The attack on the Vancouver mayor’s house is a disturbing trend in society

On Halloween night, when no one could see, a coward, perhaps more than one, spray-painted graffiti on the garage door of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s home. It was rude in English and Chinese and any reasonable person would feel threatened.

I know Sim is a tough businessman, but I also know he has legitimate personal vulnerabilities as a person of color and an entrepreneur who has had to compete in commerce like few of us. Climbing the ladder was accompanied by detractors, with whom he had to face. And now, unlike before, he has a family to protect from what he often has to face in the office he got two years ago. This garbage deserves nothing.

And let’s remind ourselves: he won with a crushing victory. The party he led won every seat on the council, park and school board. He defeated candidates with political experience. There was no division in the city. He was and is the legitimate choice of the citizens of Vancouver to run this term, and if you don’t like it, unionize it. Try harder in 2026, live with 2022, and watch your manners in the meantime.

The artist or painters must suffer from all possible consequences. The problem is that society does not take it seriously for several reasons. We treat our politicians like piñatas. We show up in their homes to rage. We find their phone numbers to bomb. We stop them on the streets or chase them down and get out like kids who need a nap. We have raised a society that feels it owns a politician like a puppy to be kicked. And then we wonder why so few of the best and brightest don’t run for office, why we sometimes attract peripheral people to public office when so many significant members of the community don’t come within a country mile of the chase.

The lawyers I asked said that graffiti likely isn’t a hate crime — more like a crime under the Criminal Code — but I’d argue that we need to fix the law if lawmakers can’t be insulated from it. a growing cesspool of citizens who need to learn a lesson.

Obviously, today’s conditions do little to prevent what is acceptable criticism of an elected official. It is time to recognize that democracy is only supported when we support the safety of those who are democratically elected and do their jobs without fear. We need an amendment to the law to signal to the idiots of the world that their day is over.

My first stop today would be to ban any social media platform in this country that allows anonymous accounts. How we let this poisonous genie out of the bottle nearly two decades ago defies logic, but it has changed the game and allowed anyone, anywhere, anytime to inject toxins into civil society without any legal recourse. This allowed the cowards a free shot, as if the targets were attacked blindfolded, without serious consequences.

The utter lack of character of these accounts should be a crime almost as serious as online stalking and child pornography.

My second stop would be to publicize some examples of offenders. Subject them to libel laws, make them pay tens of thousands of dollars and tie up their business when they show up in court to defend their 280 or whatever post, and make them lose and pay much, much more than they ever expected. Make it a legit mission. Show their faces when they stand trial. Let the community know who these people are. Take their assets as if they were drug dealers or money launderers.

Maybe then they’ll recognize that huge, broad, absurdly open social platforms – as opposed to the tiny dark web – are off-limits to their youth and vulgarity. The message would be: if you want to criticize, stand up, be respected and be polite; otherwise we will consider and punish you as a loser. Perhaps then we can reset the relationship with our institutions to better and more safely balance criticism and accountability. Maybe then the people elected by our communities won’t be subjected to such humiliation, and we can chart our way back to a time when we could have respectful disagreements.

The graffiti on Sim’s garage door is a metaphor for an active society that fears nothing more than a tiny slap on the wrist in exchange for publicity (myself included here, I guess). It’s a symptom of a system that abdicates personal responsibility and sees attacking an elected official as part of the game.

This is not a game. This is our democracy.

I have had enough.

Kirk Lapointe is a Glacier Media columnist with extensive journalism experience.