{"id":17368,"date":"2025-07-23T06:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/17368\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T06:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T06:48:14","slug":"alberta-byelection-candidates-reported-potentially-threatening-comments-rcmp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/17368\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta byelection candidates reported ‘potentially threatening’ comments: RCMP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several candidates contesting next month’s byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot\u00a0have reported receiving\u00a0negative and sometimes\u00a0“potentially threatening commentary” on social media platforms in recent days,\u00a0according to RCMP.<\/p>\n

“While Canadians are entitled to express their opinions, even those critical of political figures, threats or comments that cross the line into criminal conduct will be taken seriously,” RCMP wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

Independent candidate Sarah Spanier is one of\u00a0more than 150\u00a0candidates<\/a>\u00a0contesting\u00a0the riding alongside Conservative Party Leader\u00a0Pierre Poilievre, who is running in the riding\u00a0to regain a seat in the House of Commons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Spanier said she’s put a pause on knocking on doors for the time being, citing a\u00a0barrage of hostile comments she’s received over the course of her campaign.<\/p>\n

“I had people who were telling me that I’m going to regret it, and my family’s going to regret it,” Spanier said. “Then it slowly started to escalate into, ‘If you come here, you’re going to regret it.'”<\/p>\n

\"ABattle River-Crowfoot independent candidate Sarah Spanier said she paused door-to-door campaigning because of safety concerns. (Submitted by Sarah Spanier)<\/p>\n

The rhetoric got “even more aggressive,” in Spanier’s view, after she started to speak about her support of\u00a0transgender people.<\/p>\n

“The comments I received were just vile, and not exactly something that you can say on TV or radio,” she said.<\/p>\n

Spanier\u00a0shared screenshots with CBC News of various social media comments.\u00a0One user\u00a0posted that “[Spanier is] an ignorant pig and I pray [she gets]\u00a0destroyed,” while another wrote “come to my door they will regret it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another charged Spanier\u00a0with\u00a0attempting to “sabotage”\u00a0Poilievre.<\/p>\n

Of the\u00a0more than 150\u00a0candidates<\/a> running against Poilievre, most are\u00a0electoral reform advocates known as the Longest Ballot Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several candidates contesting next month’s byelection in Battle River-Crowfoot\u00a0have reported receiving\u00a0negative and sometimes\u00a0“potentially threatening commentary” on social media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-17368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}