B.C. forests minister allegedly doxxed by Save Old Growth protestors

Katrine Conroy, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, says she has been receiving harassing calls after she says Save Old Growth protestors published her home phone number online.

Political Science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, Hamish Telford says protesting is acceptable in places like the legislature but adds, public officials have a right to privacy as well.

“I think there’s also an expectation amongst politicians that their private lives are going to be their private lives. I do believe that politicians home spaces are off limits, both for their privacy and and for their security,” Telford told CityNews.

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In a statement addressing the matter, Conroy said, “I know that it is just a small group of people that are using these tactics that cross the line and are impacting people’s families. I also know that they don’t represent the much larger community who is passionate about protecting old growth. All I can do is continue working on this very important file.”

However, Save Old Growth told CityNews it was snot responsible for leaking the minister’s number.

“We are wanting to meet with the minister and engage in respectful dialogue so it would not be in our interest to have people calling and harassing her home phone number.”

Telford says although those who leaked the number may view it as effective, often the general public values privacy and in many cases are more likely to side with the victim.

“I think the general public generally falls on the side that private homes are private right that the politicians have families that they have spouses, they have children. They didn’t sign up for this and have no expectation of being potentially victimized by by protest. So I think the general public tends to side on on with the belief that the politicians are owed their private space.”

However, Telford says this is not the first time nor probably the last a political figure has been personally targeted in Canada.

“There was a phase going back into the 1990’s especially in Quebec, targeting federal politicians, politicians being pied in the face  in public with a shaving cream pie. That certainly went beyond the limits. But also more recently in the trucker protests that descended on Ottawa earlier in the year, the parliamentary security was warning members of parliament that there was the potential that their homes could be the target of protests as well. We do see this time to time and have seen this in Canadian politics in the past.”

Yet, the professor says personal attacks on political figures’ private lives that put their safety at risk are “off limits.”