On Halloween night, when no one could see, one coward, and maybe more than one, spray-painted graffiti on the garage doors of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s home. In English and Chinese, it was rude and any reasonable person would feel threatened.

I know Sim is a hard-boiled businessman, but I also know he has legitimate personal vulnerability as a man of color and entrepreneur who has had to compete in commerce like few of us. The rise up the ladder came with detractors that he had to face. And now, unlike before, he has a family to protect from what he often has to face in the office he won two years ago. He doesn’t deserve any of this garbage.

And let’s remember: he won in a landslide. The party he led held every seat he contested on the council, parks board and school board. He beat candidates with political experience. There was no division in the city. He was and is the rightful choice of the citizens of Vancouver to fulfill this mandate, and if you don’t like him, add him. Try harder in 2026, live with 2022, and mind your manners in the meantime.

The painter or painters with a gun should suffer all possible consequences. The problem is that this is not taken seriously in society for several reasons. We treat our politicians like piñatas. We show up at their houses to get angry. We found their phone numbers to bomb. We stop them in the streets, or stalk them, and let off steam like children who need a nap. We have cultivated a society that feels it owns a politician like a puppy it can kick. And then we wonder why so few of the best and brightest don’t run, why we sometimes attract peripheral people to public office when so many important members of the community don’t come within a mile of the search.

Lawyers I’ve asked said graffiti probably doesn’t constitute a hate crime (more like mischief under the Penal Code), but I would say we need to fix the law if lawmakers can’t insulate themselves from this growing cesspool of citizens. that they need to learn. a lesson

It is obvious that current conditions offer few barriers to what is acceptable criticism of an elected official. It is time for us to recognize that democracy is only maintained when we defend the safety of those who are democratically elected and do their jobs without fear. We need an amendment to the law to signal to the idiots of the world that their day is over.

My first stop today would be to ban any social media platform in this country that allows anonymous accounts. The way we let this poisonous genie out of the bottle almost two decades ago defies logic, but changed the game and allowed anyone, anywhere, at any time, to pour toxins into civil society without legal response. It allowed cowards a free shot, as if the targets were attacked blindfolded, without serious consequences.

The utter lack of character in those accounts should be a crime, almost as serious as online harassment and child pornography.

My second stop would be to give some public examples of offenders. Subject them to defamation laws, make them pay tens of thousands of dollars and cripple their businesses when they appear in court to defend their 280-character or other charge, and make them lose and pay much, much more than they ever anticipated. Make this a legal mission. They show their faces as they face justice. Let’s know in the community who these people are. Take away their assets as if they were drug traffickers or money launderers.

Perhaps then they would recognize that the vast, broad, absurdly open social platforms (as opposed to the tiny dark web) are beyond the reach of their youth and vulgarity. The message would be: if you want to criticize, stand up and be counted and be civil; otherwise, we will treat and penalize you like the loser you are. Perhaps then we could begin to reset the relationship with our institutions to better and more safely balance criticism with accountability. Perhaps then, the people our communities have elected would not face such degradation and we could chart a path back to a time when we could have respectful disagreements.

The graffiti on Sim’s garage doors is a metaphor for an enabled society that fears nothing more than a little slap on the wrist in exchange for publicity (mine included here, I suppose). It’s a symptom of a system that shrugs off personal responsibility and views an attack on an elected official as part of a game.

It’s not a game. It is our democracy.

I’ve had enough.

Kirk LaPointe is a Glacier Media columnist with an extensive background in journalism.