Hamilton city councillor says that her home was egged

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Published August 11, 2021 at 3:56 am

City councillor Maureen Wilson represents Ward 1 in downtown Hamilton.

A Hamilton city councillor says that her home was egged by vandals overnight early Tuesday — hours after she voted against a motion to resume enforcing encampment evictions.

Ward 1 city councillor Maureen Wilson shared photos on Twitter that showed that eggs were thrown against the “entire front” of her home. Wilson did not elaborate on whether she filed a police report, but said the vandals were males in a black pickup truck.

“To the guys in the black pickup who woke up my kids in the middle of last night & egged the entire front of my home — if you don’t like my vote on the Encampment issue then feel free to cast your ballot accordingly next fall,” Wilson wrote, referring to the municipal election scheduled for Oct. 24, 2022. “But leave my kids and family out of this.”

Wilson did not elaborate on why she connected the  aggression to her vote on that particular motion. Ward 8 Coun. John-Paul Danko, who is male, also voted against the motion. Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann said she would have voted no if a medical appointment had not prevented her from attending the emergency meeting.

Danko and Wilson also brought forth a motion, which was passed unanimously by the city planning committee on Tuesday, to implement a landlord licensing pilot project, starting this fall. It still needs to be ratified by the entire council.

Aggressive behaviour against female politicians is not unheard of in Ontario. Former Liberal cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, who is a Hamilton native, faced a string of online hate and verbal and physical attacks on her constituency office during her six years in federal politics. 

In August 2020, a rock was tossed through the window of Ottawa city councillor and deputy mayor Laura Dudas’s home. 

Wilson was elected to council in 2018. Ward 1, known as the Chedoke-Cootes area, is located in the west end of Hamilton, north of the Niagara Escarpment.

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