ignored, intimidated, and made to feel their voices don’t matter.”  

I believe this year’s candidates and the public have a right to know exactly why there is no opportunity for accountability, and who was (and still is) at the heart of this anti-democratic nonsense.

Why didn’t you sue for libel and slander?

Oh, believe me, nothing would have given me greater pleasure!

As it became obvious Slanderpalooza was going to continue to escalate, I did consult a lawyer who specializes in slander and libel cases.  After hearing what was going on and looking through what had been published and disseminated about both myself and Engage Barrie, he said there was no doubt in his mind that this absolutely was libel and slander, and if we took it to court, there was no question we would win and be able to recoup legal costs.  However, he advised me against going that route, in part because he understood our priorities to keep the focus on the candidates.  But he also warned that taking legal action would leave the door open for them to continue escalating the slander in the media, which would also continue to harm the reputation of the newly-incorporated Engage Barrie, even if we eventually proved it was slander.  (“Media outlets rarely post front-page articles about all the ways they were wrong in all their previous front-page articles.”)

The other reason for advising me not to pursue it was because the slander against me was also being used to slander Engage Barrie, so Engage Barrie would have to be considered as a separate party in any legal case, as the organization would likely have different legal interests than mine, and would have to hire their own lawyer to represent those interests.

At the time, Engage Barrie was a newly-incorporated organization with just over $200 in a PayPal account, and no insurance.  Even if the organization were able to recoup legal fees after a successful lawsuit, there was not enough money to get started.  And as my lawyer explained, since there were so many individuals involved in “the other side”, the amount of time that an Engage Barrie lawyer would have to spend just drafting opening notices to each party, let alone in any back-and-forth, would be prohibitive.  I offered to loan EBO money until the legal fees could be recouped, and was told that would not be feasible, since it could be construed as my attempting to financially influence their legal position, which would of course be unethical.  And since I had only resigned as Chair (the Board hadn’t accepted my full resignation as a Director, just a temporary leave while they investigated the situation), I would be in a conflict-of-interest situation and in breach of my fiduciary duty to the organization when, inevitably, EBO’s lawyer and my lawyer took different directions in their client advice.

To quote the City of Barrie’s previous motto:  Well Played  (although I’m not sure if I’m overextending credit as to their forethought — they might have just gotten lucky)

So let me stress here, before I get into the weeds, that I am no longer on the Board of Engage Barrie, nor am I part of their Election Committee.  I have not been involved with Engage Barrie since November, 2025.  Engage Barrie has had nothing to do with this post, and neither have any of the members of EBO’s Board, Election Committee, or Contributing Members.

Background on the parties involved

Engage Barrie

While my supposed harassment of Councillor Natalie Harris was the initial slanderous accusation, it quickly became apparent that the true target of Slanderpalooza was Engage Barrie — of which I was Chair at the time.

Engage Barrie was originally a grassroots organization that formed in late 2019 with a group of residents interested in becoming more engaged with local politics, and having our and other residents' voices heard at City Hall.  Engage Barrie Organization incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 2021, and I was the Founding Chair.  EBOs Articles of Incorporation are “Building an engaged, equitable and empowered local democracy; Encouraging public involvement in Barrie politics; Advocating for accountability and transparency in local government.”

The group’s first major undertaking was hosting the only all-candidates meeting for the Ward 3 by-election in January, 2020 – which, by all accounts was a great success, and much appreciated by candidates and the electorate, and even the sitting Council.  We saw the by-election as a “test run”, and looked forward to hosting all-candidates meetings for the mayoral candidates and all 10 Ward candidates in the 2022 election.

Growing Council antagonism towards Engage Barrie

In the meantime, however, certain members of Council became less than enamoured with the organization's efforts around our third Article of Incorporation, “advocating for accountability and transparency in local government”, and had since put in considerable effort to discredit Engage Barrie and many of its members.

This push-back began in June, 2020, when Ranked Ballots were being debated at Council, and Engage Barrie’s Response to the Staff Report pointed out the incomplete and incorrect information in the report, and (successfully) called on Council to refer the matter back to staff for further investigation.

The antagonism from these members grew with Engage Barrie’s work around Supervised Consumption Sites and harm reduction, in particular, as well as several other areas where we were keeping track on voting patterns and other actions in Council.  But it was EBO’s work around the Workplace Harassment case which brought the attacks and discrediting of the organization (as well as myself, as Chair) to a crescendo.

For those of you who somehow don’t remember this case, an initially unnamed City Councillor — later publicly revealed as Mike McCann (Mayoral candidate in the 2022 election) — was accused of sexually harassing a female staff member, and it was later revealed that the accusation had been found by independent investigation to be substantiated.  And, despite knowing that the investigation into the matter had found the accusations to be substantiated, five other City Councillors — Robert Thomson, Natalie Harris, Gary Harvey, Jim Harris and Sergio Morales — voted against allowing the Integrity Commissioner to investigate him under the City’s Code of Conduct (which would have been the only way for him to face repercussions as an elected official), and voted against referring the matter to external legal council to investigate alternative action and opinions on the case (thereby avoiding the possibility of any actions taken to hold him to account for his abuse of a staff member).  More details of this below.

Election Committee

As mentioned above, Engage Barrie was looking forward to hosting all-candidates meetings in 2022 similar to the one we presented for the 2020 Ward 3 by-election, for the Mayoral candidates and candidates in each Ward.  We had many members interested in participating, and attracted several new members who wanted to get involved, so formed the Election Committee in early 2022 to start planning.

On top of planning these events, the Election Committee decided on a number of actions to take, to help inform the public about the elections process, and the candidates.  These included:

• An elections information page on the EBO website, including links to information for candidates and voters, information on each candidate's platforms, etc.
• The “If you don’t run, who wins?” campaign, encouraging a more diverse slate of candidates to run in the election
• Information sessions at places such as Open Air Dunlop, shopping centres, etc., to encourage people to get out and vote, let them know how to make sure they were on the electors list, know what Ward they lived in and the candidates running there, etc.
• All-candidates meetings for each Ward and the Mayoral candidates

• An interactive “Council Report Card” section of the website, where the public could search our database by issue and/or Council member, including:
  • attendance records
  • votes cast on major issues (including but not limited to Ranked Ballots, the Supervised Consumption Site, and the Workplace Harassment case)
  • motions and amendments brought forward on major issues
  • donation records from the 2018 election (mapping which big-ticket donors had financed which successful candidates, such as developers, corporate leaders, etc.)
  • conflicts of interest
  • a general summary of their priorities and actions on Council, including links to media interviews and articles, etc.
• Candidate information pages, including
  • answers given to a set of questions EBO sent to each candidate
  • links to the incumbents’ “Report Cards”
  • in the case of Mayoral candidate Alex Nuttall, who had previously served as a Ward Councillor and as an M.P., a similar (though less detailed) summary of his voting patterns and actions in each office, donation records previously filed, etc.
  • links to any news articles or other external media that might indicate the candidate’s priorities and viewpoints

Given the participants in and trajectory of Slanderpalooza, I highly suspect that the “Report Card” information, particularly that related to the Workplace Harassment case, was the primary reason for trying to destroy Engage Barrie’s credibility, and for sabotaging the All-Candidates Meetings where they would have run the risk of being asked about their voting records on that and a number of other issues in their report cards.  So I think it’s important to share some of the stories EBO’s Accountability Team members were working on, to make it clear what gains could be made by silencing and discrediting Engage Barrie.

Key “Report Card” Entries for Slanderpalooza Participants

Engage Barrie’s “Report Cards” were to be focused around how Council members and/or candidates fit in with the organization’s mission, values and founding principles particularly as they applied to our key areas of focus in the previous years.

Workplace Harassment Case

One of the biggest issues Engage Barrie was planning to report on was, of course, the Workplace Harassment case.  Then-Mayoral candidate Mike McCann had been publicly revealed to be the Councillor found to have harassed a City staff member, and more of the substantiated details of his egregious behaviour towards the complainant were detailed in her civil case, filed January 17, 2022.  This was all information that members of Council had received in confidence when first deliberating the situation on October 20, 2020, including the third-party investigation the City had retained, which concluded that McCann’s behaviour was inappropriate, disrespectful and harassing.

Therefore, they already knew the extent of these substantiated details when Councillors Robert Thomson, Natalie Harris, Gary Harvey, Jim Harris and Sergio Morales all voted against Deputy Mayor Barry Ward’s amendment to have the Integrity Commissioner investigate the allegations — which, because McCann was an elected official and not a staff member, was the only way he would have to face any accountability for workplace harassment, as minimal as the available consequences might be.

Deputy Mayor Ward then tried to put forward another amendment to refer the matter to external legal council to provide an opinion on alternative actions that could be undertaken in response to the results of the already-completed workplace investigation — i.e., see if there were any other way for McCann to face accountability for his substantiated abuse of a staff member.  Again, Councillors Robert Thomson, Natalie Harris, Gary Harvey, Jim Harris and Sergio Morales all voted against this amendment, and continued to protect their substantiated-abuser colleague from accountability.  They did not protect staff, they did not protect the public, they protected the buddy in their usual voting block.

While he did not cast any votes himself, Mayor Lehman chaired this and future meetings, yet for some reason allowed McCann to be present (not to mention, visibly texting his colleagues as they debated and voted on his fate) during deliberations and votes, as well as vote on some of the motions himself at later meetings, without declaring the obvious conflict of interest in doing so.  (For more detail, visit the posts at https://www.engagebarrie.org/blog/categories/workplace-harassment-case.)

On several occasions since then, Natalie Harris had jumped on EBO’s reporting of this case to misrepresent (to put it generously) her October 20, 2020 votes which protected McCann — every time she did, EBO would write out the exact words of the amendments she voted against, and link to the City’s video of her votes.  Every time she used EBO’s social media to attempt to gaslight the public, we repeated these corrections and posted the video links.  Which didn’t seem to make her happy — yet it also didn’t seem to make her stop trying.

It is of particular note that the October 20, 2020 video of the General Committee meeting is now reported as “not available” in the City’s listing of meetings — however, the YouTube video is still available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qau2WjQaDbI for anyone seeking verification.

Supervised Consumption Site

Supporting the Simcoe-Muskoka District Health Unit’s application for a Supervised Consumption Site in Barrie was one of Engage Barrie’s larger campaigns, as many of our members were dismayed by the disinformation being spread by certain members of Council (particularly the voting block referred to above) who seemed more interested in gaining political favour than in backing science-based solutions to protect Barrie citizens affected by the opioid crisis.  So we were documenting votes cast in Council on this and related issues, as well as words spoken and actions taken by members of Council.  Engage Barrie also was documenting related history of then-Mayoral candidate Alex Nuttall when he was an M.P., including his opposition of federal science-based strategies in Parliament, and quotes from some of his newsletters on the issue.

While most of the usual voting block’s “no” votes for the SCS were unsurprising, as Councillor Natalie Harris had represented herself as an advocate for those living with substance-use issues, her sudden tide-turning vote against the first application caught many by surprise.

Her reaction to public questioning is outlined under “Disrespect of Public / Citizen Engagement” below.

And what seemed at first like her “save the day” solution to Council refusing to support the Health Unit’s application is summarized under “Conflicts of Interest”, below — the Integrity Commissioner complaints EBO was preparing on this conflict, as well as for her using a Council meeting to announce she was running for Mayor (flying in the face of the City’s policy of not using City resources for election campaigning) are what I firmly believe to be the true reason why she was intent on discrediting the organization.

Disrespect of Public / Citizen Engagement

When people began to question Natalie Harris’s voting against the Supervised Consumption Site, she responded to questions and criticism by labelling them “trolls” and “harassers”, and blocking them from her social media.  For instance, one of Engage Barrie’s founding members, Holly McDaniel, asked a polite and respectful question of her, and not only was she blocked by Harris on social media, everyone who “liked” her question was blocked as well (I know, I was one of them), and then Harris used her social media to turn people against her.  Details were publicly documented in February, 2020 at https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/toxic-social-media-overshadowing-legitimate-criticism-says-citizen-2073159 .  

Harris did the same thing a while later to another EBO founding member, who had to make a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner to get her to stop, and issue an apology.  Calling people “trolls” when they disagreed with her or asked questions was a long-standing pattern of Harris’s, not just with Engage Barrie members.

Harris was not alone in her disdain and disrespect for public engagement.  McCann and his allies were known to fawn over deputants who agreed with their positions, and treat those speaking in opposition quite dreadfully.  One Accountability Team member had been compiling the many examples of Council members’ attempts to quash public discourse, including clips of  Morales rolling his eyes and interrupting deputants; McCann, Thomson, Harvey & Morales gaslighting and bullying speakers, and Jim Harris’s “Freudian slip” mispronunciations of a City Committee member and frequent speaker’s name (making her name rhyme with a derogatory term for women).

There was also the issue of Nuttall’s 2020 “gun range” tweet about a First Nations blockade (https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/nuttall-sparks-firestorm-with-controversial-tweet-2113938) which many, quite understandably, took to be anti-Indigenous.  Especially when contrasted with Nuttall’s suing Councillor Aylwin the previous year for asking him to denounce white supremacy.  Another member was compiling Nuttall’s historic voting pattern and statements as previous City Councillor and M.P. and Maxime Bernier’s “closest caucus ally”, as they related to women’s reproductive rights and 2sLGBTQI+ issues.

These are just some examples of Council members and candidates’ histories of discouraging and disrespecting the public’s right to engage, speak up, protest, or be considered equals.  A big part of the reason for Engage Barrie being created in the first place was people’s frustration with being silenced or shut out from local politics, and wanting to help people get their voices heard at City Hall.

Conflicts of Interest

Workplace Harassment

As noted above, it was a tremendous conflict of interest for McCann to be present at the meetings deciding his fate over the Workplace Harassment case, let alone voting at some of them.  Why Lehman, as Chair of these meetings, allowed this is confounding.  That Thomson, N. Harris, Harvey, J. Harris and Morales continuously voted to protect the colleague in their voting block, instead of protecting staff, the public or justice is unconscionable.

This support of McCann was continued by his right-hand-man Morales in his capacity as Chair of the BIA, which funded his pet project “Love Barrie” sign (McCann’s long-time campaign motto — therefore also in conflict of the City’s policy of using City resources for election campaigning).  The City continued and continues to fund this sign, despite McCann not fulfilling his side of the agreement:  https://www.engagebarrie.org/post/council-follow-up-week-of-february-7

Cornerstone to Recovery

Notably, as Slanderpalooza started to hit, Engage Barrie had recently started a conflict of interest complaint that was tied with Natalie Harris’s early-term vote-switching on the first Supervised Consumption Site proposal (which was the issue on which she started blocking residents and labelling them as “trolls” for asking questions about her vote).

The Health Unit and CMHA had been working hard on the proposal and it looked like they would receive Council’s approval — however, Natalie flipped her vote at the last minute, losing the majority needed to support the long-fought-for application.  A few weeks later, however, she brought “Cornerstone to Recovery” to Council, saying they were an addiction treatment centre that wanted to partner with the City, since the Supervised Consumption Site had fallen through (reason for that falling-through, of course, being that she flipped her vote at the last minute).  Over the next year, she was able to convince Council to grant Cornerstone an exclusive sole-source agreement for placing clothing and textile donation bins on City property, with all proceeds going to Cornerstone.  They were also granted the contract (as I recall, without issuing any RFP) for Barrie’s curbside textile collections, again with all proceeds going to Cornerstone.  And, finally, the City gave Cornerstone a $400,000 interest-free loan, with the terms allowing them to pay instalments through 2041.

And in return, Cornerstone gave Natalie a full-time job, as Community Relations & Outreach Coordinator, before her term on Council was even finished.  

This was announced on social media, and known by members of Council, yet no-one at Council thought to bring the decisions made around the City’s involvement with her new employer under review, nor investigate this extreme conflict of interest.

On her LinkedIn account, Natalie describes her work duties at Cornerstone as “Liaised and networked with officials of all levels of government; Created and fostered relationships with community agencies” and “Participated in fundraising”.  Yet not once did she disclose a pecuniary interest when speaking or voting on their exclusive contracts with the city, or “fundraising” the interest-free loan.  This was a gross conflict of interest, and the Mayor and Councillors that knew about this connection were just as much in breach of their fiduciary duty to the City as she was.

It should be noted that RVH took over Cornerstone to Recovery’s Barrie women’s residential treatment property in 2025.  Cornerstone no longer operates in Barrie, yet still receives funds from Barrie’s exclusive textile bins and collections — i.e., because of Natalie Harris’s gross conflict of interest in 2019-22, Barrie taxpayers are still funding Newmarket’s treatment centre instead of our own with the City’s exclusive textile bins and semi-annual curbside collections.  I do not know what became of their $400K interest-free loan, but the original terms gave Cornerstone until 2041 to pay it off, so I imagine it’s ongoing — this makes one wonder why this term of Council has been so awful about Redwood’s loan for housing that actually exists in Barrie for Barrie residents (though it remains true to these Councillors’ history of pointing fingers instead of taking accountability for their choices).

Etc.

Another team member was also compiling information on the “election irregularities” that mysteriously followed Nuttall in 2010, 2017, 2018 and 2020.

This is but a sample of all that EBO’s Accountability Team was compiling — so perhaps it’s unsurprising who wanted to discredit Engage Barrie before we released the Report Cards?

Once Slanderpalooza hit, the Board, Election Committee and Accountability Team were too busy doing damage control to finish the Report Cards.  “Well played”…

The Biased Scribe

And, finally, at the core of the slanderous accusations of my supposedly being a “vexatious harasser” was my writing for the then-Twitter account, The Biased Scribe (now on BlueSky), and the claim that Engage Barrie had supposedly directed me to create the account in order to troll & harass City Councillors.  Which is, of course, utter nonsense.

For starters, The Biased Scribe existed before Engage Barrie was even a grassroots group, and years before Engage Barrie Organization was incorporated as a not-for-profit.  So there was no Engage Barrie and there was no Board that could have directed me nor anyone else involved with the Scribe to create anything.

The Biased Scribe came into existence in spring of 2019, at a time when I and several others started paying attention to what was going on at City Hall for the first time, in part because we’d been buoyed seeing then-Councillor Keenan Aylwin’s post expressing dismay in then-federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s participation at a rally that included white nationalist Faith Goldy and members of the far-right Yellow Vest Canada movement, and asking then-M.P.s Nuttall and Brassard to speak up against white supremacy.  And then dismayed when those M.P.s sued him instead, and the rest of Council set out to punish him.  City Hall was “standing room only” for several weeks, and many of us decided to put together a private Facebook group to stay in touch and keep each other updated.  The group was originally called “The Shadow Council”, but quickly had its name changed to “The Biased Public”, after one particularly telling Council meeting, in which Sergio Morales exuded praise over those giving deputations against the proposed location of a Supervised Consumption Site, but dismissed those giving deputations against censoring Aylwin as “the biased public”.

These two issues, as well as others that were catching the group’s attention, were dragged out for several meetings, and not everyone was able to attend Council that often, so we started posting live updates in the Facebook group.  As someone who’s spent decades supplementing my arts career income with temp work (and who usually had Monday nights free), I was the fastest typist, so took on the role of “scribe”, with usually at least three or four beside me whispering “colour commentary”, which I also added in.  (Many group members said how much they looked forward to the snarky updates, because we all needed a lot of laughter to get through the nonsense happening at City Hall.)

In the beginning, much of the “colour commentary” was about the disruptive antics of McCann (who got the nickname “Biff”, after someone noted his similarities to that character in “Back to the Future”) and his sidekick Morales (named “Spanky”, because his face would always light up like one of the Little Rascals thinking he was a genius before saying something that showed he didn’t know what he was talking about), but the Scribe was an equal-opportunity bad behaviour reporter.

After a while, it was decided that the Council updates were taking up too much of the Biased Public’s group feed, and “calls to action” were getting lost in the clutter.  So that October, we moved the Council updates to a private Twitter account, and named it The Biased Scribe — whose sole purpose was to live-tweet Council meetings for approved followers, of which there were maybe 30 at best.  Soon, however, word spread and people from outside The Biased Public were asking to follow the snark-tweets as well.  Some of these were people who worked for the City or had other ties to it, and didn’t want anyone to see that they were followers.  So we opened it up to a public account (although went back and forth a few times), so people could read it without subscribing, and created the “Marg Delahunty meets Kady O’Malley, but with less talent and more f-bombs” character with a nod and a wink to Mary Walsh’s character and the Canadian tradition of humorous political criticism.

The Biased Scribe never tagged Councillors’ accounts (other than a couple of “thank you!” shout-outs), never used hashtags, never advertised or attempted to grow its following in any way.  The only way someone would ever know about the account was by word of mouth.  Until Slanderpalooza hit the papers, I’m pretty sure the Scribe’s followers never topped 70, tweet impressions were usually 20-30, and we high-fived if a tweet ever hit 50.

When the COVID lockdowns hit, those of us who’d sat in Council to live-snark were of course no longer able to do so.  But the City moved to Zoom meetings, so I continued to be the “stenographer” at my desktop, with the others pinging me commentary via text or conversing via FaceTime.  It was absolute chaos, but The Scribe regularly got messages from people saying they’d never paid attention to municipal politics before, and thanking “her” for making it easy to understand.  So it was worth it (and still is).

By the time Slanderpalooza came around, the number of people texting me background and colour commentary was already going down.  But once they saw the smear campaign against me and Engage, the remaining folks felt the need to get outta Dodge — and I can’t say I blame them, one bit.  Many people’s careers and personal lives could be destroyed by this sort of targeting, but I’m privileged enough to be in a position where I don’t need anyone at City Hall to like me.  Those who have been reading since the early days have probably noticed that the Scribe is less well-informed and less funny these days (though she can still rock the f-bombs).

As for harassment and abuse, if The Biased Scribe had ever actually engaged in such behaviours, they could have gotten the Twitter account and/or website suspended, or taken examples of abuse to the police.  They never did any of these things, because they knew The Biased Scribe hadn’t actually harassed or abused anyone, and they had no basis on which to take any legitimate action.

The majority of Slanderpalooza participants had also known since the beginning who was actually behind the character of The Biased Scribe — they’d watched us composing it and me typing it on my laptop in Council chambers right in front of them for months before the COVID lockdowns moved everything online.  We could see the Mayor and others reading the Scribe on their phones some meetings, and then look directly at us after we made a comment they did or didn’t appreciate.  A number of times, the instant I’d typed something like “why the hell is the Mayor allowing this to get so out of control?” he would literally say “let’s get this under control” and tame the zoo.  Natalie called me by name in the screenshot she included of her arguing with the Scribe in early 2022.  That all of them waited until four days before the Mayoral Forum to suddenly express “surprise” about my association with the Biased Scribe was disingenuous at best, even before getting into their accusations of harassment and abuse.

Until Slanderpalooza’s “free advertising”, very few people knew about or read The Biased Scribe posts.  The Biased Scribe only live snark-tweeted Council meetings, never DM’d anyone, and never tagged Councillors in the live-snark..  The Biased Scribe may not have been terribly flattering of them, and certainly could be highly snarky about the goings-on in Council chambers, but only reported on what was happening in their capacity as public representatives.  They would have had to deliberately search “her” posts out in order to read that snark — and if you have to deliberately go to an account in order to join perhaps 30 others to read criticism of your actions in public office, that can hardly be construed as “targeted harassment”.  

Further, if I or anyone else involved with The Biased Scribe had engaged in abuse or harassment, there were many social media and legal channels that could have been used to shut it down — but those avenues would have required evidence of actual abuse or harassment, of which there was none.

Freedom of Expression and Democratic Governance

Political criticism is not harassment or abuse, targeted or otherwise.  In fact, it is a protected form of speech in Canada, and considered by the Supreme Court of Canada to be “valued above all as being instrumental to democratic governance”.

According to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, “When government actors are allowed to decide which opinions can be expressed and which cannot, an open, vibrant and diverse society quickly breaks down. … Informed political debate requires that [freedom of expression] be strongly protected, and it is only through free expression that individuals can take action to ensure that our governing institutions are held accountable.”

Based on these people’s pre-election attack on Engage Barrie, the non-profit organization created in part to inform the public about local politics, support an open, vibrant and diverse society, and hold City Council accountable, Natalie Harris, Sergio Morales, Jeff Lehman, Robert Thomson, Jim Harris and Alex Nuttall must have been mighty terrified of being held accountable for their actions in office.

Slanderpalooza Timeline

Early Rumblings

Both I and Engage Barrie started getting harassed by actual “anonymous troll” accounts when we were documenting and speaking up about the Workplace Harassment case, though I didn’t do much other than block and delete.  Many of them used similar wording to things Councillor Morales had used to try to discredit my deputations, etc., as well as some false information about me that a friend had “planted”, so I was pretty sure it was he or his friends just continuing his attempted silencing of me and EBO.  These troll accounts did ramp up in early 2022, but I figured they were just worried I was going to try to run for office (which I had no intention of doing), so simply continued to block and delete.

These threats were mostly just of the “we’re going to reveal all your secrets if you keep speaking out” variety — which were pretty laughable threats.  Anyone who had taken the time to research potential secrets of mine would have learned pretty quickly that I don’t have any, and that my entire career, creative and personal lives are based on opening up about things that people really wish I did keep secret.  Anything someone else might consider shame-worthy about me has already made it into a piece of writing, an album, or a theatre work.  My autobiographical show, “Music for the Changing Voice” includes the line “dear diary, I wish Daddy would stop raping me”, I write regularly about my Complex Post-Traumatic Stress and my bad choices resulting from the previously-untreated symptoms, as well as all the losses endured because I refused to keep secrets about my C-PTS and how I came to have it, as well as how keeping secrets on behalf of my ex-partners ended up with me living repeats of those abusive situations until I got proper treatment.  As I said to my friends at the time, the only thing I could think of that they might have on me was a photo of me picking my nose or something, because on everything else, I’m an open book.  Engage Barrie had nothing to be secret about, either.  Block and delete, block and delete…

The DARVO Begins in Council

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “DARVO” is an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim-Offender, and is known as a pattern used by abusers (and in systemic abuse) when confronted with their harmful behaviour to shift accountability for the abuse away from themselves, and shift the blame to the victims.  In my extensive work around child, domestic, sexual and systemic abuse, I’ve seen this pattern unfold over and over again — with the perpetrator coming out as the hero, and the abused person and/or whistle-blower not only not getting the help and relief of the situation they need, but being so saddled with the blame for the abuse, they end up being and feeling worse-off than before they spoke up.

When done “well”, the abuser is able to get those around them to join in the pile-on, and the victim or whistle-blower doesn’t stand a chance.  I had seen hints of this around the City’s Workplace Harassment case, both in Council and in the ways McCann’s allies who’d voted to protect him would defend those votes and cast shade on the victim or other staff.  But four Council members went full-DARVO when “Women of Simcoe Say No” took to City Hall in support of Bill 5, the “Stopping Harassment and Abuse by Local Leaders Act” — a federal bill, inspired in part by Barrie’s Workplace Harassment Case, that would enable the removal of Council members who abused staff or other citizens.

On September 21, 2022, I and several Engage Barrie members joined Women of Simcoe Say No for their rally and silent protest at City Hall, asking City Council to give their support to Bill 5.  Councillors Morales, N. Harris and J. Harris tried to turn the conversation into harassment of Councillors instead of by Councillors (Engage’s summary is at https://www.engagebarrie.org/post/council-follow-up-week-of-september-19), which Harvey rightly called muddying the waters, and Ward suggested was out of order.  Lehman agreed it was probably out of order, but joined in the DARVO to talk about harassment of Council members, and allowed that line of conversation to continue (which surprised everyone, because we had thought he was in support of Bill 5, and didn’t anticipate he’d be one of the people trying to obfuscate the issues at hand).

I’d recognized (and anticipated) the DARVO tactics from Morales and the Harrises, but Lehman’s joining in was surprising and deeply disconcerting.  Going home that night, even though Council had eventually supported the bill and the rally was deemed a success, my whole body was in disregulation — I knew in my gut that something bad was up behind the scenes.

The threats and bribery begin

Sure enough, the next day the Chair of CARP Barrie — with whom Engage Barrie was co-presenting the Mayoral Forum on October 1 — called me to say that she’d started getting phone calls threatening that CARP should not be co-presenting the Mayoral Forum with Engage Barrie, and that if CARP didn’t get rid of EBO as co-presenter, they would release “scandalous” information about me that would make it “impossible” for the moderator to take part in this event, and humiliate CARP.  She said she had no intention of being intimidated out of our partnership, but wanted to know if there was anything she should be worried about?  I told her I’d been getting the same sort of threats for months, and reassured her there wasn’t anything embarrassing I’d done that I hadn’t already made public myself, and said it was probably just certain Councillors not wanting us to have a chance to ask questions about their voting records, especially after the previous night’s “circling the wagons” to distract from McCann’s Workplace Harassment case being part of the reason for Bill 5.

Between then and the October 1 Mayoral Forum, she and several other CARP Barrie Board members (and, if I recall correctly, even CARP’s head office) received more phone calls, threatening scandal if the Forum continued as planned, and offering a “significant sum of money” to CARP Barrie if they ditched Engage Barrie.  She did not reveal the identity of the person offering that bribe, and Engage Barrie did not know his identity at the time of submitting our complaint to the Integrity Commissioner.  I since learned — from a few independent others who were privy to this information — that at least one of the people who tried to bribe CARP Barrie to hold the Forum without Engage Barrie was in fact Councillor Robert Thomson (who, perhaps coincidentally, was named Deputy Mayor of the 2022-26 Council).

The CARP Barrie Board and Chair were and are people of far greater integrity than to be manipulated like that.  They refused the money, and refused to remove Engage Barrie or myself from our plans to co-present the Mayoral Forum.

In the meantime, I was helping Women of Simcoe Say No with background information Engage Barrie had gathered on the McCann Workplace Harassment Case, helping prepare deputations for people to give to other City Councils in Simcoe to encourage them to support Bill 5, gave my own (successful - they agreed to support) deputation to New Tecumseth on the 26th, and prepare another (also successful) one for Orillia on the 3rd.  Each of which, of course, noted that the reason why I was so passionate about Bill 5 was because of what had happened (and not been allowed to happen) with Barrie’s own Workplace Harassment case.

A point I made in my deputations — which elicited many gasps and nods of understanding by those in Council — was that under current legislation, a candidate who failed to file a financial statement for their election campaign is prevented from running in the next election, but an incumbent who is found to have assaulted a staff member, a colleague, or a member of the public has no such restrictions, and is free to run again.  Which was the situation we were facing in our Barrie Mayoral race with a known-abuser, who had bragged to his victim about all the power he held at City Hall, yet was still able to run for the highest position of power on Council. 

Natalie Harris launches Slanderpalooza

On September 27 at 1pm, then-Councillor Natalie Harris sent an email to Engage Barrie and CARP Barrie, BCC-ing all the candidates for Council, her media contacts, and multiple unidentified “community stakeholders”, titled “Important:  Truth about Engage Barrie” (note, NOT the truth about me, who she was accusing of harassment, but about Engage Barrie — why?).  In it she claimed (without providing evidence to support) that I had harassed her, “not feedback or criticism of my decisions… [but] on a vindictive level”.  She went on to claim that the harassment had been “direct, targeted”, as well as “personal, vindictive, and vengeful”.  She also claimed (again, without evidence to support) that Engage Barrie had directed me to create “an incognito account that ruthlessly harasses people”. And she called on CARP to get rid of Engage Barrie and find someone else to partner with on the Mayoral Forum to take place, four days later.  (She also was apparently upset that I was holding a sign at the Bill 5 rally the week before.  Ooh, nasty scary, holding a sign…)

Natalie also added 8 attachments to her email, ostensibly to demonstrate that I had targeted her for personal, vindictive and vengeful harassment that was not feedback or criticism of her decisions.  However, only 3 of those 8 were of the Scribe referencing her at all — 2 were from when she jumped on an Engage Barrie post to once again misrepresent her voting history on the Workplace Harassment case (first was the Scribe saying “99.9999999% sure that lying to the public about the content of a council motion is another code violation to add to the list, duckies!”, second was the Scribe calling out her DARVO-ing the Workplace Harassment victim, saying “as a result of staff failing to bring this serious allegation to the integrity commissioner within the time frame set out in the code” was YOUR statement, not mine”), the third was an excerpt from a live tweet from a Public Meeting, in which Natalie was arguing with one of the (citizen) speakers and making statements instead of asking questions, and the Scribe lamented that the Chair (Lehman) was allowing her to break Public Meeting protocol like that and play the victim.  Not targeted harassment by any measure, and certainly not personal, vindictive or vengeful.

I will not get caught up in Brandolini’s Law with the rest of her letter, , but will note that of the other 5 attachments she provided as “evidence” of my supposed targeted, horrific abuse of her, one was of Natalie challenging me (by name) to make a complaint to the Integrity Commissioner (i.e., not me or the Scribe saying anything to or about her).

Two were Scribe posts about the City Building Committee — which belied her claim that either I or the Scribe was targeting her with harassment.  Yes, taken out of context, those two posts could certainly have been seen to be harassing Councillor Riepma, with one referring to him as “handsome” and the other calling his leadership “swoon-worthy”.  However, the context for those comments was that Riepma had taken over as Chair of that Committee to replace the recently-disgraced McCann, and the Scribe’s “running gag” has always been that she gets all aflutter about strong and ethical leadership that doesn’t resort to posturing nonsense — said nonsense having been quite common with the previous Chair.  (The Scribe also gets disproportionately excited about budget deliberations, but that’s a whole other story…)

The fourth was a screenshot of the Scribe’s “contact” page, which reads “Drop me a line, Darling!  Do you wish to lavish me with praise?  Send me candygrams?  Hot tips or subjects you think I ought to know about?  Well then, drop me a line!  (Sadly, muffins, I don’t take very well to threats or other abuses — depending on what’s most appropriate, I will either ignore those, publish them in hilarious fashion, or send one of my hunky manservants your way to deal with the problem.  Understood?  Delightful!)”  Again, not about nor directed to Natalie whatsoever, just a generic quip on a contact page.  And so very obviously tongue-in-cheek and not a real threat to anyone (other than, perhaps, the bit about publishing them in hilarious fashion), especially since lower on the page it reads “Once again, muffins, I am not a real person — sadly, neither is my manservant.  I am a fictional character who has arisen as a form of political satire — a freedom of expression protected by no less than Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

The fifth was a screenshot of one of the Awards given out after a Zoom Council meeting — back then, the Scribe would give out awards at the end, whether “golden pencils of democracy” to Council members who had done good things, or pointing out silly things that had occurred during the meeting.  This particular award was the “Most Pathetic Attempt To Usurp Last Week’s “Cutest Forelock Curl” Winner”, given to Morales.  Yes, again, out of context, it looked like we were commenting on his hair.  However, the context was that in the previous week’s meeting, Aylwin had been trying to speak seriously to an issue (I honestly can’t even remember what it was), but kept struggling with a curl that kept falling into his face (because we couldn’t get haircuts at that time) and distracting him, which he’d tried to deal with with good humour, although obviously frustrated.  So he’d been awarded “Cutest Forelock Curl” in that week’s awards.  At this week’s meeting, Morales was very obviously pulling his own hair over his eyes, curling it with his finger, staring into the camera and pulling it out of the way again, etc. — making it obvious that he was desperately trying to get his forelock curl mentioned in this week’s awards.  So the Scribe’s Award wasn’t so much about his hair, but about his obvious attempts to win the award that had been given to Aylwin the week before.

Response

We (myself and Engage Barrie) perhaps put too much stock in the fact that Natalie’s “evidence” actually proved the opposite of what she was claiming, believing people would see through it, as well as remember the number of times she’d cried “abuse!” when being held to account for her actions as Councillor.

Several media organizations contacted Engage Barrie for comment on Natalie’s letter.  I issued my personal statement, and Engage Barrie issued their own that afternoon, sending it to these media contacts, as well as the municipal candidates.  With no idea who the “stakeholders” were that she’d also BCCd, we also posted these statements on our respective websites.

After having a chance to review Natalie’s email and our respective responses, every single one of the media organizations that had originally contacted Engage Barrie for comment got back to us to say they didn’t want an interview after all, because “there is no story here”.   Every single media organization but one, that is.  See below for that story, but first…

Sergio Morales reveals the true goal of these accusations

Unsurprisingly, at 3:54pm that same day, Sergio Morales — who, not terribly coincidentally, appears to have access to Natalie’s “BCC” list from her initial email — jumps on the bandwagon with his own email to everyone, entitled “I Stand by Natalie on Alyssa Wright Biased Scribe Engage Barrie issue”.  Morales upped the ante to “criminal harassment”, made up a number of quotes attributed to the Scribe (none of which were backed up with any evidence, and were never found in a search of both the Scribe account and web archives, because they were never written), complained he was called “Skippy” and inferred it was a racist term (neither of which are true), and complained that I wouldn’t help him when he wanted it (which is neither my nor Engage Barrie’s obligation, and helping politicians hold on to power — he had learned that the BIA Board was going to vote him off as Chair — is most certainly not a part of Engage Barrie’s mandate), among a whole bunch of other misinformation.

Similar to Natalie’s email, Sergio included seven of screenshots as “evidence” — none of which supported the claims he was making, and several of which actually showed the opposite.  For instance, the first two, which he was presumably including to support his claim that I was racist and made fun of his country of origin, were excerpts of the Scribe transcribing Councillor Thomson making fun of Sergio’s country of origin, not making fun of it herself (although yes, she made fun of the fact that he took a while to clue into the fact that Thomson was joking with him).  The third was a transcription of a staff member having to explain in Council, to him as Chair of the BIA, what the BIA was doing for a pilot project.  The fourth, I don’t really know why it was included, other than it does refer to him as “Spanky” — which kind of proves the Scribe’s point that he says things without understanding what he’s talking about, since in his email he claims I called him “Skippy” which might be racist (again, no and no).  The fifth has nothing to do with Morales, so I’m again not sure why it would be included, although it does note that McCann pulled a fast one with a vote (not sure what the vote was about) and gets a little swearsy about it.  The sixth shows the Scribe writing “Morales - apparently feels the need to explain policing to the Chief.  Because… the Chief is a woman…???”, and then transcribes one of the questions he was asking her.  And the seventh is the Scribe expressing dismay at “Spanky” giving Harvey more credit for the Library budget than the staff who put it together, and yes, getting swearsy.  All of which, sure, might not be pleasant, but definitely NOT anything even REMOTELY approaching the level of the “criminal harassment” he was claiming.

Sergio also said he would not attend the Ward 9 Candidates meeting if Engage Barrie was involved (we were the only ones hosting it, so that was not a realistic possibility to begin with), and said “I encourage all candidates, especially female candidates and those that are not currently on Council [bold emphasis his] to join me in my decision and stand with Natalie.”  

Aha, there it was — this was about boycotting the All-Candidates Meetings.  And with his singling out of female candidates, likely an attempted opposition to our “If You Don’t Run, Who Wins?” campaign, in which we had been encouraging women and other under-represented groups on Council to put their names forward.  Also very much a continuation of the DARVO-ing from the week before in Council — trying to convince everyone it’s not McCann and Council who have been harmful towards women, but that it’s Engage Barrie who women should be afraid of.

He also claimed that “national media outlets” were about to pick up this story — as if a national media outlet could possibly be so gullible as to run a story with zero supporting evidence.  As with Natalie’s email, most of the local media outlets contacted (except one) saw through this nonsense and knew there was no story — sadly, most of the candidates were too caught up in the shock and emotion of the accusations to engage in similar reading comprehension.  Those candidates who had been in contact with Engage Barrie only the day before to excitedly discuss the upcoming All-Candidates Meetings started to worry.

The Reporter Who “Forgot” About Journalism — Bob Bruton, Barrie Today

While the national media of course did not pick up the story — and neither did most local media — Bob Bruton, who elsewhere lamented “an absence of fireworks” in that year’s election, was apparently so eager for fireworks, he couldn’t be bothered to notice that the evidence provided in Natalie’s email actually contradicted her claims.  Nor recall that his own media outlet, Barrie Today, had previously published a story about her unfairly and unreasonably crying “harassment!” over being asked questions about her decisions in Council.

Bruton published the first in his weeks-long Slanderpalooza series at 5pm that day.

Even though he’d informed us he was going to run the story, the EBO team and I assumed that while publishing the content of Natalie’s letter, Bruton would also include the pieces of “evidence” she provided, so that the public could see for themselves that they countered her accusations.  And, presumably, quote something, anything, from Engage Barrie’s submitted written statement, pointing out Natalie’s pattern of crying “harassment!” when being held accountable.  But he did not — he simply posted her email almost verbatim, ignored everything in Engage Barrie’s post other than EBO denied any connection to the Scribe.  He also wrote about how Morales had tried to put an amendment in to the Bill 5 motion the previous week to deal with members of the public who were “vexatious harassers”, and managed to phrase it in a way that made it seem that I was that vexatious harasser (as evidenced by the comments on social media).

To top it all off, Bruton somehow managed to mis-quote my written statement (which I’d provided in writing because I didn’t trust him not to screw up a verbal statement), and printed that I’d denied having any association with The Biased Scribe — when I’d clearly said it was Engage Barrie that had nothing to do with the Scribe.

I emailed him that evening, letting him know he’d misquoted my statement, and that I’d written that Engage had nothing to do with the Scribe, but he did not reply.  Several hours later, I saw him on Facebook and used Messenger to repeat that he had misquoted me (re-sending my written statement), and had mixed up what I’d said about Engage with what I’d said about me.  He ignored that too.  The next morning, he finally replied to my earlier email, saying “That’s not what Coun. Natalie Harris says”.

Up until that point, I could have believed his publishing of Natalie’s slander was all just over-enthusiasm for potential click-bait, and the rush to get a story out.  But when he dismissed my requests to correct the misquote, and essentially said he’d take her word over mine about what I’d actually written, I started to question whether this was simple incompetence or an intentional action.  (One of Barrie Today’s long-time reporters being immediately hired to a top position in the newly-elected Mayor’s office did not ease my doubts in any way.)

Not only did Bruton refuse to correct the mis-quote, he spent the next several weeks re-printing it in article after article.  And, since the very few people who had even known about the Scribe before this hit the papers also knew that I was, in fact, very much involved with it, he made me look like one hell of a liar to them as well.  And if they read that I was lying about my involvement with the Scribe, wouldn’t it be possible I was lying about being a criminally vexatious harasser as well?

Printing unevidenced slander about me in the first place was one thing, refusing to correct a misquote that further ruined my reputation was downright evil.

It wasn’t until I spent a considerable amount of money on a lawyer — something not all people are privileged enough to have the resources to do — that I was finally able to get Barrie Today to stop mis-quoting me, and post a correction (which people would only see if they returned to the original articles, of course).  Meanwhile, Bruton continued to write weeks of articles that made unsubstantiated accusations about me, and “quoted” me in a lie I’d already informed him repeatedly he’d misquoted.

Readers of his article commented that they’d tried to find examples of the Scribe harassing anyone, and couldn’t find it (doing more journalist diligence than the “journalist”), and asked for examples.  (Note, one of the individuals in this screenshot, Ryan Tayler, was an EBO member, the rest were not.)  They also pointed out that Natalie Harris’s accusations here were likely harassment and against her Code of Conduct.  This feedback didn’t seem to influence Bruton’s future articles in any way.

I still have no answer to the incompetent versus intentional question, but I will absolutely never believe a damned thing Bruton ever publishes again, most especially anything about City Council or elections.

Robert Thomson Attempts a New Lie

As Bruton’s article was being released, Robert Thomson sent his own email to the group (presumably with the same BCC list), adding the City’s legal department to the addressees.  In it, he asks Legal to confirm his (absolutely false) claim that they had previously sent Engage Barrie a “cease-and-desist” letter for intentionally “misleading the public”.

I can only presume that Legal corrected this misinformation for him privately, because this angle of attack was not pursued further, either in the media or in the behind-the-scenes email chain.  Nevertheless, the seed of doubt was sown, even though it was a complete fabrication.

Candidates Lose Their Platforms

Shortly after this, the candidates who had previously confirmed their participation in the Ward All-Candidates Meetings started withdrawing from them — with all the withdrawals being CC’d to the other candidates and Natalie Harris (who was not a candidate), and including slogans such as “I Stand with Natalie” and “Team Natalie”.  They all said that they would not participate in the meetings if I was involved.  (I am not including their emails here, because I feel they were all equal victims of Slanderpalooza, and were manipulated into this extreme stance through the lies and disinformation bombarding them.)

I sent an email to the EBO Board and the Election Committee, offering to resign from both, so that the candidates could feel comfortable participating in the All-Candidate Meetings.  They did not accept my resignation, and insisted we stay strong — believing that the story would fizzle out soon, especially since there was nothing to substantiate the accusations, “everybody knows this is just what Sergio and Natalie do”, and we had truth on our side.

When suddenly…

The Curveball — Jeff Lehman

Just before 7pm, then-Mayor Jeff Lehman took to social media, quoting Natalie’s “personal, vindictive, and vengeful” line, condemning me for running “an anonymous account trolling Barrie Councillors”, and saying I owed the people of Barrie and Engage Barrie an apology.

This was not remotely expected.

While I can’t say we were ever bosom buddies, as far as I was aware we had a reasonably amicable relationship.  His kid calls me an Auntie.  He’d been encouraging of Engage Barrie, heck he’d even enjoyed the Scribe (at least, back when it was the “Biff and Spanky” show… it would make sense that he’d stop liking it once he realized the account commented on everyone’s behaviour in Council, even his).  He’d known the people behind the Scribe since its inception — his girlfriend had been part of “The Biased Public” and had often been one of the people whispering what to type.  He knows where I live, he knows how to get in touch with me.  Yet he’d never once spoken to me about either the Scribe or Engage Barrie being problematic.

As his kid’s Auntie, I knew the types of harassment and threats he’d actually received, and I knew he knew that snark-tweeting Council meetings didn’t come anywhere close to those.  I knew he advertised himself as an “unrepentant fan of evidence,” and knew he didn’t have any.  This was entirely out of left field and made no sense.

But, as someone (I don’t know their real name) responded to his tweet, “This tastes… Personal”

Yes, it did.  And sure, after the cliché-ridden way in which he’d blown up his marriage, my top priority was his kid, and my friendship remained with his not-yet-ex, but surely he wasn’t petty or stupid enough to risk his reputation and political career with slander over loyalties in a break-up?  This was not making any sense whatsoever.

Many people — some of whom were EBO members, but mostly not — responded to his posts, asking for examples and evidence of my supposed abuse.  He never responded to any of these, nor did he ever provide his social media followers — nor Engage Barrie, when they asked for examples of harassment to help in their investigation — with a single bit of evidence.  As that previously-mentioned poster also said, “For an ‘unrepentant fan of evidence’ Jeff sure does like to skip the evidence part of spreading allegations of harassment as if they were facts.”

Sheetal Rawal, a Toronto-based lawyer, responded “shame on all of you for this attempt to shut down political engagement & dissent in Barrie.  Congratulations, you have placed a chill on political expression in your community.”  And followed up with “I think you owe everyone evidence to back what you are claiming.  A mayor should not be engaging with a citizen in this way without providing some factual basis.  Show us receipts of wrongdoing rather than making specious claims.  Otherwise, you cast a chill on political expression.”  Jeff never replied nor provided any evidence.

Another (again, I don’t know their real name) mused “I wonder if Mr. Lehman has actually read the posts that Ms. Harris refers to as personal, vengeful, vindictive harassment?  I have a lot of respect for Jeff and am truly disappointed in him for the first time.”  No response again.

Others spoke up about the Scribe and not ever having seen any abuse on the account.  For instance, Steven White  stated “The biased scribe is satire.  It is about council behavior and not personal lives.  I don’t see what the big deal is.  I can’t believe this made the news when I don’t see any attack on councillors personal lives.”

Many questioned Jeff’s using his social media as Mayor to accuse a citizen of abuse without evidence, many spoke about not being able to find examples of abuse on the Scribe account, and many questioned how live-tweeting a Council meeting could be interpreted as harassment.  (Twitter examples 1, 2 & 3, Facebook Examples 1, 2 & 3)  He of course never responded to any of them, nor did he ever provide anyone asking for evidence of his claims with anything further (because he knew there was no such evidence).

As I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out why Jeff would be doing this to me, a few people started pointing out the obvious — Jeff hadn’t tagged me in any of his posts.  He hadn’t even tagged the Biased Scribe.  He only tagged Engage Barrie.  Engage Barrie was his target, not me.

Which, honestly, made even less sense.  Again, he’d been encouraging when folks were starting up Engage Barrie.  And again, why the heck would he risk his reputation and political aspirations by slandering a not-for-profit organization intent on getting people more engaged in local democracy?

But then again, he’d been a big part of the DARVO-ing at the Bill 5 meeting, deflecting attention away from the Workplace Harassment case.  Did he not like our criticism of how he’d chaired those meetings?  Was he actually trying to protect McCann?  That made no sense either, they’d been totally antagonistic towards each other the last couple of years.  Did the Slanderpaloozans have something on him that they could force him to participate?  Did he think Engage Barrie had something else on him, that he needed to discredit us for in advance?

Joining in with Natalie and Sergio made absolutely no sense on any level.  Being high-school-esque petty about a breakup would make more sense… as little sense as that would have made.

But then…

“Petty Caro”

After much time spent trying to figure out what the heck was going on, a couple of people found Jeff’s girlfriend’s Facebook post, reading “Everything falls into place!  Today I’m joyfully unblocking a few disgusting humans so that I can witness them receiving the consequences of what they’ve sowed for years.  It’s Petty Caro season and im [sic] here for this”

Aha!  So he did this… for his girlfriend?

Again, if she’d wanted him to go after me, personally, that would have made much more sense (for the same high-school-esque, cliché-ridden reasons).  Going after Engage Barrie made no sense at all — she hadn’t even met most of the Board or Election Committee, so why she labelled them as “disgusting humans” is still beyond comprehension.  There had been one instance in Engage Barrie’s early days, when she’d spoken to the media on behalf of Engage Barrie (despite not having been to any of our meetings or informed any of the core group), and one of the members got angry with her and told her she couldn’t speak for us — but he hadn’t been involved in EBO for a couple of years by that point, and I have reason to believe he was part of the behind-the-scenes of Slanderpalooza, anyhow (his fingerprints were all over this, and he showed his cards before the first day was over).  The only reasonable possibility was that she’d been photographed with Natalie a few times — maybe they were friends?

But still, a Mayor slandering a not-for-profit organization because his girlfriend’s friend didn’t like being held accountable for her voting patterns was and remains a head-scratcher.  Especially considering his political aspirations…

If that’s the reason.  He never did answer anyone.  Yet the last time I checked, his post tagging Engage Barrie was still up there.  Not causing any harm to me, not even causing any harm to the Biased Scribe, just traceably slandering the not-for-profit whose mandate included keeping City Council accountable.  And not providing any of the evidence he’s such an unrepentant fan of.

Slandering a not-for-profit charged with holding politicians accountable and encouraging public engagement in local politics doesn’t seem to be something you’d want those vetting, say, provincial or federal party candidates to still be able to see, does it?  Especially when anyone who sees the post can see that the vast majority of commenters asked you for evidence to support your accusation, and you never provided it.  Making your girlfriend happy for a day just doesn’t seem to be worth the risk.  (Although, if that was the true reason why he participated in Slanderpalooza, it just proves that his now-fortunately-ex wife was the actual brains behind his earlier political successes.)

I will be left forever curious what was worth the risk to him… 

As Michael Speers wrote in a Letter to the Editor:  “I was troubled to see a sitting mayor call out and name a resident on Twitter the way he did.  I can't help but notice that he's book-ending his last term as mayor with defining political expression issues.  Remember when he failed to support Coun. Keenan Aylwin when he spoke out about racism and his personal view that other political representatives [including Alex Nuttall] weren’t doing enough to name and shame white nationalists?  The mayor's approach to this current issue about a citizen's right to use a social media platform to express criticism is unmistakably similar.”

And thus Jeff Lehman bookended his career as Mayor of Barrie.  Quite the disappointing legacy…

The Fallout

The Mayor’s voice holds a certain authority, though, even when speaking with forked tongue.  His posts lent a weight to Natalie and Sergio’s nonsense, even without providing the repeatedly-requested evidence to back up his claims.

Engage Barrie could no longer rely on people recognizing Natalie and Sergio’s patterns for what they were.  Not when the “unrepentant fan of evidence” upheld their evidence-less claims.

As then-Councillor Keenan Aylwin posted, “We can’t ignore the power dynamics at play here.  A sitting Councillor & Mayor are publicly accusing an engaged citizen of harassment, providing no evidence as far as I can see.  I can’t help thinking this is an attempt to silence legitimate policy criticism and political accountability that have been so lacking in this city.  Very troubling.”

I can only imagine the “rock and a hard place” position this put the Barrie Advance in, once the Mayor chimed in — since one of their journalists was booked to be the moderator for the Mayoral Forum in four days.  After Lehman’s posts, they did print a story on the accusations, although unlike Bruton’s, it didn’t simply tell one side of the story without investigating — most notably, they pointed out that Natalie’s examples did not support her accusations:

“Harris provided six screenshots of what she says are incidents of harassment posted by Biased Scribe. Most accuse Harris of Code of Conduct violations, “playing the victim” or making incorrect statements.”

Their article also included an important quote from Engage Barrie's statement:

“Holding council accountable and helping the public understand the mechanisms of local government are two of our key foundations,” the organization said. “Holding our government representatives accountable for their votes and actions as our government representatives is not harassment — it is one form of public engagement with our elected officials, which is essential to a healthy democracy.”

And they did not mis-quote either my written statement or the verbal interview I’d given them — because… journalistic integrity over clickbait.

Jeff Lehman Article

The next day, September 28, after beginning my morning with Bruton refusing to correct his mis-quote, he then publishes the next article in his series, an interview with Jeff Lehman about harassment and requiring police protection.  While neither I nor Engage Barrie are actually mentioned in this story (the anomaly in Bruton’s week of “harassment” stories), repeating the tweet Lehman used against us the night before “part of the reason good people don’t run for council” and repeating the paragraphs about Morale’s failed amendment about “members of the public who are vexatious harassers” from the previous day’s article that was about us — not to mention, that he referred back to this article in future ones about me and Engage Barrie — made it understandable for people to read between the lines and assume that I and Engage Barrie were the reason why Jeff needed police protection and a motion against vexatious public harassers.

Again. I’m Auntie to his kid — I know the type of threats that required police protection, and they had nothing to do with anyone calling out misinformation or swearing as they described the antics at City Council.

Nevertheless, the comments section of Barrie Today’s and the Mayor’s social media posts certainly made the connection, as did the candidates responding frantically in the “Team Natalie” email chain.

Fallout

Jeff’s claims in the article about “threats made against me and my family” soon formed the basis of a “me too” bandwagon, with many parroting that line on social media and in the candidates’ email chain.

People I’d never even heard of started coming out of the woodwork to claim I had harassed them and threatened their families.  It was like Monty Python’s “I am not a witch” sketch, with people seeming to compete for what horrible thing I’d done to them — of course, without any evidence whatsoever of anyone doing these things to them, let alone me.

The character assassination was taking on a life of its own, with absolutely no basis in reality.

Announcement that Mayoral Forum Going Ahead Prompts New Threats from Morales

That afternoon, Bruton published “Mayoral forum will go ahead as planned despite controversy”, repeating Natalie and Sergio’s accusations, and once again repeating Jeff’s “the reason good people don’t run for council” quote (twice in the same article — thus inextricably linking his earlier “police protection” article to the accusations against me).  The then-Chair of CARP Barrie says she has received many phone calls and several offers of money from “people behind the scenes” to change the plans for the event now only three days away, but “I don’t believe in that” (because: integrity).

When informed the event will go on, Sergio (who had nothing to do with the Mayoral Forum) threatens “there will be consequences to Saturday’s forum going ahead”.  And “The public will hold CARP and its board fully accountable for receiving the proof of Ms. Wright’s behaviour, knowing about it, and still deciding to go through with a debate that involved Engage Barrie and Alyssa Wright”.

Of course, CARP never received any such “proof” of anything.  Neither did Engage Barrie when they asked for it in their investigation of his accusations.  And Bruton couldn’t be bothered to ask, before continuing to publish their slander about me, despite the calls for evidence in the comments section of Barrie Today’s social media, and on the articles themselves.

Whatever “consequences” Sergio was threatening never did materialize, either.  Bluster.

Robert Thomson Takes To the Press About My Harassment… And Admits I Haven’t Harassed Him…?

The following day, September 29, Bruton publishes another article about my supposed abuse, this time copied almost verbatim from an email Thomson had sent to all the BCC list the previous night, saying he wouldn’t attend Engage Barrie’s All-Candidates Meeting because of “Alyssa's harassment of me”.  While he admitted that “there are a few members of this organization that live in my ward, who are the ampitome [sic] of this organization’s name, engaging in thoughtful dialogue for a better outcome for our city, who I have respect for and will continue to engage with moving forward”, he said “I will never believe in Engage Barrie as long as Alyssa is involved”

That made my path clear — call his (and their) bluff, and remove myself.  He’d publicly said I was the issue, not Engage Barrie.  I was named as the supposed harasser in all the social media posts and articles.  I was named as the problem in all the behind-the-scenes candidate email flurries.  Therefore, if I was out of the picture, they’d stop disrupting the All-Candidates Meetings, right?  (Hahaha — see below for what happened when I called their bluff and left.)

On the upside, at least he’d taken umbrage over something I’d actually tweeted, instead of making something up altogether this time.  (Guess Legal warned him not to post lies about a non-existent “cease-and-desist letter” in the media.)  Though he took it ridiculously out of context and turned it into something it was not.

At the risk of succumbing to Brandolini’s Law… Yes, I (as the Scribe) called Thomson “IlliterateMan” in the tweet — not because I’m disparaging of illiteracy (my former “day job” was as a librarian, I worked hard at helping people increase their literacy skills and overcome stigma, thank you very much), but because Thomson was at that point notorious for bullying the Library CEO about the annual budget while demonstrating that he knew absolutely nothing about how libraries operated.  So because of all the Library defunding he was pushing for in this and previous meetings, the Scribe had earlier awarded him “Champion of Illiteracy”, and gone on to joke about his new superhero identity:  “Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  No, it’s IlliterateMan!”  Pointing out his mis-pronunciation of the word “library” was a similar call-back to an earlier comment that why should we expect him to learn how libraries work when he can’t be bothered to learn how to pronounce their name properly (mis-pronunciation of staff and speakers’ names having also been established as a common disrespectful “power play” amongst certain Councillors), and also that maybe if the Library weren’t so underfunded, a staff member might have the resources to help him learn.  (Also, he once again assigns this supposed slight to Engage Barrie instead of me or the Scribe, and holds it against an organization that had nothing whatsoever to do with the tweet, but… feel like I’m flogging a dead horse there.)

Anyhow, after taking out an entire media article to complain about harassment by cherry-picking a quote and twisting it completely out of context, Thomson then contradicts the whole reason for the article by saying “I am not bullied, I understand being a public figure that you’re open for conversation, sometimes unwarranted, but bullied? No, not one iota.”

Bruton goes on to quote Morales’s previous email (making it rather obvious Thomson and Morales were in on this one together), including the bit about me supposedly being racist by calling him “skippy” (neither of which is true, as Bruton could easily have researched before publishing that about me, or even look at the “evidence” Sergio himself provided), plus his call to “encourage all candidates, especially female candidates and those that are not currently on council, to join me in my decision [to boycott the All-Candidates Meetings]“.  Oh yes, and he repeats the mis-quote that I’d already asked him twice to correct and he’d refused, because Natalie knows better.

I Tell the Board and Election Committee I’m Out

As mentioned above, I decided that the best thing to do to get the All-Candidates Meetings back on track and the focus on the candidates was for me to call their bluff and leave.  I figured they didn’t expect that, what with Sergio continuing to insist that Engage Barrie was “just Alyssa”, and showing them that was yet another lie would be somewhat satisfying.  And they probably hadn’t bothered putting together slanderous stories about any of the other Board of Directors, or Election Committee members, if they truly believed it was just me.

I told the Board and Election Committee and Mayoral Forum Committee that I would resign immediately.  Once again, nobody would accept my resignation, knowing this whole situation was… well, in the words of Brandolini’s Law, an avalanche of bullshit, and nobody wanted me forced out.  They asked me to wait another day before “doing anything rash”.  

I said we only had two days to save the Mayoral Forum and three before the first of the Ward All-Candidates Meetings.  McCann and Nuttall had already told the Mayoral Forum Committee that they wouldn’t attend if I was there (one other had refused without specifying the reason), and at least two members of that committee had already spent days trying to convince them to face the public.  If they wouldn’t accept my resignation, then we needed to at least tell people I wasn’t going to be involved in the Mayoral Forum or All-Candidates Meeting.

That evening, the then-Chair of CARP Barrie told me Nuttall had called her to tell her he would not participate in the Mayoral Forum because of “safety concerns” with me.  As one mutual friend laughed to EBO’s Interim Chair, “what’s he afraid of?  She’s going to bite his kneecaps?”

Folks, I am a 5’5” (and shrinking), post-menopausal agoraphobe with bird bones and bad knees who hasn’t had a gym membership since an injury in 2010.  Nuttall is six foot something and a man-mountain.  There is absolutely no way in which I could be physically intimidating to him in any way, shape or form (neither had I ever been accused, even slanderously, of causing anyone physical harm).  The only thing he had to fear from me is asking tough questions.  The folks on the Mayoral Forum Committee — including all the members and volunteers from CARP — knew this, and knew that he knew this.

Nevertheless, both the Chair and at least one other committee member independently called Nuttall that night, to inform him that I would not be attending the Mayoral Forum, and reassure him that it was safe to attend.  The Chair called him again first thing the following morning to repeat, as well.

Members of the Election Committee then started to express concerns that if I weren’t at the Mayoral Forum, they might be trying to set me up for something, such as vandalism to the “Love Barrie” sign, and suggested I find an alibi for the time of the Forum, in case they escalated the chaos.  I arranged an afternoon of wine on my neighbour’s porch — think I had a better afternoon.

Nuttall Ignores My Exit and Puts Out A Release Against Me and the Mayoral Forum Anyhow

Despite being informed by at least two phone calls from organizers the night before and one earlier that morning from the CARP Barrie Chair to confirm that I was not going to be attending or involved in any was with the Mayoral Forum, Nuttall released a statement against me later in the morning of Friday, September 30 — the day before the Forum.  In it, he said he wasn’t going to attend because of my supposed harassment of Natalie.  And he finished by also calling on all other candidates to boycott the All-Candidates Meetings in solidarity.  I don’t believe any of the media outlets picked it up, though Bruton did send it to me for comment.

The (written, of course) comment I provided was “Alex Nuttall’s statement, especially at this time, seems disingenuous, as I know that Gwen from CARP spoke to Alex this morning and informed him that I have taken leave of Engage Barrie Organization, so will not be participating in the Mayoral Candidates Forum, co-hosted by CARP and Engage Barrie Organization.”  And I shared a copy of my official letter to the Board from earlier that morning, saying I was taking a Leave of Absence.

Despite referring to Nuttall’s statement and earlier boycott in an article later that day, Bruton unsurprisingly did not include my comment he’d asked for.  (Thus making it appear that Nuttall had been the one to force me out – rather than the truth, that I was already out on my own volition and he knew it before he sent that release to the media calling everyone to boycott the All-Candidates Meetings.)

My Leave Of Absence is Made Official

While I had already informed the Board and Election Committee on Thursday that I was taking leave (and people from the Mayoral Forum Committee had subsequently informed Nuttall and the other Mayoral candidates of this), I spent Friday morning composing an official resignation and submitted it to the Board via email.

Engage Barrie posted my letter of resignation on its website at 2:30pm on Friday, September 30.

Jim Harris changes the goalposts

A mere eleven minutes later, at 2:41pm, Councillor Jim Harris sends an email to EBO and all candidates, stating he would still be boycotting the All-Candidates Meeting because of EBO’s “defensive position taken and the lack [of] compassion expressed for the feelings and experience of Natalie Harris.”

Making it abundantly clear — as we’d suspected all along — that this smear campaign wasn’t about me at all.

I had just given them exactly what they said they’d wanted — my absence — and within eleven minutes, the problem was no longer me, and everyone was encouraged to boycott the All-Candidates Meetings, anyhow, because Engage Barrie was suddenly the problem.

Now, there was absolutely no need for him to send this “RSVP” to the candidates’ email chain — as he notes in his email, he had already informed EBO privately the day before that he refused to participate in the All-Candidates Meeting for his ward (which surprised us not at all) because of the accusations.  Sending this second notice to the candidates’ email chain — eleven minutes after Engage Barrie announced my leave of absence was a blatantly transparent move to shift the goal posts of the All-Candidates Meeting boycott from my supposedly being a dangerous and vexatious harasser to Engage Barrie not responding favourably to being slandered and libelled in the local media, and not expressing enough compassion to the people who were continuing to slander and libel the organization.

And it worked.  The candidates’ email chain over the next several days now had “Team Natalie” saying that they wouldn’t participate in anything that Engage Barrie was associated with, and that Engage Barrie had to be removed from the meetings.  The leader of EBO’s Election Committee explained to them that Engage Barrie was the only organization hosting the Ward meetings, and that if EBO was removed, there would be no meetings.  And since EBO was the only organization hosting All-Candidates Meetings for the wards, there was no other option for them to have their ideas and platforms presented.  But the mass hysteria caused by Jim’s email had already taken hold, and there was no way for logic or common sense to peek through.

One candidate who had initially pulled out did decide to attend now that I was no longer involved, but the rest agreed to continue the boycott.

Bruton Publishes My Resignation, Continues to Mis-Quote Me, Reveals the Slanderpalooza Teamwork

That evening, Bruton publishes “Wright steps away from Engage Barrie amid ‘media frenzy’”.  While he does manage to accurately quote my leave-of-absence letter, he continues to use the mis-quote I’ve already repeatedly asked him to correct, and quotes Nuttall’s earlier statement without adding the context that he’d sent out a press release slandering me and Engage Barrie even after he knew I wasn’t going to be involved any more.

Helpfully, a new quote from Natalie, thanking Nuttall, Morales, Thomson and Lehman for “taking a public stand”, and making a “teamwork made the dream work” [my paraphrase] statement does make publicly clear what we’d already suspected to be true — Slanderpalooza had been a collaborative effort (and Nuttall’s statement being sent out even hours after he knew I wasn’t involved in the Mayoral Forum was not a mistake).

Of course, it also quotes her claiming “vindictive anonymous harassment”, without giving a single example as evidence to support those accusations.  Because clickbait trumps journalistic integrity, apparently.

I Speak Out About the Misquote

Seeing that Bruton continues to mis-quote me, despite my private requests for correction, I release my own statement the morning of October 1, “Mis-representation of my Statements by Bob Bruton (Barrie Today)” posted on my website and social media, tagging Bruton and Barrie Today on the social media posts.

“I have been avoiding social media this week, for obvious reasons.  But I have been told that Bob Bruton at Barrie Today continues to mis-represent my statements, despite being informed of this error on Sept.27.  His response to that correction was "That's not what Coun. Natalie Harris says". – That he would publish this slander about me without citing any evidence or example, then refuse to correct a mis-representation of my statement calls into serious question his journalistic integrity.”

I posted my original statement again, as well as the text to my leave-taking announcement.

Bob Bruton and Barrie Today still failed to correct the mis-quote — I finally had to pay for a lawyer to serve notice on Village Media (Barrie Today’s parent company) in order to get minimal resolution (burying a correction in past articles).  The damage from his earlier refusals to correct it (and the fact that he kept re-using the mis-quote, despite being informed it was in error) was already done.

Mayoral Forum

The Mayoral Forum goes ahead, with four of the six candidates participating.  I spend the afternoon drinking wine on my neighbour’s porch and taking selfies, just in case.

I am later told by Election Committee members that McCann and Nuttall had not been there ahead of time, while Thomson appeared to be there as “lookout”, calling and texting someone on a regular basis.  Part of me would have loved to show up as a private citizen, but in The Scribe costume, just to really scare them — but I’d meant what I’d said about the attention needing to be on the candidates and not me.  I don’t know if Thomson was lookout for McCann or Nuttall or both, but Nuttall did eventually show up, and McCann never did.

Which meant, of course, that McCann didn’t have to answer the audience-provided question about Bill 5 and how to keep staff and public safe from abusive Council members.

Whatever “consequences” Morales had been threatening CARP with earlier never came to be — as we suspected, and as usual, he’d been all bluster (there’s a reason why he earned the Little Rascals nickname Spanky).  The Forum went on without incident.

Morales strikes again

The night before, Engage Barrie had sent an email to all the Ward Councillor candidates, outlining the format of the All-Candidates Meetings, confirming that I had taken leave, and stating that Rob Romanek would be Interim Chair and Anita Johnson-Ford would remain the Election Committee lead.

While the Mayoral Forum was happening, at 2:49pm, Morales responded to that instructional email, inexplicably adding Natalie Harris to the list of recipients, and starting with “Since you CCd the people in this email, I am sure they will appreciate the answers to these

questions” (why our sharing meeting details with the candidates felt like an invitation for him to defy Brandolini’s Law is curious), before he launched into a whole bunch of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with the All-Candidates Meetings… many of which were actually more like new slanderous statements about Engage Barrie than questions.  His rapid-fire nonsense was, frankly, sounding more than a little unhinged in his desperation to keep the boycott alive, I hoped he’d gone so far off the rails that the candidates would see through it, but they were still stirred up by Jim’s goalpost-shifting email, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

The amount of logical fallacies and conjecture and slanderous accusations included in his “questions” kinda make Brandolini’s Law seem inadequate and minimalistic, so I’m not going to waste too much time on what should be obvious by now is the bullshittiest of bullshit.  But he spent much time demanding that Engage Barrie publicly condemn me and the Biased Scribe for… well, for doing things that nobody had yet (nor did they ever) provided any evidence either of us had done.  Accused Engage Barrie of being okay with vindictive personal attacks.  Demanded Engage Barrie join in on the slandering of me to prove they cared.  Demanded Engage Barrie investigate my internet records (not something anyone other than law enforcement with a warrant could legally do — and in order to get a warrant, law enforcement would need to have… you know… some evidence).  Demanded Engage Barrie make me take a polygraph test or testify under oath (how many non profit organizations do you know with a polygraph machine?  what sort of oath would they be able to compell?)

It kind of sounded like he was demanding Engage Barrie launch a lawsuit against me on his behalf.  (Presumably, he realized that if he tried to do it himself, he’d be hit so hard with a SLAPP suit, he’d never recover.)

He also made up a new accusation about some unnamed women, and that I was “attacking her, demeaning her, and threatening her family” — with absolutely no evidence, let alone credible evidence, to back up his claims.  (And, when the Interim Chair invited Sergio and anyone else to provide evidence of his claims for Engage Barrie’s investigation, absolutely nothing was ever provided by him or anyone).

The candidates’ email chain went nuts again, condemning Engage Barrie for not condemning me, without evidence and before any investigation had been completed.

Response

Engage Barrie’s Interim Chair and Election Committee lead replied to his “questions” the following day, restating that they didn’t feel anyone should be placed in a position where their well-being was compromised, reiterating that I had stepped down, and that Engage Barrie was not in a position to publicly comment on a personal dispute between Natalie and myself.

Later, one of the early “Team Natalie” bandwagon-jumpers later writes she is not happy that Sergio’s questions haven’t been adequately answered.  (Name redacted, as I believe she is as much a victim of this as anyone.)

Our Interim Chair tries again., explaining that time is needed to do a proper review and investigation of the accusations, and Engage Barrie can’t possibly make statements before those are complete.  Neither is Engage Barrie in a position to make a legal decision on Natalie or Sergio’s claims:  “it would be irresponsible for EBO to make claims in a dispute that needs to be resolved by the parties involved.”  He invites Sergio and anyone else who has “substantive, specific examples of threats, abuse or harassment” to send them to him for investigation (spoiler alert: nobody ever sends him anything).

All-Candidates Meetings

The boycott held.  Only two of six candidates participated in the Wards 1& 3 All-Candidates Meeting (both incumbents — the only incumbents who had voted to have the Integrity Commissioner investigate McCann’s harassment of a staff member, and who had not participated in Slanderpalooza).  Only three of the six candidates participated in the Ward 2 meeting.  Only two of eight candidates participated in the Ward 4 meeting.  Only two of nine candidates participated in the Wards 5-8 all candidates meetings (Ward 5 was Thomson’s ward, Ward 8 Jim Harris’s).  And only one of eight candidates participated in the Wards 9&10 meeting (Ward 9 was Morales’s Ward).

Four of the six incumbents — the ones who had voted against the Integrity Commissioner investigating their buddy’s sexual assault of a staff member — did not have to answer to their voting history or past actions as Councillors.  Only eight of thirty-two new candidates got to have their ideas and platforms heard.

My Final Statement

Once the All-Candidates Meetings were finished, I posted my statement on my website on October 19.  I did not share it via Engage Barrie, nor did I send it to the media — just my website.  I did not want any more media B.S. being published about Engage Barrie.

Somehow, though, Barrie Today found out about it, and wrote a new article about it on October 21, though by Raymond Bowe this time — who also (sigh) repeated Bruton’s mis-quote, and Natalie’s new quote calling me a liar for the mis-quote. as well as more bullshit accusations by her and Sergio.  But at least Bowe quotes my statement correctly, and includes most of the important stuff.

Women of Ontario Say No

After giving my (successful) deputations to New Tecumseth and Orillia Councils, plus creating the template for others to help with theirs, the lead of “Women of Ontario [previously Simcoe] Say No” gave me a call sometime mid-to-late October (I didn’t keep the record), saying I was no longer welcome to participate.

The reason she gave was because she said she had read a Biased Scribe post that she found abusive, and there could be no room for that in her organization.  When I asked which post she was referring to, she quoted Sergio’s completely made up “paraphrase” that he’d put in one of his emails the month before.  Which, yes, if I had written that would certainly have been abusive.  But there was nothing even remotely close to that that I or anyone associated with the Scribe had ever written.  So she obviously hadn’t actually read the non-existent post, she’d just read Sergio’s slander and taken it at face value, without investigating.

And hung up on me.

And with that, all of Engage Barrie’s research and work into the Workplace Harassment case was struck from the Women of Ontario Say No campaign.  McCann was once again protected by his Slanderpalooza buddies.  Well played…

This is probably the piece that irks me the most.  And shows me that this smear campaign was just an extension of all the gross things Thomson, N. Harris, J. Harris and Morales (and apparently Lehman) had done to protect their known-abuser buddy.

The work I’d done on the case, the consequences I’d endured as a result of my work on the case… all were “disappeared” by this stunt.

The Follow Up

Engage Barrie Investigation

Despite multiple requests for evidence of my alleged harassment to investigate, Engage Barrie of course never received a single example.

After presenting their investigation to the membership at the November AGM, Engage Barrie released their “Interim statement on Investigation into allegations of abuse and harassment”, sharing that:

• The Board carried out investigations into the allegations of harassment and abuse made by members of Barrie City Council against then-Chair Alyssa Wright, through the months of October and November.

• Our investigation included:
  • A full review of the correspondence sent to us by the accusing council members, as well as the accusations printed in local media and their social media accounts
  • A full review of the referenced Twitter account and website
  • Invitations to the accusing councillors and the election candidates who had been included in email conversations from the accusers to provide any additional “substantive, specific examples of threats, abuse or harassment” to forward them to our Interim Chair (no such submissions were received)
  • Review by independent third parties to get their opinions on the material/claims that had been presented, both in the media and through direct communication. This included legal experts in the field of defamation, slander, and libel.

• Through this investigation, neither the Board nor any of the independent third parties were able to substantiate the claims of harassment based on the examples provided – while the involved parties were invited to provide additional examples, no submissions were received.
• The legal experts each referenced the content from the website and social media account in question as “fair comment as public interest”, and cited Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada’s upholding of the essential connection between freedom of expression and the political process.
• All actions taken by Ms. Wright on behalf of EBO have been conducted under the principles of EBO.
• As a result of this investigation, no further action will be taken regarding Ms. Wright in this matter. The Board will continue to count Ms. Wright as an active member of EBO and extend to her full rights as such a member, including the opportunity to run for, and sit on, the Board.

Engage Barrie filed a complaint with the Integrity Commissioner.  Unfortunately, after sitting with it for half a year, the IC determined that she was time barred from taking action.  This was in part due to our misinterpretation of the rules around the “blackout period” for complaints around elections.  It was also due to her — in my opinion, erroneous — determination that only the first contact with the media qualified as breaches of the Code, and not the new accusations in the media or behind the scenes in the following weeks.  However, she did agree that many of the actions up until October 1 could have been found to have contravened the code, and spoke with members of Council of their obligations under the Code,  and that harassment, discrimination or disrespectful conduct towards members of the public would not be tolerated, and offered to give training to the new Council on their obligations under the Code in an election period, “to ensure an unfettered democratic process”.  So Engage Barrie called it a win.

Although, considering some of the things I’ve been hearing about in recent weeks about some of the silencing tactics being used this election period, I’m not certain those lessons have been taken to heart.

Engage Barrie later posted their full report at https://www.engagebarrie.org/post/report-re-harassment-allegations-against-alyssa-wright-and-engage-barrie-organization

And They All Lived Happily Ever After

Slanderpalooza did not, fortunately, destroy Engage Barrie.  We in fact got several new members who were just hearing about us for the first time.  We also went from having $200 in a PayPal account and having to ask our members to help print a banner to receiving thousands of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations who learned about Engage Barrie’s existence because of the media coverage, saw the importance of the work we were doing and wanted to support us.

The Scribe is still snarkily scribing — albeit not as well-informed or funny, with the original team now dispersed out of self-protection.  (They just don’t make manservants the way they used to…)  That cranky old broad got quite the boost in followers too, thanks to the free publicity given to her existence.  (Heavens to patriarchy!)

In the words of The Biased Scribe:  

“Goddesses, spare us ALL from the politicians who anti-democratically resort to making staff and the public afraid to comment on their political actions.  For is the forcible suppression of opposition and criticism not one of the pillars of fascism?  And is one of the tests of true democracy not the freedom to oppose and criticize our elected leaders, and the actions they take while representing we, the people?

“In the words of Patron Saint Anne Lamott:  "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”"

As for me, I’m still here living my life and doing my thing.  The people who know me know who I truly am — and, based on the comments section at the time, even people who don’t know me know that I’m not the person the Slanderpaloozans pretended I was.

I’m still basing my life on speaking up about the things people clinging to power want silenced.  Especially those who actually abuse women, and those people in power who help them get away with it.

Had those anonymous trolls sent to threaten me with revealing my secrets would have learned with just a modicum of research, I’ve been speaking up about systemic abuses for decades.  About people and institutions with far greater reach and power than a couple of spotlight-hungry city councillors who betray the honour and responsibility of their political office by treating it like a popularity contest, and think the internet is the real world.

While Morales tried to bluster about taking his slander to national media, the people and institutions I’ve spoken out about before actually did have access to national media and used it to slander me, and I survived just fine.  And kept speaking up.  And keep speaking up to systemic abuses of all varieties.

In the words of Tanya Markul:

“Truth taught me to be brave.  Truth taught me how to respect myself.  Truth allows me to hold impenetrable space for any story, but first and foremost, for my own.  And Truth, well, she changes every thing, and friend, she’s coming for you too.”

This little scheme might have worked to silence others, but in coming after me, the Slanderpaloozans picked the wrong girl.

Truth and beauty, friends