Female and gender-diverse candidates in 2023 P.E.I. election report being targeted online

Some female and gender-diverse candidates who ran for office in the 2023 Prince Edward Island general election say they faced cyberbullying.

The P.E.I. Coalition for Women in Government asked 53 candidates to take part in surveys and interviews about their experience in the runup to the April 3 vote. 

Only three candidates filled out the initial survey, but 12 later agreed to participate in interviews, with two-thirds of that group saying they had experienced what the report called "technology facilitated violence" or cyberbullying.

Sarah Outram, the coalition's executive director, said three of the incidents were so serious that candidates were advised to report the matter to the police. But being targeted by any kind of online aggression would cause extra stress for people with many other issues on their minds at the time, she pointed out. 

• READ THE REPORT: The prevalence of technology-facilitated gender-based violence in the 2023 P.E.I. provincial election 

"You have to make critical calls about how serious is this threat, where is it originating from, how frequent[ly] is it happening? What type of threat is it?" she said in an interview with Island Morning's Laura Chapin.

"There are many facets that need to be considered in how you handle something. It could be as simple as blocking and reporting, or it could be documenting, screenshotting and following up with the police."

• Get the news you need without restrictions. Download our free CBC News App.

Some of the cyberbullying originated from outside the province, she said. 

"That's the thing about this online harassment… It can come from anywhere," Outram said. "Sometimes it does come from the place that you live and other times it could be another country."

Examples cited in report

None of the candidates who said they were cyberbullied were named in the report, but they provided interviewers with examples of the harassment. Some excerpts from the report: 

• "I did receive an anonymous threat over social media stating, if you win your seat, you will regret it. A woman from the community also called me a 'murderer' for wearing a mask while I was campaigning. There was also a notable increase in troll accounts on Twitter."
• "On election day I posted a photo of myself on my campaign Twitter account reminding everyone to vote. Under that tweet I received 35 separate replies from accounts questioning my mental stability and hate speech related to my gender. Someone either hired a bunch of Twitter bots to spam me with insulting replies and/or an anti-mask/anti-LGBT+ group found me and decided to target me. Some of the Twitter accounts were from P.E.I. but most were not local as far as I could tell. I didn't report it to the party, mostly because this incident happened on election day and I just ended up blocking or muting the accounts." 
• "I did get threatened. A guy must have found my personal email, I don't know how. There were thinly veiled physical violence threats, with a lot of cursing. I determined which district he was from, so we avoided his house and the area. I was told to maybe call the RCMP, but nothing further." 

One candidate also reported being criticized on social media by a religious institution from outside of P.E.I. for running for a party that supports abortion. The candidate did not report the incident to party officials.

Seven women ended up being elected in the April election: six from the governing Progressive Conservatives and one from the provincial Green party. Twenty men were elected.

Outram said she is concerned that the prospect of cyberbullying could discourage women and gender-diverse people from entering politics down the road.

When the coalition approached all political parties on the Island to see if they have cyberbullying procedures and policies in place, it was told that none of them did at that point.

Outram said all the parties expressed interest in developing such policies after seeing the report.