The Worst of Times

Writing this newsletter is getting harder.

As the seconds tick closer to the October 26, 2026 municipal election, it is becoming more and more clear that, unlike in times past, this campaign will not be the good-spirited (albeit serious) contest to select the next cohort of civic leaders. Instead, it is shaping up to be an ugly, brutal, sad little brawl with no certain outcomes. Rather than a campaign marked by sunny ways or the winds of change, we are in the position of hunkering down as a whirlwind of misery crashes into us.

Our democracy is very, very, very sick right now. Not quite at “Weimar Germany circa 1932” levels of sick, but sick enough that there isn’t much time left to make changes before it’s too late.

***

Part of the reason for that is because of global forces. We are now firmly immersed in a period of global chaos that will not end with the US Midterms on November 3 of this year. It won’t even end in 2028, assuming the United States holds its scheduled presidential and congressional elections at that time. This is the new reality: one defined by complete and utter chaos, and where the only sure thing is instability.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Some days, it seems like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The French far-right failed to meet expectations in their municipal elections this week, with leftist and moderate candidates taking control of important city halls. And Italy’s bafflingly popular fascist Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, lost a key referendum which would have allowed her more power to overhaul the country’s judicial system. The rejection of Meloni’s far-right agenda was driven by youth, who overwhelmingly opposed the changes. On the flip side, some of her strongest support came from those Italians eligible to vote while living right here in Canada. Seems like sound of Bella ciao echoing throughout Europe can’t be heard across the Atlantic.

Other days, it’s like there’s no light at all. An MP in Finland was, just yesterday, convicted of inciting hatred after saying that gay people had a “developmental disorder”. Given financial support by American evangelicals, she’s now launched a campaign to soften human rights legislation and make it easier to discriminate against queer people in her country, which is currently ruled by a coalition government of traditional conservatives and far-right populists. A snap election in Denmark (called by their Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, after she got a polling bump following her standing up to US aggression over Greenland and incorporated anti-immigrant sentiment into her Social Democratic Party’s platform) saw the far-right surge in support unexpectedly. While ecosocialists and progressives performed well, a collection of extreme right parties did even better. And, as the not-quite-a-war in Iran escalates, we find ourselves on the road to a global energy crisis the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a generation.

While Mark Carney’s deeply cold and calculating government is following a tried-and-true playbook of doing what it can to stave off complete economic collapse by slashing the federal budget, the mixed messaging about Canada’s role in global conflict isn’t reassuring anyone. Carney’s government has been cagey about direct military involvement in the Middle East, but has been boosting defence spending with glee, meeting the 2%-of-GDP “benchmark” necessitated by our NATO membership for the first time since the Cold War. The feds are on track to fire 28,000 civil servants by 2029, but at least the military has a load of cash to maybe do some war!

Closer to home, Ontario’s provincial government has fully embraced the Chaos Doctrine as a way to cover for its near-endless string of misdeeds and failures. In my academic life (which is slipping deeper into memory with each passing day), I had long resisted equating Doug Ford with the current American president. After four trillion eight years of him, I now see that, while they differ in the policy arena, they are nearly identical in temperament and political style. Ford’s decisions have the same MAGA-infused air of flippant smugness to them. And, just as the state apparatus of the lumbering republic to our south is now oriented toward enriching the president and his friends, Ontario’s provincial political machinery is now employed in full service of the policy agenda Ford would have set had the people of Toronto done what he told them to and made him mayor in 2014. Convention centres and waterfront spas and jet-riddled downtown airports and total control over schools and small city councils and cronies galore! Nouveau Tammany Hall, just without the cool facial hair and clever nicknames. Who will be the “Slippery Dick” Connolly of Queen’s Park!?

***

Here in Hamilton, we find ourselves in our “find out” moment. The steady poisoning of our civic discourse, aided in part by a local media and commentator class that oscillates unpredictably between callous indifference and cryptopartisan belligerence and in part by a civic machinery that has not done a very good job of educating the people about what the municipality can do and is doing, has created a tailing pond of toxicity in which a gaggle of new and returning political actors, buoyed partially by the chaos of the current moment and partially by the personal floatation devices that are their own egos, are now floating.

Of the “declared” candidates for mayor and city council (say nothing of school boards, as they’ll likely be dissolved in the coming weeks - another Doug Fordian blow to our democracy), the preponderance of non-incumbents stepping up to run in Hamilton are conspiracy theorists and/or right-wing activists of varying intensity. These are political actors who are either convinced that Hamilton’s decline began 1,228 days ago when the current term of council was sworn in or are playing the part of the “concerned citizen” in the hopes that the slurry of bitumen, silt, and rage in the tailing pond of Hamilton’s civic discourse will swell and rise to such a level where they will be swept into office. A rising tide eats through the fiberglass hulls of most boats, and all that.

Few unapologetic non-incumbent progressives have signaled an open intention to run for any position, though we did just get an announcement from Scarlett Gillespie, the incredibly passionate activist and organizer, who recently confirmed her candidacy for mayor. And while more will inevitably step up as we get closer and closer to the close of nominations on August 21, 2026, it isn’t hard to see why forward-thinking people in the community aren’t champing at the bit to run this race (another incredibly passionate forward-thinking Hamiltonian, Lohifa Pogoson Acker, just announced she won’t be running for council in Ward 8, even though the seat may be open with incumbent councillor Rob Cooper preparing a mayoral run - unfortunately clearing a path for Terry Whitehead’s return to office if current trustee Dawn Danko doesn’t make a bid for it). Anyone even a millimetre left of centre (or, frankly, left of the spot on the extreme right that right-wing activists have tried to position as “centre”) will be sharing the track with candidates operating in a political reality that is very different than anything we’ve experienced before.

These are people who are living in an imaginary world where Hamilton city council, which is split awkwardly between ideological right, centre, and left factions, is somehow controlled by the minority bloc in the form of those to the left of centre. This is a bloc that numbers 3-to-5 members (out of 16, remember) at varying intervals and depending on where the angriest people on the internet draw their lines. This belief - that Hamilton is controlled by radical “woke” activists - has spawned a cottage industry built around performative outrage at every action taken by this current council. Those whose outrage is most consistent and most vitriolic have become local “thought leaders”, transmuting banal events into parts of a nefarious plot by malicious forces determined to “take your city away”. That’s the only way to describe how the same talking points, complete with the same throw-away jabs, the same clunky phrasing, and the same misspelling (purposeful or not) of certain councillor’s names, appears with regularity on Facebook, X/Twitter, in the comments section of the Spec and Bay Observer, and occasionally on the r/Hamilton subreddit. Well…the only way to describe that phenomenon without speculating that it’s maybe a very, very small group of well-funded activists in control of multiple accounts making it seem like there’s more opposition to the current council than there really is.

Even some of the “traditional” civic conservatives who we could previously count on to talk about little more than taxes have dipped a cautious toe or two into the brisk and corrosive waters of conspiracy. Whether they like it or not, many of them count among their supporters people whose critiques of the current council are little more than an inebriated stumble on the line between talk-radio-style right-wing populism and a bald-faced, exuberant, open ideology of misogyny, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and whatever other kind of ugly hate you could imagine. And, as more progressives retreat from active politics, the larger the influence of these malcontents will grow, meaning it will become more and more acceptable to not only bring them into the fold, but change your message to better suit their beliefs. What MAGA (and, before it, the Tea Party) did to the Republican Party, so too shall the angriest and most aggrieved will do to our civic conversation.

***

I do not share these observations lightly, nor am I sharing them out of a desire to tip the scales in favour of one candidate or side.

Despite some of the more salacious rumours swirling out there in the community, I am not affiliated with any campaign (the only thing worse than being talked about is being talked about inaccurately). I’m in an awkward situation where I work at city hall, but also work on the outside. I comment on matters pertaining to civic affairs, but also have to communicate about civic affairs. I have a pile of degrees and damn near two decades of experience in politics, but, since the events of last summer and lingering assumptions about my political allegiances, have been treated as a persona non grata by local media and some in the upper echelons of local power. While some of my detractors may sneer that I wield undue influence, let me assure them that I have been ostensibly blackballed. My penchant for speaking my mind doesn’t just annoy those with whom I disagree, but also concerns those who see my work as more a liability than an asset.

No, I share these observations because I tried to write a piece on a conspiracy theory being spread by a proclaimed candidate for city council in Ward 3 and, instead, got sucked into local Facebook drama. And that, in turn, reminded me of why we’re in such a bad place.

***

In 2017, while speaking to my students in my capacity as a Teaching Assistant, the class got onto the topic of social media. I had been immersed in research on the impacts of Facebook and Twitter on the rise of the far-right around the world. Facebook in particular had already been caught trying to “control” the emotions of users and it was already becoming evident (though had not yet been proven) that it was boosting far-right misinformation as a way to keep users engaged. That was the same year that Facebook helped to facilitate the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, doing absolutely nothing to stop the calls to violence proliferating on the platform in the authoritarian country.

In the midst of the conversation, I said, partially out of frustration, that “Facebook is killing democracy”. The line got a laugh and some agreement from my students, most of whom had stopped using the platform; it had begun then, but the migration of youth from the platform continues at a steady pace. Facebook’s demographics currently skew older and more savvy users have abandoned for fresher and more collaborative platforms like TikTok.

It wasn’t until I got my course evaluations that I saw just how much of an impact that comment had. A student took the time to write that what I said was a profound observation that led them down the path to being more critical of the impact of social media on our democracy. That meant a lot to me as a TA.

At the same time, the problem hasn’t gone away.

The Russian state continues to use Facebook to eat away at the foundations of liberal democracy and, just this week, Meta was found to have enabled harm against children, leading to a fine of $375,000,000 for the company.

Of course, in Hamilton, the impact of Facebook hasn’t been to as dramatic. In fact, I’d say the biggest impact Facebook has had on our local democracy is that it has made it far cruder, more easily warped by the political right, and undoubtedly sillier.

***

That’s how the piece was supposed to start.

It was originally going to be about how a fringe “candidate” for council in Ward 3 (who has said in comments he isn’t running to win but, instead, to be a disruptive force - an internet troll committed to the bit IRL) spread the increasingly tired far-right conspiracy that Indigenous people are coming to take your homes.

It’s been a belief on the extreme right for some time that any attempt to engage in meaningful reconciliation is somehow dangerous, especially when Indigenous land title is acknowledged. A ruling in BC from last August sparked right-wing fears when a judge found that an Indigenous group there never surrendered their territory and maintain title to it, despite it currently being owned by private landholders. But, as Indigenous experts and lawyers have noted, the ruling simply reinforces the idea that the Canadian government has a constitutional obligation to First Nations groups and to recognize Indigenous title. As two lawyers put in Policy Options, the ruling “does not mean that private-property owners who were not named in the court case are likely to lose title to their land and homes…It’s simply a reminder to governments to fulfil their constitutional obligations.”¹

But when your entire political movement is based on feelin’ angry, why let facts get in the way!?

The Canadian far-right jumped at the chance to rile up the base and terrify the ill-informed by claiming that land acknowledgements are somehow laying the groundwork for the complete abolition of private property rights and the mass deportation of settler Canadians. It’s so preposterous, it’s laughable, but that hasn’t ever stopped them before.

This belief circulated in fringe, hyper-online circles for a bit. A notable local example comes from Catherine Kronas, the right-wing populist New Blue Party-affiliated activist who ran for school board trustee in Waterdown during the last municipal election. Kronas has been leading a charge against land acknowledgements (albeit under the cover of land acknowledgements constituting “compelled speech” in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) for a while, focusing her efforts on the Hamilton-Wentworth Public School Board’s use of them at meetings.

The conspiracy theory broke containment and entered the mainstream when far-right Conservative Party MP Aaron Gunn was mocked by Indigenous leaders for peddling the theory. Gunn brought it up in a social media post, calling on the federal government to stop making land acknowledgements if it “truly believes in the private property rights of Canadians” and that land acknowledgements reinforce “the radical and dangerous legal concept that most Canadians live on ‘stolen land’.”²

A right wing extremist spreading a conspiracy theory isn’t necessarily newsworthy, but it got plenty of attention when the chiefs of four BC First Nations communities issued a press release telling Gunn to “chillax”.

As amusing as that response was, the belief still lingers in fringe circles. And the silliness of the conspiracy theory meant, of course, that it would spill over into Hamilton’s civic politics.

***

When searching Google for something completely different³ , I came across posts from an individual who has declared their candidacy for Ward 3 councillor.

Ward 3 may be (with the exception of any open races) the most hotly contested race in the city. In incumbent councillor, Nrinder Nann, has declared her intention to seek a third term and a host of other candidates, some more mainstream than others, have also preemptively thrown their hats in the ring. Thanks to Ward 3’s status in the city - a ward with a wide range of incomes, land uses, cultural and social groups, problems and promises - it has taken on the status of “battleground”. In large part, this is because the spillover effects from the COVID-19 Pandemic and the systematic defunding of social services has resulted in a situation where Ward 3 deals with a disproportionate amount of the “social disorder” many mischaracterize as “crime” and the effects of decades of property devaluation that has allowed predatory and absent landlords to profit off the community without contributing to the community. Ward 3 is packed with heritage homes and once-promising storefronts carved into shoebox units rented to people on the margins by numbered companies based out of Markham and Oakville run by people who let their assets crumble while extracting as much from them as the market will allow.

I won’t be naming any of the candidates for a few reasons. But, in the case of this particular candidate, I’m avoiding naming them for the simple reason that they unsettle me. They, like some other people who have said they would like to run for office in the city, maintain extreme views and have not shied away from using offensive and, oftentimes, homophobic language to get their points across. And, until they’re officially registered, I’d like to keep some distance between myself and the nonsense that they might try.

The candidate is a Facebook superuser, posting habitually in Hamilton-area groups. While they are active in some local neighbourhood-specific groups, they are most active in the local-area groups that are firmly on the political margins. These are groups where transphobia, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and open support for the MAGA fantasy of Canadian annexation aren’t just commonplace, but foundational. They often have “free speech”, “unrestricted”, or “neighbourhood watch” in their name or description, though their commitment to freedom of speech seems to extend only to using the “r-word” to mock their fellow Hamiltonians and their dedication to being a “neighbourhood watch” service involves little more than posting Ring Camera footage of people experiencing homelessness or in crisis. Mostly, though, the groups are where habitual users can post rants about “that Mayor Horvath” (whomever that is), AI-generated memes about “woke libs”, and pixelated graphics about how the Liberal Party is actually fascist.

It’s in these groups where the prospective candidate has been expounding upon their “campaign platform”, which includes opposition to the LRT (obviously), support for Real Estate Investment Trusts (the large-scale financialized landlords that pay no tax due to their corporate structure), and a plan to force drug users and people experiencing homelessness into indentured servitude (that sounds constitutional), all cut through with massive amounts of Islamophobia.

And it was in one of those groups where they shared this post:

The “candidate” just cuts right to the chase and shares an out-and-out conspiracy theory, claiming the NDP (a party without status in the House of Commons) is working to take away “YOUR PROPERTY” through land acknowledgements.

Exhausting.

So, yeah, my original plan was to write about conspiracies and how they might influence the municipal election. But, needing to scour Facebook for examples and learn more about this “candidate”, I got stuck in an angry little eddy of hyperlocal social media drama that just reminded me how ill our democracy really is in this moment.

***

The prospective candidate, along with 9,400 other people, is a member of the “Welcome to the North End” Facebook group. The candidate uses it frequently and, not long ago, one of their lengthy missives was screenshotted and posted in the group by a user who had questions about the claims. The candidate responded, but didn’t address any of the questions, instead just copy-and-pasting the headlines of articles from local journalist Joey Coleman.

The North End group is…complicated. There are easily-identified powerusers in the group who post multiple times a day about a cacophony of issues and others who reliably comment on certain stories. A group user, for example, repeatedly re-posts content from Vito Sgro’s not-quite-a-mayoral-candidate page to the point where they are annoying other group members (one recently commented “Why do you keep sharing his posts?” and I swear you could hear their eyes rolling from through the screen). Another anonymous user with a damn-near inscrutable name regularly shares stream-of-consciousness complaints about anything and everything that happens in the city, though their posts are rife with misinformation and conspiracy theories (including jumping onto the dumb little non-scandal that was the receipt of a Ward 2 Community Grant by the Steel City Inclusive Softball Association last year - nothing makes queer Hamiltonians feel welcome than 👏 every 👏 single 👏 little 👏 thing 👏 we do being scrutinized with more intensity than the actions of any other group in town).

Some of the group’s other power users have been up in arms about the state of Eastwood Arena, the crumbling 67 year-old rink at Burlington and Mary. Thanks to decades of underinvestment in our civic infrastructure, the building is, at this point, barely usable. Side note, but last summer, I ran by the building and noticed gaps in the wall so large, I could see through to the rink inside.

Based on the state of the building, the city has made the decision to close Eastwood Arena between April and September to monitor the how the building holds up, make repairs where necessary, and ensure it isn’t overused in the summer so that it can be re-opened when the hockey season starts.

The timing of this pause on programming is not ideal. This closure will last through to the most active part of the 2026 municipal election campaign, which is not great news for Ward 2 Councillor Cameron Kroetsch.

Opposition to Kroetsch appears to be extremely loud and extremely dedicated in pockets of the North End, which is a community struggling in the midst of a protracted identity crisis. The community by the bay is steeped in history, but is changing rapidly. It is home to many long-time working class residents and an increasing number of arts-focused and professional, younger households. It is a community with traditional Italian and Portuguese roots and a rapidly growing queer and newcomer population. It is home to industry and community services, a navy base and a fast-evolving waterfront, a place where the horn blasts from incoming ships in the Harbour echo through the neighbourhood as loud as the music from summer festivals held at Bayfront Park does. It is home to a vital link to the region in the form of West Harbour, while simultaneously feeling isolated and penned in by the rail lines and fast-moving streets along its borders. That’s part of the reason why Kroetsch, if I may be so bold, represents a Hamilton that many North Enders don’t recognize and represents what Hamilton should be to a great many more.

In a letter released to the community, Kroetsch said that the temporary closure of the arena - which is not a recreation centre and does not have drop-in skates or activities like many other municipal spaces in the city do - will impact some of the summer leagues that use the space, but that there’s no plan to permanently close the arena at Eastwood without a replacement plan in place. Indeed, the City of Hamilton’s Recreation Master Plan accounts for this and says Eastwood will be replaced by a new facility either on-site or nearby, instead of simply being closed without an alternative being provided.

Had someone not seen the councillor’s letter and only come across a Change.org petition entitled “EASTWOOD IS A UNIQUE AND VALUED ASSET. IT NEEDS TO STAY OPEN!”, they may have a different impression of the situation.

The petition calls for an immediate “halt to the permanent closure of Eastwood Arena”, a commitment for a funding plan to ensure the facility remains open, and “Ensure equitable access to recreation by protecting the only arena serving the lower city’s North End”. It makes its case by dipping into the tried-and-tested age-old strategy in Hamilton’s politics that I like to call “She Already Done Had Herses”; people in one neighbourhood will see anything happening in another neighbourhood and assume that a) their neighbourhood is always overlooked and that b) other neighbourhoods always get a disproportionate level of money, resources, and attention from the city. In this case, it’s a case of “The North End vs. Stoney Creek”.

“The Mayor set a precedent as she intervened to save the Stoney Creek Arena. We demand the same commitment to equity, transparency, and preservation of vital community assets in our neighbourhood,” reads the “letter” attached to the petition.

The petition, which had around 2,150 signatures at last glance, is an interesting collection of grievances. It claims that the North End “relies on Eastwood Arena for affordable recreation”, but there are no municipal programs on-site; the only groups that use the space in the summer are the Hammer City Roller Derby, the Hamilton Ball Hockey Association, and the Hamilton Lacrosse Association, and each of those will be re-accommodated at another municipal arena. It makes a series of claims about the benefits of community centres before issuing the demand that “Mayor Horwath and City Council…Immediately halt the permanent closure of Eastwood Arena.” But that isn’t happening; Eastwood is being closed in the summer to ensure it can be ready for the fall and winter season, not being closed permanently right now. AGAIN, the City of Hamilton’s Recreation Master Plan does suggest closing the current Eastwood Arena and replacing it either with a modernized facility or as part of a larger community centre, but what’s happening now is a temporary closure for safety reasons.

The petition has been circulated widely in the “Welcome to the North End” Facebook group. There’s a steady undercurrent of anti-Kroetsch commentary in the group, so the petition was like catnip for the powerusers who associate the current councillor (and sometimes the mayor) with all the city’s woes. The group’s users regularly associate any problem in the community with the councillor (helping to explain the proliferation of quasi-mayoral-campaign-style videos from Vito Sgro in the group that blame Mayor Horwath and council for problems that predate their time in office by decades).

For some of the loudest voices in Hamilton, November 15, 2022 - the day this current council was sworn in - represents a turning point. The world before was like a Norman Rockwell painting. The world after transformed Hamilton into a more run-down and undesirable place than some of the less-appealing neighbourhoods of Pripyat. History is shallow and it is only those before our eyes who must be held responsible for our misery!

I digress, but only slightly. Another poster (who almost exclusively uses the group to attack Councillor Kroetsch from one of what is, by their own admission, many different accounts) dropped a link to Kroetsch’s letter to the community about the Eastwood closure that sparked a more…spirited discussion.

***

The original poster went wide, blaming Kroetsch for the deterioration of local heritage buildings like the Tivoli and the buildings along Gore Park, speculating that the councillor has blocked “over half his constituents”, and making veiled accusations of corruption regarding Kroetsch and the receipt of heritage designation for the former Bank of Montreal building at Gore Park. While the space is, today, home to the nightclub “Mansion”, it was previously the “gay” bar Embassy (“gay” is in quotes because it wasn’t owned by anyone in the queer community, employed problematic security staff, and never made any effort to build connections between queer Hamiltonians).

Now, it would be beyond a stretch to suggest 18,540 residents of Ward 2 have been blocked by the councillor and, as I tried to communicate in the “Welcome to the North End” group, the process of giving the 112 year-old Bank of Montreal building heritage designation began in 2014 when Jason Farr was the councillor. But the original poster seems more driven by a visceral hatred of the councillor (they’ve made another five anti-Kroetsch posts since Monday of this week) than by a desire to advance truth and logic.

You will note that I said I tried to post in the group.

I have a barebones account I use for work. I deleted my original account in 2022 after the toxicity in the Strathcona neighbourhood Facebook group (where I lived at the time) became so vile, I began to feel physically ill even scrolling through it. So, had I been authorized to post, it would have been my first foray onto the hellsite in four years. But my comment was, for better or for worse, not approved. Huge violation of decorum and decency to offer facts about the heritage designation process, it would seem.

On the other hand, comments from many people, both in the North End community and outside it, were allowed. Comments from the original poster and their multiple different accounts got through.

Comments from a former Parks, Cemeteries, and Special Projects Manager for the City of Hamilton and “Special Advisor to the Board” during Mayor Fred Eisenberger’s tenure (who moonlights as a minor social media celebrity in town) were approved. It’s important to note that, like the original poster, this individual seems almost singularly focused on Kroetsch, so never passes up an opportunity to attack the councillor (and, bafflingly, add tags in each of their comments for groups and individuals seemingly at random; they will tag comments with links to the Hamilton Police Service, the Hess Village BIA, the mayor, different media outlets and, once, to TD Place, the sports field in Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park).

And, of course, a comment from former councillor (and likely 2026 council candidate) Jason Farr was approved, allowing the area’s representative from 2010 to 2022 a chance to take on, in his words, “Councillor CK the Deflector King” and rally the community to lace up and keep the rink open instead of “more finger pointing and meetings with staff.”

I dunno, maybe attending one of those “meetings with staff” back in 2010 would have been a good idea so that they could have told you that “community gumption” isn’t a substitute for the plaster and concrete and materials the building needed to survive but that the city deferred buying because multiple terms of council preferred to keep taxes artificially low for totally normal and not-at-all political reasons, but what do I know?

The group’s admin eventually closed commenting on the post and, for a brief period, all of Kroetsch’s comments disappeared. While some of his comments have since returned, the post remains locked. The original poster took issue with that and posted in the group again asking for an explanation. The admin of “Welcome to the North End” informed the poster that “several people reported your comments” and that “the people who reported are probably [Kroetsch’s] supporters”.

What likely occurred was that some of the people reading the thread reported the original poster’s comments about wanting to “head down to City Hall” to “talk” to Kroetsch about his claims. A reasonable person could assume that, given the level of pure, unadulterated vitriol aimed at Kroetsch by the original poster who entered the conversation advancing out-and-out conspiracy theories about the councillor’s involvement with the heritage designation of a former “gay” bar (also interesting that the conspiracy theory would go there), that the suggestion that he “just wanted to talk in person” was concerning.

A group’s admin can, ultimately, choose what they want to appear in the group. Sometimes, people balk at even the modest amount of regulation that occurs to keep all users safe. That’s why, in 2023, a group of rebels broke off to create a “Welcome to the North End (Hamilton, Ontario) -free speech edition-” where nobody can tell them that purposely misspelling Kroetsch’s name is both childish and, because of what is spelled, borderline homophobic! WOOO FREE SPEECH TAKE THAT WOKE LIBS WITH YOUR PRONOUNS ~~~air horn sounds~~~

Regulation in even mainstream Facebook groups is very modest. That’s why, while my egregious comment explaining how heritage designation works was not approved, comments from another of the group’s more active users and more prominent figures in the community pop up regularly.

That’s why a poster in the group can do endless promotion for Vito Sgro. That’s why anonymous and semi-anonymous accounts can spread conspiracy theories or spend all their time on social media attacking the current councillor for a host of real or imagined issues in the community. That’s why the former councillor - who, again, may be on the ballot this October - can comment and blame his successor for a problem that was decades in the making.

A group admin can cut off conversation whenever they want. They can delete posts that go against their world view, approve posts that validate their preexisting biases, and can shape the feed of a group in such a way that the perception of an issue is distorted. The preponderance of like-minded people in the group facilitates this in tandem with the actions of the admin. A group that’s intended to be the “virtual town square” for a community can come under the control of someone who allows, consciously or unconsciously, their worldview to dominate the conversation.

And so we find ourselves with a community Facebook group with near-daily posts that attack the current councillor from users who share misleading or misinformed opinions or from users with an explicit anti-Kroetsch agenda. As the bonds that tie community together fray, as people are forced to work longer hours for less pay and spend less time connecting with their neighbours, as we spend more and more time stuck in traffic in our dumb little cars on ever-widening highways and less time walking through our communities, we are left with little more than the refuge of online spaces for connection. But when you log on and see nothing but comment after comment of bile-soaked vitriol, you begin to realize that, in many ways, there isn’t much community left online. There’s just bitterness and partisan chicanery and massive corporations looking to make a buck.

***

So, yes, spending just a couple of hours on Facebook trying to do research for a piece put me in a very foul mood.

But it wasn’t just the silly drama that got to me. It’s some of what was said and where some of the posts led me that got me really bothered.

The poster who originally went after Councillor Kroetsch raised the idea that he “let” some of Hamilton’s built heritage collapse. But, the reality is, provincial law severely limits what municipalities can do and, since private property rights are paramount in this province, it is up to private landholders to be responsible citizens. When they aren’t the whole community suffers, but the councillor gets the blame, not the corporation or landlord that let the heritage building disintegrate in the first place.

Other prospective candidates across the city have similar areas of focus, finding derelict and/or abandoned buildings and using them as examples of council’s negligence. They rail against councillors who “let” these things happen but stop short of offering any solution. They certainly don’t want the socialist solution of expropriating the properties in question, but all they are able to offer are shaky campaign-style videos shouting about how council failed without saying one word about the predatory landlords and speculative real estate investors who caused the problem originally.

Sitting members of council have campaigned hard against things like the landlord licencing program intended to make conditions safer in student homes or against the vacant unit tax intended to fill as many units of housing as possible while simultaneously calling for more housing. They’ve been laser-focused on the Barton-Tiffany Outdoor Shelter, shouting to the rafters about the costs without acknowledging that 80 people who would otherwise be living on the streets have been housed because of it. Every misstep is exploited for campaign talking points, every evidence-based solution is dismissed as a tax-grab, the solution to every problem goes no farther than shouting about it.

Or there’s the absolutely incredible example of Sgro, who posted a few weeks ago about the upcoming Main Street two-way conversion. The restoration of two-way traffic on Main Street - something communities have been begging for - has become a new cause célèbre for Hamilton’s political right who are working overtime to turn public opinion against the multi-million dollar project (which includes money for repairs). Sgro posted a video to his totally-not-a-campaign Facebook page where the totally-not-a-candidate stands in front of Main Street rattling off figures for nine seconds before the video cuts to footage of a pothole-riddled Main. Sgro, in a voice-over, says the only reason council wants to convert Main is for safety, but they’ve already introduced safety measures and, besides, he’s lived in the area so he knows that the conversion will create gridlock. Sure, Sgro provides zero evidence for his claim besides “I live here” but, even more incredibly, he is barely audible in the first portion of the video because of the noise coming from the cars speeding down the four-lane highway that is Main Street today.

That’s what’s been bothering me.

Community members who share conspiracies and half-truths as justification for hating elected officials with whom they have real or imagined disagreements. Prospective candidates who whip up anger and provide no real solutions. Sitting members of council who scream about taxes while demanding the best services for their community, who fight like hell against programs intended to help the community and then blame their colleagues when the community suffers, and who pander to the extremes instead of actually leading. Political powerplayers and backroom boys who cynically exploit the legitimate fears and concerns of residents instead of studying the facts and working to educate their neighbours, recognizing there is more to be gained by doing the ol’ “those clowns at city hall” shtick than there is in doing the hard work of city building.

How, then, are we expected to have a rational, reasoned, decent debate over the future of our community during our municipal election when we live in a community that is so divided? Where some members - often the loudest and, right now, the most willing to step up and run - operate in a different reality?

The 2026 municipal election might be best assigned the subscript: A Tale of Two Cities. In one, there is a vision of Hamilton as a city still full of promise. Where we can work together to achieve incredible things. Where our best days are still ahead of us.

In the other, there is a vision of Hamilton as a city in decline and where anger is the only acceptable response. Anger at the current council for things outside their control. Angry at imaginary activists who they blame for the social disorder we see around us. Angry at time and the economy and everything new and confusing.

And, in some moments, it seems like the second vision is the one that might win out. The cresting wave of anger will be too much and will crash over us, washing the current host of leaders out to sea and bringing in a new (or returning) collection of council members.

In those moments - when it seems like the darkest, angriest, most pessimistic vision of Hamilton might win - I get to thinking that these really are the worst of times.

But there’s still that glimmer of hope. The vision of Hamilton as a city unstoppable is still there. That the best of times might still be possible.

But it’s only a glimmer. And, some days, I feel like I can’t see it at all.

1  _{Victoria Wicks and Jaclyn McNamara. “The Cowichan ruling isn’t a threat to private property” Policy Options, December 8, 2025 (Link).}

2  _{“B.C. chiefs tell MP Aaron Gunn to 'chillax' about land acknowledgments” CBC News, March 12, 2026 (Link)}

3  _{something completely different.}