{"id":939878,"date":"2026-10-20T09:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T09:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939878\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T09:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T09:22:15","slug":"graydon-smith-closes-office-doors-after-staff-member-harassed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939878\/","title":{"rendered":"Graydon Smith closes office doors after staff member harassed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Parry-Sound and Muskoka, Graydon Smith, says the doors to his office are closed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">On Monday, the MPP announced the closure of his constituency office via social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He said the decision was made after a constituent showed \u201cthreatening and hostile behaviour\u201d toward a staff member while she was working alone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In a statement later shared with CTV News, Smith\u2019s office confirmed the incident occurred shortly after 10 a.m. Monday morning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cA constituent came to the office and loudly berated her over his opposition to our government\u2019s bike lane policy in Toronto,\u201d Smith said in his social media post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cHe told this young woman that she was \u201cgoing to die\u201d as a result of climate change and said he would be \u201chappy\u201d if people get struck and killed by cars,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Earlier this month, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/article\/work-to-remove-bloor-street-west-bike-lanes-to-begin-next-week-province\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the provincial government began removing bike lanes<\/a> from major Toronto streets, with the aim of reducing traffic congestion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In the following days, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/toronto\/politics\/queens-park\/article\/arrests-made-at-toronto-bike-lane-removal-protest\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">many have been arrested while protesting<\/a> the bike lane removal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cDisagreement with government policy is part of democracy,\u201d Smith said in his post, adding \u201cthreatening and intimidating staff is not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThis behaviour is appalling and inexcusable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In his post, Smith said provincial police had been notified of the incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cMy staff work hard to help people across our community, they deserve to feel safe at work, and I will not tolerate anyone treating them this way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to the social media post, Smith intends to open the office back up on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Parry-Sound and Muskoka, Graydon Smith, says the doors to his office are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-939878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939878","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=939878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}