{"id":225060,"date":"2025-09-14T02:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225060\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T02:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:19:12","slug":"catherine-mckenna-details-harassment-endured-as-environment-minister-in-new-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/225060\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine McKenna details harassment endured as environment minister in new memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Catherine McKenna was the environment minister and minister of infrastructure while the Liberal MP for Ottawa Centre from 2015 to 2021.Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Former environment minister Catherine McKenna says federal security agencies initially refused to offer her protection \u2013 and wouldn\u2019t even show her the risk assessment they\u2019d completed \u2013 as she faced a rising tide of threats and harassment online and in person.<\/p>\n

McKenna was the Liberal MP for Ottawa Centre from 2015 to 2021 and served in cabinet the entire time, first as environment minister and later as the minister of infrastructure.<\/p>\n

She has previously discussed the years of abuse she endured in politics \u2013 particularly as the minister responsible for the Trudeau government\u2019s climate policy \u2013 but describes her experiences in far more detail in her new autobiography, Run Like a Girl, which is being released next week.<\/p>\n

In the book, she says the attacks on her expanded over time from social media swipes to people hurling abuse and harassing her and her staff in person \u2013 at work, outside her home, even when she was on outings with her kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the tweets were violent,\u201d she writes. \u201cOne popular meme featured a Barbie doll being crushed by a sledgehammer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it didn\u2019t stop with me. The messages threatened my family as well and described different ways we would be attacked and how my kids should contract fatal diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strange men showed up at her Ottawa home and took selfies outside, then posted the videos online later as \u201ctrophies,\u201d she writes. A man in a truck pulled up beside her and her children as they walked past an Ottawa movie theatre and hurled profanity-laden abuse while he filmed her reaction.<\/p>\n

Just after the 2019 election, her constituency office was defaced with graffiti depicting a degrading word for a woman, and she says her staff repeatedly faced harassment and attacks when they answered the office phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would get disturbing threats in letters or packages with bizarre contents,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

In August, 2020, she writes, a man walked into her constituency office and verbally assaulted her staff while recording the encounter. She says her staff reported the incident to the RCMP but didn\u2019t get a call back.<\/p>\n

McKenna says that when she found out, she contacted the Ottawa Police, who did launch an investigation. The next day, she says, she asked her chief of staff to tell the Prime Minister\u2019s Office it must immediately hold a meeting with everyone responsible for MPs\u2019 security.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2019We\u2019re not doing this anymore. I\u2019m on my own with my kids, and I\u2019ve got some guy screaming at my staff and he\u2019s looking for me. It\u2019s time the people responsible for my safety took it seriously,\u2019\u201d McKenna writes.<\/p>\n

But when that meeting happened, McKenna writes, it felt like she \u201cwasn\u2019t even there.\u201d She says security agencies were \u201cpassing the buck\u201d on who was responsible for her safety at different times and places, and the RCMP told her they only provided security when they saw a significant risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked for my risk assessment which they refused to disclose and cited security clearances. I reminded them I was a minister and had top-security clearance. Then more excuses,\u201d McKenna writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was furious. \u2019If anything happens to me or my family, family, I\u2019m holding all of you responsible,\u201d\u2019 McKenna recalls telling the agencies. \u201c\u2018So let\u2019s just get real. Do you know where this guy is currently? The one hurling abuse at my staff? Do any of you know?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

McKenna says someone replied the man could have been in Calgary for all they knew.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018He\u2019s here in Ottawa,\u2019 I exploded. \u2019The Ottawa Police know where he is,\u2019\u201d McKenna writes. \u201cAt some point the RCMP increased security and took the protection of ministers, including myself, more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says former defence minister Harjit Sajjan \u2013 who was often seen with a tight protective detail during his time in politics \u2013 was also denied access to his risk assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2019Look, I\u2019m just one person who\u2019s just trying to do my job. And the only reason I\u2019m getting these is because I\u2019m a cabinet minister working on climate change,\u2019\u201d McKenna recently told The Canadian Press in an interview ahead of her book launch.<\/p>\n

The RCMP has not yet responded to a request for comment from The Canadian Press about McKenna\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

Only the prime minister and governor general are provided round-the-clock security by the RCMP\u2019s VIP protection branch. In recent years, however, cabinet ministers and some higher profile opposition MPs have been seen with security details \u2013 including Liberal minister M\u00e9lanie Joly, Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman and former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the RCMP reported the budget for protecting parliamentarians, excluding the prime minister, had increased to $2.5-million in the nine months from April to December, 2023. That was 40 per cent more than the $1.8-million budget in the full 12 months before that, and 86 per cent more than the $1.4-million spent in 2021-22.<\/p>\n

McKenna told The Canadian Press she wrote her book to inspire young women and help them feel supported \u2013 though she said some of her friends and family, after reading the book, asked why anyone would want to get in politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe security situation involving politicians is not OK. And what I went through, the reason I tell this is because it was bonkers, and we need to do better,\u201d McKenna said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked to a number of women politicians, including this week, not even at the federal level, at the local and provincial level. And they are facing extreme threats, not just online, but offline. And that\u2019s not OK. I know most Canadians don\u2019t think it\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Catherine McKenna was the environment minister and minister of infrastructure while the Liberal…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":225061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2148,2138,671,104,2132,692,2147,2131,2143,2144,2140,2133,2130,79,407,746,2142,2137,2159,2134,2135,454,2139,1165,728,2149,108,2154,2155,50,2157,2152,2156,2150,2153,2136,85,2146,80,2145,2151,1458,158,1164,2141,1154,107,2158],"class_list":{"0":"post-225060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-sports-news","50":"tag-technology","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}