Councillor responds to Cambridge implementing bag check for city hall

Cambridge Ward 6 Councillor, Adam Cooper, appeared on The Mike Farwell Show on Sept. 22, to talk about the rise in violence or threats towards government officials or politicians, including his own and to explain why a bag inspection program had to be implemented at Cambridge City Hall meetings this September.

Due to recent events at Cambridge City Hall, a new bag inspection has become part of the security process for entering the building and attending council meetings. It’s new and comes at a time when more threats are being made to local politicians.

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Interview with Adam Cooper, Cambridge Councillor, Ward 6

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Mike Farwell: “Cambridge City Council will meet for its weekly meeting tomorrow evening, and if you would like to attend that meeting, as many do from a week-to-week basis, you will be subjected to a search of the bag that you bring with you to council. If you had gone to the council meeting in Cambridge last week, you would not have been subjected to said search, but this new policy takes effect tomorrow when council meets again, with bag checks as you work your way into council chambers in Cambridge. Adam Cooper is the Ward 6 counsellor in Cambridge, joins us to talk about it.”

“How do you feel about these bag checks before people come into council chambers?”

Adam Cooper: “It’s a shame, isn’t it Mike, I think so. It’s sad that we have to do this. This is not something we want to do. It is something that we, staff and security, feel is a necessity, unfortunately. This is the new political landscape we’re in. It’s not nice — it’s not a very comfortable time to be an elected official. It really isn’t. We see what’s going on. Staff have been considering this for months. You know, there was an active threat incident at City Hall over two different days. Actually, I won’t get into the details of that, but when you see that, and also, I mean, obviously, what’s been in the news recently regarding the political assassination down south, where someone, you know, I guess, disapproved of someone’s voice, and they were murdered for it. the mayor of Gatineau, Que., stepped down over harassment. I’ve had harassment. I mean, it’s just one of those things where it’s a new political landscape, there are lots of people out there that, unfortunately, feel that if you don’t share their views, then it’s an appropriate tactic to harass those people, to try and vilify them in the public eye. Go, you’re scheming and yelling at them, and there are a lot of elected officials whose families are not going to put up with that. And you don’t know, there’s a lot of unstable people out there that hear this stuff, see other people doing it and feel it’s an appropriate avenue to take.”

“You kind of just wonder, while most of it’s benign — when’s that one person coming up that’s going to take that extra step and feels justified in physical action, physical violence, it’s a disturbing time.”

Mike Farwell: “You mentioned the harassment that you yourself have faced personally, Adam. Does that harassment give you any pause about the decision you made to run for council? And perhaps your political future?”

Adam Cooper: “No, you can’t. I mean, you don’t want to give this stuff too much air. It’s something that, unfortunately, you know, can come with the job. It’s unfortunately in a time where there’s a lot of it. I haven’t had specific, direct threats. I’ve had plenty of brutally hateful harassment that’s required police intervention, stuff that said to me that would just shock you, you know, I actually have a folder on my computer that saves all this stuff that has been said to me, and I’m actually looking at it now. There’s probably about 40 items in there. I’ve been told to, you know, get some rope and do the world a favour. I’ve had harassment that’s transferred over to family members, friends, and it’s not going to stop. It’s not going to stop what I do. And I’ve always thought that if you’re not in this job, if you’re not upsetting somebody, you’re probably not doing your job that well.”

Mike Farwell: “My boss tells me the same thing, Adam.”

Adam Cooper: “It’s part of it. You’ve got to really stand by your convictions and understand that the more deeper, more contentious issues that you talk about, people are going to come at you. You may remember it five years ago, there was the Take Back Cambridge protest that I organized. It was just basically about the mismanagement of the drug crisis and the unfortunate crime that resulted from it. And, you know, after that, I mean, there were a lot of people who were trying to spread outright lies about me in order to vilify me because I guess they didn’t like that I had a voice and I was speaking up for residents. I remember somebody spreading the news, obviously, completely false, that I advocated for smashing homeless people on the news with baseball bats. And that wasn’t the only one. There’s stuff like that. When this goes on, there’s people out there that it emboldens them when they’re already, maybe angry at you, and when there is something that’s going to be said, and sometimes it can come from other elected officials who are looking for their own political gain; go out and spread misinformation, vilify somebody else, vilify a mayor, vilify another councillor and it ended up putting our lives at risk because there’s people out there that listen to that stuff and then they they start to feel justified in taking extreme action, harassment or maybe even violence.”

“So we all have to be careful. Have to look after each other, and we need more debate. We need more talk. When talk fails, when we don’t have talk, we don’t have open discourse, then fear spreads, anger spreads, and then you give birth to violence at the end of that.”

Mike Farwell: “I couldn’t agree more that we do need more debate, conversation. You mentioned earlier that you you must stand up for your convictions. And I think that’s what people who run for office at any level, do. They bring their own position and they stand up for that. It strikes me Adam, that this is the cost of doing that today.”

Adam Cooper: “It scares a lot of people away from really kind standing up for their beliefs. Am I going to get vilified? Is someone going to come after me? I’m kind of used to it. If you have learned, if you really believe in what you’re saying, what you’re doing, then when people come at you — that’s part of it. Deal with it, understand, you know, you’re hopefully doing the right thing. It’s a rough time. The fact that we have to do this now at city hall, is something we don’t want to do, it has been considered for months, and now, with recent incidents, I guess they kind of decided to do this. I’m going to keep going if someone wants to, then involve a bit of harassment, I guess that’s what’s going to happen.”

Mike Farwell: “Do you feel safer as an elected official now that this policy is coming into effect?”

Adam Cooper: “I feel that we’ve got good backup, we know the staff and security are taking action, to do what they can to protect us. I really do believe, I mean city hall, it’s a very, very safe place — It would stop some dangerous items coming in, but at the end of the day, I mean, you know, we do all kinds of events, as you’ve seen, all around town, all around the region. I mean, if surely, somebody really wanted to get to us. They could. That’s just the way it is. But we need as a community, as a whole, then we’re talking all about across Canada now. People need to start to come together and discourage this: the aggression, the hostility, the anger towards people simply because they may share different views than any other given person. We need to have discourse.”

“We’re heading down the path of just violence and harassment being an acceptable part of the political landscape, and it’s not. It really isn’t. We need elected officials to be able to come into this job and feel like they can do it and have some reasonable level of safety; otherwise, they just leave. There are counsellors and mayors stepping down for the sake of their own mental health and their families. They shouldn’t have to do that.”

Mike Farwell: “Adam, I really appreciate you making time for the show this morning. Thanks very much for being here.”

Adam Cooper: “No problem at all Mike, I’m happy to come on any time. I look forward to the next conversation.”