By Pepper Parr
January 27th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
After the formal Chamber of Commerce presentation on Friday, Tim Caddington, Manager of community engagement services for Cogeco, had some questions for the Mayor.
He started by mentioning Pam Damoff, the former MP for Oakville, North Burlington, who has reported being screamed at while grocery shopping. She has spoken of “multiple threats, including firearms, and feared going out in public and left public service. Damoff decided not to run for re-election.
Catherine McKenna, former federal cabinet minister and MP for Ottawa Center, said people came to her home. People screamed at her while she was out with their children and sent messages to her that her kids should die.
France. Betty, first female mayor of Gatineau, I believe, stepped down due to death threats.
Mayor Meed Ward
Caddigan paused and Meed Ward picked up the thread. “I’ll give you just one recent example: someone threatened to set me on fire if I came to a development meeting. The developer of that project is in this room. They know what happened, they know this story. The police advised me not to go. This is a public meeting. This is what I do for you. I show up and I talk to residents, and I hear from residents.
“We had police coming to my house and my kids looking outside, watching them survey to see what suggestions they could make for security improvements. I’ve had protests at the house, my family inside the house, with protesters outside. And very recently, as many of you know, we had a lockdown at City Hall, someone threatening to shoot someone.
“My entire team was there, we were told to stay in our offices, lock the door, turn out the lights and close the blinds, so that we wouldn’t be a target for a sniper.
“We had to stay in City Hall for over two hours. We had to cancel the launch of our 2026, calendar of amazing Burlington photos. If you don’t have one, call me. We’ll get you one.”
Some facts need to be put on the table and a little less drama wouldn’t hurt.
We do not know what the police said or did. We were not at city hall.
There is a full-time security guard on the ground floor. Should there be an incident, one has to believe the security guard was shown how to call the police in a couple of seconds.
The shouter was apprehended very quickly.
To get to the eighth floor, where the Mayor’s office is located, a person has to swipe their security card to get the elevator to move and they have to swipe their security card to open the entrance to the Mayor’ suite of offices.
Did the police actually tell the Mayor to close the blinds to deter snipers? The police don’t talk about what they say to people.
Mayor with Tim Caddigan
Mayor Meed Ward’s comments to Caddigan need to be taken with much more than a grain of salt.
This was at a public meeting in the Library. I was in the room. No one went to security asking that the man be removed from the room.
There are some in Burlington who are very angry with the political class. Is anyone asking why these few are so angry that they shout at people and make threats?
Meed Ward talked about leading by example. Is the day she took part in a Council meeting virtually to do as much as she could to force a member of Council to apologize to a staff member. Link to that rant is HERE
Meed Ward also said: “I was supposed to go to another meeting about another development application, and for a second time in nine months, was told by police, stay home. Can’t guarantee your safety. The person making the threats is still out there.”
“This is not okay. I understand why people say not for me, not for me, not for my family. I cannot ask my family to accept that risk. As for myself. I won’t be bullied by people threatening.
“I’m not walking alone in Burlington, which is the safest community in the country. So that’s the cost.
“What we can do is lead by example. Tone is set at the top, and you all know that better than anyone else. , We have leaders in this country choosing to make personal attacks and describe their opponents with nicknames that are derogatory.
“I believe in respectful democracy, in treating people that I disagree with with courtesy and human dignity, and we did that, that it started as a pledge, because we know that the one thing every single person in this room can do is say what you’re about.
“Burlington is filled with people saying two things: here’s my story, and I want to help.
“How do we change this? It starts when everybody says enough; that we are going to model something different than what is being modelled by the people with the biggest megaphones.”
Discover more from Burlington Gazette - Local News, Politics, Community
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Liberal drama queens …………see the pattern
Mayor is running for higher office while on our dime with her stupid Elect respect campaign. Hopefully she will not run or be re elected in 2026 as this taxpayer has had enough of her whiny virtue signalling bs
I often have the same thought that MMW is looking for a “higher” gig. Mayor was not her final goal, I’m quite sure. Doesn’t mean anyone is lining up to offer her one of course. I wonder if she hopes to one-up her “friend” and former colleague Bonnie Crombie and try for the provincial Liberal leadership. Two birds, one stone. She has the wardrobe already and she can ride in vowing to save whatever it is the provincial Liberal party thinks can be saved.
whaaa whaaa whaaaa ….. heard all this from her previously …many times ….
You don’t lose respect because people are unfair — you lose it when accountability is replaced by self-pity.
When developers win, traffic stalls, and the mayor is absent from the street-level reality, public anger isn’t disrespect — it’s accountability.
And accountability doesn’t sound like “poor me.”
Drama seems to follow the mayor just as it did when she was a councillor. Hmmm.
Agree with Blair: this and frankly most interviews the mayor does — with her friendly media types only of course — smack of scripted performance. She’s never had a press conference — that’s telling.
Regardless, the never-ending victim/hero/victim mantra — rinse, repeat ad nauseam — is beyond weird in my opinion.
The threats and intimidation described in this article are disturbing, unacceptable, and must be condemned without qualification. No one- elected or otherwise – should fear for their safety, their family’s safety, or their right to participate in public life. That should be a baseline expectation in any democracy.
But respect, like trust, is not something that comes with a title. It is something that must be earned- through transparency, humility, accountability, and a willingness to truly listen.
Public frustration does not emerge in a vacuum. While it never justifies threats or abuse, elected officials should still ask an uncomfortable but necessary question: Are we part of the problem? Are people feeling ignored, dismissed, managed, or spoken to rather than heard? Are decisions being made first and explained later?
Respect is not demanded. It is built. It is built when leaders show up not just to speak, but to listen- and then act. It is built when criticism is met not with defensiveness, but with reflection. It is built when public engagement feels meaningful, not performative.
Civility is a two-way street. Citizens must reject intimidation and violence, but leaders must also reject arrogance, opacity, and entitlement. If we want a healthier political culture, we must insist on safety and accountability, dignity and humility.
Respect isn’t automatic. It’s earned- every day.
Joe – you are totally, 100%, incontestably correct. And your valid point of ‘respect must be earned’ has been repeated many, many times over the last few months. So, given that, what are you saying? Is Meed Ward’s “snipers on the rooftops” performance hyperbole or deserving of “the willing suspension of disbelief”?
What I can say on the subject of snipers, is that I saw snipers (not well hidden) on the roof of city hall, during a Remembrance Day event and that may be to what Mayor Meed Ward is referring, but you will have to check in with her worship on that. Or, maybe Halton Police.
Editor’s note: The occasion Joe is talking about was a Remembrance Day event. The focus was on MP Gould.
The police never talk about these things. There was another occasion when armed troops walked behind Justin at an event at the YMCA
If our Mayor, Marianne Meed Ward truly thinks she is a victim, and truly feels she is being threatened, there is absolutely nothing preventing her from stepping down from her post as Mayor of the City of Burlington.
I am quite sure that there are other very capable people in Burlington that would be quite willing, competent and capable to take over her position as Mayor in the next municipal election in October 2026.
Well, I find that her latest version of the lock down events differs rather significantly from the initial reports. I would also note that if the police were actually concerned about a sniper, the last thing that they would probably do is march the mayor et al out the front door in clear view. I might, God knows, but they wouldn’t.
The whole interview smacks of well staged performance art. An interviewer from Cogeco on which the mayor has a regular community-focused show with initial questions that really don’t relate to the state of the city but to, once again, personal spectacle with a heavy side-order of weepy-eyed victimization. Not sure whether anyone follows volley ball but the whole thing smacks of a set up with MMW doing the dramatic, final point “kill shot” (pun intended).
Honestly, is there anyone who does not find this laughably “over the top”?
With apologies to one of my favourite movies (The Scarlet Pimpernel) and original characters (yes I am that old):
“They seek her here, they follow her there,
Those Koolaid Quaffers everywhere
Is she a saviour or a victim tell
That damned quite Scarlet Tinkerbell”