The Yukon Chamber of Commerce’s all-candidates' federal election forum has been suspended after the NDP candidate for Yukon MP received “inappropriate” messages from a Zoom user “spoofing” the Conservative candidate’s name.
During the remote forum held via Zoom on the evening of April 23, NDP candidate Katherine McCallum initially accused Conservative candidate Ryan Leef of sending her such messages.
Leef immediately denied sending her any messages.
“I don't know where you're getting that from, but it's not from me,” he said.
"That's horrible, but it is absolutely not me."
But there appeared to be a second “Ryan Leef” in the virtual room.
Organizers blocked the alleged spoofer and continued the forum.
McCallum later spoke out about the content of the messages, which she described as sexual in nature, and the impact they had on her, and she apologized to Leef in a statement she made instead of responding to a question on energy.
"They were disgusting and they were disrespectful," she said about the messages.
"Ryan, I'm very, very sorry that I accused you incorrectly of sending me horrifying messages, but my brain shut down when I got them."
The forum was eventually called off.
The News has reviewed the messages.
In an interview following the forum, McCallum said she doesn't understand the imposter's motivation but she won't let people like them take her power away. If anything, it has "solidified her pride" in putting her name forward as a political candidate.
"I am really hoping that the more we can speak up and speak out about the harassment and the disrespect that we encounter on a daily basis, the less of it will happen," she said.
McCallum told the News she felt supported by her team, the forum organizers and the other three candidates, including Leef, Brendan Hanley of the Liberals and Gabrielle Dupont of the Green Party.
"Everybody was supportive, including the other candidates who have been really great throughout the whole campaign and really supportive of each other," McCallum said.
In a press release immediately following the suspended forum, organizers condemned “offensive and disrespectful behaviour” during the live event.
The release notes someone posing as another candidate began sending "private and harassing, disturbing" messages to McCallum.
“We worked hard to cultivate a forum of respectful dialogue, and it was disrupted by the reprehensible behaviour of a bad actor. Our candidates and participants deserve better,” co-moderator Michael Pealow said in the release.
Organizers indicated the incident will be reported to the police.
“We are immediately working to trace the identity of the participant and will investigate all possible channels to prevent this from every happening again, including reporting this to the RCMP," said Yukon chamber chair John Campbell in the release.
In a statement delivered by phone through Leef’s campaign team, Leef stands with his fellow candidates in denouncing this “unacceptable” and “reprehensible conduct,” particularly against McCallum, who he said has conducted herself with “poise and grace” throughout the campaign.
“She has his full support and unequivocal solidarity in rejecting the offensive comments she received,” Leef’s campaign team said.
Leef is encouraged that the chamber has taken immediate action to report the incident to RCMP.
During the forum, Hanley offered a "virtual hug" to McCallum following what he called an "assault" on her.
Hanley suggested the forum be halted and that he respond to additional questions in writing, out of respect for McCallum.
Hanley, who is the incumbent, spoke out about being politically targeted and the property damage and "other things" that he has experienced as a politician.
"I will continue to stand up for Yukoners and to stand up for what's right," he said. "To show the country that we are capable of doing politics better, and that we can support young people, women and anyone who is putting up their courage and also putting their lives on hold to participate in democracy."
Candidates take questions before derailment
Before the forum derailed, candidates took a few pre-determined questions from business groups.
The Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon asked about helping Yukon employers who rely on federal initiatives and are struggling to find employees given the local context of high participation in the labour market and a low unemployment rate. For example, federal allocations for the Yukon Nominee program were slashed by half for this year, which has left some employers in a pinch.
The order of speakers was determined by a game of rock-paper-scissors.
As an immigrant and an employer who depends heavily on government funding, McCallum said she understands the difficulties of moving to a new place and having to settle all over again.
The NDP doesn’t support temporary foreign worker programs, per McCallum.
“The reason the Liberal government is making cuts to the nominee program allocation is because they failed to build enough housing for people. It's a reactionary policy to a problem that they created,” she said. “I've heard too many stories of people who came here to work and had to leave because they couldn't afford a place to live.”
To solve what she called a “crisis” the federal NDP is pitching to build 100,000 unit of public housing on government-owned land, as well as three million market-rate houses by 2030, by working with other levels of government to make sure homes get built in the Yukon.
Hanley indicated the Yukon Nominee Program’s numbers had to be adapted overall, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent labour shortage, in order to strike a balance. He said the feds had to coordinate numbers with housing infrastructure and health care.
“The big picture is a well-run immigration program needs to continually adjust to the needs in our ability to absorb newcomers in in the short term,” he said.
“We're returning immigration to sustainable levels, and that's including permanent resident admissions as well as family reunification and other areas of immigration. At the same time, we want to increase our talent and recruit ability to recruit talent through a global skills strategy.”
Hanley spoke about the need for streamlining credentials for international professional experience, with faster and more efficient processing times. Aside from immigration, he pointed to apprenticeship grants and training supports for skilled trades, including a training fund for First Nations people to get into the workforce.
Like McCallum, Dupont also highlighted the “housing crisis” as a disruption to the economy and society. Dupont hears promises of all these new homes from the other parties, who she said aren’t looking at the root cause of the problem as to why enough new homes aren’t being built now. She has repeatedly pledged to build a proper business case to address the problem.
“Let's work with local governments, with our building industry locally, to make things easy for them, to build affordable homes for us,” she said.
Dupont said it was a mistake for the federal government to cut the nominee program quota for the territory.
“At the Green Party, we would like to improve our programs by eliminating employer-tied work permits, so we allow temporary workers to switch employers freely. And we also would like to explore the creation of a new employer-driven immigration program to transition foreign workers to permanent residency,” she said.
“We can increase funding for skills training programs, prioritizing sectors that are facing chronic labour shortages, so health care, for example, and invest in trade school programs.”
First and foremost, Leef said, the government needs to tackle what he called an “affordability crisis” particularly in the North, where the cost of living is higher than the South.
“Our solution to that will be to decrease federal income tax by 15 per cent so Canadians can keep more of their hard-earned money,” he said.
“We're going to eliminate the carbon tax for real and for good. We're going to reinstate apprenticeship grants to support young people entering the trades. Of course, that's going to benefit the housing needs.”
If elected, a Conservative government will harmonize the national building code and cut the goods and services tax, commonly known as GST, on new home builds and buys.
“We're anticipating building 2.3 million homes across Canada, and that will improve the status of home shortages here in the Yukon,” he said.
Leef added the nominee program is valuable to smaller businesses from Beaver Creek to Dawson City and Watson Lake.
“We're going to tie our support for the Yukon Nominee Program and labor market development fund to specific regional needs. The core principle really is that these programs never take away Canadian jobs and are designed to drive down wages,” he said.
During a “challenge” portion of the forum, when each candidate had a minute to rebut another candidate’s remarks, Hanley suggested the Conservative math was off. He said the tax cut only works out to 2.5 per cent using relative percentages versus absolute numbers.
Leef implied the Conservative's proposed tax cuts are “modest” compared to the “insignificant” cuts the Liberals are proposing.
The Yukon mines chamber asked about how candidates will address project assessment delays and regulatory backlogs while respecting First Nations rights and providing the world with critical minerals and opportunities for jobs, business and investment in Canada.
The Yukon Venture Angels asked about incentivizing Yukoners to invest in the Yukon’s economy.
Once the forum moved into the questions that hadn’t been provided ahead of time to candidates, the forum derailed.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
