The inside of Kamloops mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson's business Tru Market Auto Sales was broken into and thoroughly damaged last week.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Municipal politicians in Kamloops are no strangers to threats to their safety in the past few years.

The growing risk of harm prompted city hall to take on additional safety measures last year. While it hasn't escalated to physical violence against any of them, a recent break-in at the mayor's business property could be the first known instance that wasn't confined to raised voices or threats.

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson hasn't spoken to iNFOnews.ca about the break-in. He has called it suspicious but stopped short of speculating about the motive after his West Victoria Street auto dealership was vandalized without a sign anything had been taken.

"My understanding is he had some personal items in there he's not sure are still in there because of the amount of damage. It's pretty obvious that whoever was in there was not there to just take something and run because the entire building was damaged," Coun. Dale Bass said.

Whether the motive was political or not, Bass said the question of safety for councillors has been front-of-mind this week. For second-term councillors Bass and Mike O'Reilly, it's much different than it was three years ago.

"Having a mayor we have now in that chair has emboldened people to be more confrontational, and certainly the things I have to consider are much different this term than last term," O'Reilly said.

City hall security measures have no bearing on his or his family's lives when out in the community, and that became clear when he was at a local 7-Eleven with his six-year-old son and a man confronted him, yelling and swearing.

"That's not a place for that. There's no place to do it, but certainly not in public in front of your children," he said. "This is just one of many examples a lot of my colleagues experience and, frankly, our staff as well."

Coun. Stephen Karpuk suspects he and his colleagues worry about their safety or their families "more than we want to" and he suspects it wasn't that way in years passed.

"There is that thought sometimes that creeps into your psyche. You're looking around and trying to keep an eye on things. There are people I have met since being at city hall that give me a sort of sick sense that I don't know if I should turn my back on this person," he said. "The bottom line is you try and be polite and respectful, and hopefully everything works out."

For women, it's worse.

A rise in threats for politicians in Canada, especially for women, has been documented in recent years, but it's often targeted toward federal and provincial politics.

"It's prevalent everywhere across the country," Bass said. "People feel emboldened to just threaten us. I know of female councillors who have had death threats and threats of rape, for example."

Coun. Margot Middleton said she has had no threats to her safety and Nancy Bepple was not available for comment.

Katie Neustaeter didn't speak to her personal experiences this week, but she told iNFOnews.ca last year she has had "frightening moments" since getting elected. At the time, she was one of a few councillors were escorted to their vehicles following a meeting at city hall. Bylaw officers had just started guarding council meetings regularly with at least two in public view to monitor the gallery, while staff parking spaces once labelled with their titles are now numbered.

The extent of the new safety precautions at city hall are not known and a report studying security practices and gaps last year was almost entirely redacted when iNFOnews.ca filed a Freedom of Information request.

Bass said she would be asking CAO Byron McCorkell about potentially revisiting security measures again for review.

Provincial and federal politicians have faced rising violence or threats in recent years and even in recent weeks, with BC cabinet minister Bowinn Ma's constituency office damaged by a homemade explosive.

Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee said the notion of violence, followed through with or not, was nonexistent during her time on city council.

"It was never on my radar, but as soon as I started campaigning in the provincial campaign it was different," she said. "I've received death threats, I've been spat on, I've had someone take a swing at me, I've had someone smash the window out of my car."

Her own townhome in Penticton, which she was renting out, burned down this week. The cause is under investigation, and while she said it appears to have started inside and there's no indication so far it was criminal, it was something she considered when it happened.

"I'm trying not to jump to conclusions without knowing more, but your mind does go there," Boultbee said.

She said colleagues in Victoria have also had threats, adding that offices in the legislature have panic buttons, bulletproof glass and escape routes just in case. She said the dangers of taking public office is something that she'd like to see politicians speak more openly about so the public is aware of the realities they face.

"I was never warned about it," Boultbee said. "It just started happening. Ultimately, I think it's because you don't want to give the impressions that you're controversial or you've pissed off the public. It seems like something that isn't really spoken about very openly, but I think it should be."

Municipal politicians are less often the targets of such violence, but the Federation of Canadian Municipalities heard from local leaders across the country last year who have also faced threats or aggressive confrontations with people.

Elsewhere in BC, a Victoria councillor faced two death threats in 2023, while the mayor of Vancouver more recently got police protection because of threats. More locally, a former Vernon city councillor got a death threat in the mail in 2020, and a man was arrested a year earlier for a social media comment calling for former Kelowna mayor Colin Basran to be shot.

Although it's not known whether the break-in at Hamer-Jackson's business was a moment of political violence, the phenomenon is a growing risk toward people elected to serve their constituents.

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