Police called after Catherine McKenna’s office vandalized with vulgar slur

OTTAWA – Newly re-elected Liberal MP Catherine McKenna says she has notified police after someone spray-painted an obscenity on the front of her Ottawa Centre campaign office, just days after Canadians voted in what some are calling one of the nastiest campaigns in the country’s history.

Staff arriving at the office Thursday morning found the jarring four-letter obscenity scrawled in red paint over a photo of the environment minister in the front window.

A visibly shaken McKenna said she’s not sure what message the act sends to the women and girls of all ages who worked on her successful campaign, and called it deeply disturbing.

“This is really beneath us as Canadians. I am angry, and quite frankly, really disappointed,” she said. “It needs to stop. We need to come together as a country and have real discussions about real issues without vitriol, without hate.”

McKenna has been the subject of online abuse over her central role in the Liberal government’s push to address climate change.

During the campaign, she spoke to The Canadian Press about how the anonymous online abuse has often escalated into in-person verbal assaults.

The threats had grown to a level where McKenna sometimes requires a security detail, a level of protection cabinet ministers don’t usually receive.

The election was deeply divisive, and not just along political lines. The Canadian Human Rights Commissioner has released a statement calling on the new Parliament to unite the country by addressing issues of intolerance during the election.

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