Former Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips, who was secretly surveilled by two police officers in Lethbridge, Alta., in 2017, says the surveillance incidents involving Globe and Mail reporter Carrie Tait should be referred to the RCMP.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
When former Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips first heard that a Globe and Mail reporter was surreptitiously surveilled, photographed and eventually the focus of an online intimidation and harassment campaign, it didn’t immediately take her back in time.
Rather, her first thought was what the shocking revelation said about the province’s political culture.
“It’s a one-party state,” Ms. Phillips told me. “And folks behave with impunity as a result. Also, it’s much easier to break the rules and norms of democratic society when your target is a woman.”
She should know.
In 2017, Ms. Phillips was NDP environment minister. That year, she learned she had been secretly surveilled by two members of her Lethbridge local police force who were off-road vehicle enthusiasts and upset by a government plan to protect some park areas used for their recreational pursuits. One officer took a picture of her meeting with private citizens and posted it anonymously on social media with derogatory comments about what she was doing.
Alberta’s Crown Prosecution Service decided not to take the matter to court despite a recommendation by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team that there was a strong case to be made that criminal activity was carried out by the Lethbridge officers (quelle surprise). The entire matter had a shattering impact on Ms. Phillips’s life. She worried she was constantly being followed. She became suspicious of the police, particularly those in her riding. She struggled with her mental health.
Globe reporter Carrie Tait, who has been based in Calgary for the newspaper for years, had pictures taken surreptitiously of her in-person meetings with former political staffers in the Alberta government posted to an anonymous account on X called The Brokedown earlier this month. Other postings referenced Ms. Tait’s movements around the city, including in a park and on a patio at a restaurant. Someone also disguised a phone number to look like Ms. Tait’s mobile number to make calls to several people.
Online campaign targeting Globe journalist draws condemnation as an attack on press freedom
Clearly, this was intended to have a chilling effect on Ms. Tait, who has been investigating allegations of political interference at Alberta’s provincial health authority for months. Premier Danielle Smith has denied any wrongdoing in the matter. However, Ms. Tait’s reporting has been deeply damaging to the government and has caused dissension within United Conservative Party ranks.
To say that what happened to Ms. Tait is a great surprise would be disingenuous. Journalists have been targets of intimidation forever. And U.S. President Donald Trump’s constant attacks on the fourth estate have only ramped up the angry, threatening rhetoric and the threats levelled against reporters.
“Certainly, the Americans no longer have shame, guardrails or respect for the rules and norms of liberal democracy,” Ms. Phillips told me. “And that reality affects us, too, because of how it permeates across the border via social media, particularly X.”
When Mr. Trump calls reporters scum and evil, people believe him. And it makes reporters fair game. We have witnessed similar attacks on the media in Canada by politicians.
Ironically, publicity around the surveillance incidents involving Ms. Tait has incited even more focus on the government procurement scandal she has been covering. Globe editor in chief David Walmsley has said the newspaper will continue to pursue its investigation of potential irregularities around procurement practices in the Alberta health ministry with unrelenting vigour. Efforts aimed to intimidate Ms. Tait and get her to drop her reporting on the matter will certainly fail.
But that shouldn’t be the end of the story.
What happened to Ms. Tait should be fully investigated by the police. Premier Smith, who has denounced the activities, should be encouraging public law officials to find out who is behind the Brokedown account and who posted the pictures of Ms. Tait to X. That should not be difficult to find out.
Ms. Phillips believes the incidents should be referred to the RCMP and be fully investigated, but she has little faith they will be handled appropriately by any of the authorities involved.
That said, we should not underestimate the impact these types of incidents can have on the people involved – those who are targets of these harassment campaigns. To this day, Ms. Phillips does not feel safe in her own Lethbridge community.
“I am unconvinced political parties, including my own, have any earthly clue how to stand up for their own people or keep public life safe,” she told me.
“And my faith that liberal democratic institutions will push back against attempts to undermine them and replace them with some other way of ordering society is pretty well non-existent.”