Scandal! At The Disco, Part II: The Unscandalening

Where has the time gone? In a few short blinks, summer has slipped away and fall has landed firmly upon us. The temperatures have dipped, the leaves have turned, and a host of autumnal activities have kicked off. Apples are being picked, costumes are being donned, pumpkins are being…patched? I don’t know, I’m a summer boy.

You may have noticed that, as the seasons have changed, so too has the publishing schedule for this newsletter. I’ve been quiet recently, publishing but four editions since mid-August (and one of those was practically a “clip show”, so I’m not sure that even counts). This is for a few reasons.

The first reason is that I’ve been spectacularly busy. I am inundated with a billion little projects and jobs, all with varying deadlines and important dates and expectations. My duties to cover my bills, pay my rent, and buy veritable mountains of cat food come first, even if I would rather dedicate as much time as possible to writing about local affairs.

The second reason is that I have been under investigation after a complaint was lodged against me relating to my role as a communications advisor at City Hall and my publication of this very newsletter.

Now, as spooky season comes to a close and the Jays train their sharp, Corvidae eyes on the Commissioner's Trophy, I can finally provide an update on the situation and some insight into where this newsletter is going.

***

Here’s a very basic rundown of what’s happened to this point:

On Wednesday, August 6, I attended a hybrid in-person/remote meeting with some of my colleagues who work in other offices for elected officials at the municipal level. I had not met many of those colleagues up until that point, since I work almost exclusively from home and do not have the same kind of constituent-facing roles many of them do. It was a short, yet productive meeting, and I left not thinking anything of it.

In the hours after this meeting, details about my employment - sourced from an internal city directory - were shared with people across the city who are active in local politics. At this point, I have no information as to why those details were shared or how widely they were shared. All I know is that my details, and the details of another municipal employee with a similar name, were shared with at least one person in the community outside of City Hall.

The following day, some of those activists began posting on social media about my employment status. The timing of these posts, as well as the number of people who posted about it and the inclusion of specific details about the meeting I attended on August 6, once again strongly suggests that multiple people were in receipt of details about my employment, but this is an educated guess on my part. I responded to these posts, first in my own post on Bluesky and then in an edition of this newsletter.

The next week, a formal complaint was made to the city’s Human Resources division about me and The Incline. I alluded to this complaint in my August 14 edition, “The Heat”. In that edition, I wrote that I hoped to get back to posting in September after the investigation concluded.

The complaint initiated an investigation into my conduct, led by an independent, third-party consultant retained by the City of Hamilton who was tasked with determining if I violated the city’s Code of Conduct for employees. I made the decision to wait until the investigator had completed their work, submitted their report, and had that report accepted by the City of Hamilton before I began regularly posting again. This is why I only posted twice between August 31 and today.

Even now, the specifics of the investigation are confidential and the full report is the property of the City of Hamilton’s Human Resources division. I cannot share details beyond what has been conveyed to me, nor do I have access to the full report. As the report is a human resources matter, it is and always will be confidential. All I can say that the final report was delivered to the city’s Human Resources division a short while ago.

The basic findings have, with permission, been conveyed to me by my supervisors. Those findings from the independent, third-party consultant found that I did not violate the city’s Code of Conduct for employees.

I am grateful for the work of the City of Hamilton’s Human Resources division and the investigator, who approached the situation with professionalism and respect. I am also exceptionally grateful for the continued support of my supervisor, my colleagues in our ward office, and those who expressed support even when I could not share the full details of what was occurring.

***

The report has cleared me of wrongdoing, which I appreciate. Regardless of the final result, the entire process has provided me a great opportunity to sit back and reflect on my work here. That period of reflection has allowed me to think about my tone, my focus, and my writing style.

I would often rush to publish on a self-imposed schedule, rather than focus on proofreading or flushing out ideas with more vigour. I know now I need to take the time necessary to ensure my posts are rounded out and more fastidiously edited.

I try to inject some millennial humour and amusing observations into my writing. I will still do this, but be more mindful about the context, the tone, and the language that I use to ensure I don’t trip over the line into the world of incivility.

I make assertions about the political perspectives of influential people in the community. I need to be more diligent in reminding people that these assertions are based on a lifetime of training and my own academic analysis - analyses with which any of my peers in academia would be inclined to agree.

Going back through my archive of posts as part of the investigation showed me how much my writing style has matured since I kicked things off a few years ago. But there’s always room for improvement. I’ll keep working on that to both put my best foot forward and to not disappoint any of you folks who take the time to read this humble newsletter.

***

Even though the investigation has concluded and found that I did not violate the City of Hamilton’s Code of Conduct, damage has still been done.

A number of local right-wing activists (identified politically by their focus on law-and-order, traditional modes of governing and organizing society, the importance of property and business, the centrality of the individual and their immediate family, and a general opposition to real or imagined “leftist” forces), as well as a smattering of troll and sockpuppet accounts on X/Twitter did not wait until the investigation was done to go wide with their accusations, speculation, and unfounded claims.

In the interest of avoiding further issues, I will not directly link to the posts where these claims were made, though I do have screenshots and links to all of them.

Some activists claimed I have committed “multiple code of conduct violations”. This is false. These claims were made well before the results of the investigation were made known - which, again, indicated I did not violate the code of conduct - and made in spite of the fact that complaints and investigations should remain confidential until such time as findings are delivered so as to not impugn the character of the involved party. Whether or not the posters knew that a Code of Conduct complaint had been submitted, asserting that I had violated it was premature and has now been proven false.

Other activists claimed I am “leading” a unionization effort at City Hall. This is also false. I am not leading any such effort. I am deeply supportive of the rights of all working people to exercise their Charter right to join a union and have been very supportive of the unions that have represented me in my previous workplaces, as well as in my other roles in academia. There are incredibly talented organizers out there working everyday to advance the labour movement in Canada - a movement that helped build and strengthen this city in our post-war glory days - whom I respect immensely. At this juncture, I cannot count myself among the ranks of those organizers, though they have my full support, regardless of the workplace they’re trying to organize. All working people deserve protections in their workplace and should know that they can accomplish more by working together than they could ever hope to accomplish on their own.

Some trolls claimed that I have been instructed to write negative pieces “on Maureen’s payroll”. This, like all the other claims, is false. None of the content in this newsletter is directed by anyone at City Hall. Only I decide what I write. And, again, I am paid a wage for work completed, none of which has ever, or will ever, be connected to this newsletter.

The sockpuppet account referenced in the above example took a special interest in this case when it kicked off, unleashing a torrent of vitriol about me in their frequent replies to other, more readily-identifiable posters on social media. As much as I try to avoid the bile spewed from the anonymous sockpuppet accounts that litter the devastated, far-right, bot-infested wasteland that is X/Twitter, it is hard to not dwell on what they post. Though I can say I did literally laugh out loud when they said I was a “very lightly read, hack academic” who is “certain he’s owed tenured professorship for his almost unread opinions”. Well done, anonymous sockpuppet.

***

The only reason I paid any attention to the aforementioned accounts was because I needed to scour my social media presence during the investigation to locate any posts about my situation so that I could answer any possible questions from the investigator. As frustrating as that process was, it also proved to be enlightening, if for no other reason than it made me realize that, in 2025, Hamilton’s online and politically engaged community is deceptively small. To many, particularly those steeped in the strange brew of the internet, that may come as a surprise.

It definitely surprised me. I was involved in the early days of #HamOnt Twitter when residents, derided as “keyboard warriors” by some civic leaders, felt empowered to engage in the conversation and realized they could make substantive change with social media being their kicking-off point. The effectiveness of #HamOnt Twitter was such that, in 2014, a study by a McMaster grad student found that online activism (disparagingly called “slactivism” in the headline of this Spec article) was effective in helping change policy at City Hall, advocate for a more pleasant city, and advance sustainable infrastructure projects like the Cannon Street bike lanes.¹

That all dropped off after the 2022 municipal election. The takeover of Twitter by the world’s wealthiest person led to a mass exodus which scattered users across different platforms. Some have found a home on Bluesky (the #HamOnt hashtag over there is heavier on photos and art than on politics), others tried Threads (don’t know what the hashtag situation is over there; it’s much too boring for my tastes), a few long-winded nerds started newsletters…but there wasn’t one cohesive place for the #HamOnt Twitter powerusers in self-imposed exile to coalesce. Because of this fragmented landscape, many users simply logged off or dramatically reduced their posting frequency.

Now, a caveat: I’m speaking broadly about users from the centre and the left of the political spectrum…anyone that could ostensibly be identified as “progressive” or “urbanists” from the ol’ #HamOnt Twitter days. Or, if you’re a commenter on the Bay Observer/Spec/any given neighbourhood watch Facebook group in town, you may call those people “radical left Marxists” for being anything but full-blown MAGA adherents.

The political right, on the other hand, found that X/Twitter’s change in ownership and policy direction suited them just fine. But Hamilton’s online right-wing still only has a very small core of influencers who drive the conversation. They number around half a dozen, at most. These accounts produce the only real and unique content, often by gleaning on to stories in the news (helped along by an increasingly crime-focused Spectator) that validate their pre-existing talking points - namely that crime is out of control, taxes are bankrupting residents, and that our current city council is responsible for these and a host of other gripes held conveniently by the city’s wealthy elites and semi-retired political elites who have created and pushed the narrative that Hamilton’s decline only started after the 2022 election.

Around them are a constellation of committed reply guys - almost exclusively anonymous/sockpuppet accounts (accounts run by people who create a false or semi-anonymous persona to express views online they don’t want immediately associated with their day-to-day identity) that incessantly comment on as many of posts made by the influencers as possible. This is a tried-and-true technique for boosting posts on social media sites that, in the absence of real metrics, count any engagement as evidence that a post is popular. But even this collection of accounts with obscured, blurry profile photos (many of which feature dogs - why implicate a poor, defenceless puppy in your internet shenanigans?) is very, very small. They interact almost exclusively with each other and with the occasional user anywhere to the left of their increasingly extreme political positions who has the misfortune of trying to engage with them in any capacity. There’s very little evidence to prove that many, if any, of them are real people.

But skilled right-wing political operatives know that, at the local level in Hamilton, a coordinated online campaign will only go so far. While right-wing activists the world over have been able to capture the political imagination of voters through meme warfare, the effectiveness of internet-based campaigns that focus on culture war issues and less tangible outcomes is nullified when attempted municipally. This isn’t 2014 when a campaign like #YesWeCannon can push the civic scales and deliver results.

That’s the reason why, in the much-talked-about Liaison Strategies poll that just dropped (I’d like to discuss that in more detail later, so keep an eye out for that) Hamiltonians aged 18-34 - the most “online” demographic - would overwhelmingly vote Conservative federally (among decided, 46% to 35% for the Liberals) but still back Mayor Horwath’s re-election effort (among decided, 48% to Keanin Loomis’s 32% and Chad Collins’s 16%). The meme campaign might work at the federal level, but locally, name recognition and general familiarity go a long way.

Local politics is still a low-information environment. Voter turnout hovers around 33% and voter awareness of the issues is likely even lower than that (the number of people who want their city councillor to tackle crime is a wonderful indication that few people seem to truly understand the division of powers and responsibilities in a municipality). Relentlessly posting on social media is meaningless busy work when not paired with an aggressive real-world advertising, canvassing, and get-out-the-vote campaign.

***

So that’s the story so far. Details about my employment were shared with activists in the city, complaints were made against me, and, after a few months of an investigation, I was found to have not violated any policies or codes with my work on this newsletter.

While the investigation into this newsletter found that I did not violate the City of Hamilton’s Code of Conduct, I will still have to be careful around how I frame things and about whom I write. I will now avoid discussing certain figures in the community, be delicate in how I frame the decisions of council, and not stoop to the level of some of Hamilton’s internet trolls who trade genuine engagement for incivility.

Moving forward, I will work toward publishing regularly again. My workload hasn’t decreased, so it may be slow going for a while, but I’d love to get back to it. We’re under one year out from the 2026 municipal election, so things are going to start kicking off in town really soon.

I have some topics I would really like to spend some time on, as well as some fun historical things I’d love to explore. Over these past few months, I’ve had time to think about a few topics that would be interesting and how to present them in a way that broadens the conversation in our community.

And I’d love to host another Incline LIVE! event in the future. Yes, writing online can help to spread information and ideas farther and faster than otherwise possible, but that should be done in the service of eventually bringing people together in real life. As I noted above, doing things virtually only gets you so far, especially in the municipal sphere.

So, again, thank you to those who stuck it out with me through these past couple of months. I am so appreciative of the support and the kindness from readers and members of the community overall.

***

In my initial post on this matter, I wrote that I would not apologize for writing this newsletter or working at City Hall. That still holds true. A healthy, vibrant, functioning democracy is one where people with a variety of views can express their perspectives on a host of issues and work to persuade other people of the validity of those positions. Sometimes that means critiquing the positions of others. Sometimes that means taking a critical look at policies and positions held by those in power. Sometimes that means doing a deep dive into an issue and sharing your findings so that others in the community have as much information as possible before making up their minds. Sometimes it means showing up at a protest or delegating at City Hall or signing a petition or writing a letter to the Spec or running for office.

A democracy only works when people feel free to express their views, even if those views are critical of the perspectives of others. Debate, discussion, and persuasion are essential pillars of a democracy. In these fraught times, I think we need more debate, more critical perspectives, and a hell of a lot more democracy.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that should be a scandalous position to take.

1  _{Saira Peesker. “‘Slacktivism’ gets results in #HamOnt, study finds” Hamilton Spectator, September 26, 2014 (Spec link - Paywalled).}