Mayor Bob Simpson, responding to questions about the protests over the COVID passport, against the Prime Minister and at all candidate forums, said it was unprecedented in all of his years as a politician.
“I’d have to say that the vitriolic kind of debate, the way that p eople go from zero to angry, has been amplified over the years because of the nature of social media. So it has been ramping up, but nothing to this order of magnitude. I don’t understand the anger, I don’t understand how people can’t express themselves in a polite, reasoned and informed manner, and that goes both ways.”
Simpson says there is something going on in our society.
“It could be the result of the lockdown, it could be a result of fears around things like climate change, or concerns around basic affordability and access to services, that are causing people to express themselves in ways that are really extremely troubling, and are not something that we want to have as part of a healthy democratic process.”
Simpson says Quesnel is experiencing this anger as well, especially on social media, but he did credit the people protesting against the passport last week down in front of Dunrovin for doing so in a relatively polite manner.
“We didn’t experience what has been experienced in other communities, and I would hope that that continues to be the case here in our community. But unfortunately if you look at some of the social media and some of the comments that are flying around, certainly in that venue, we have this very, very angry threatening ill informed debate going on.”
Simpson it’s time to get back to reasoned debate.