'I won't be bullied': Montreal West Mayor Masella addresses insult that almost made him quit

There was a time last fall when Montreal West Mayor Beny Masella seriously contemplated stepping down after 16 years in politics, but it wasn't because he wanted to give up.

It was because of a resident who didn't like the answer she got during a council meeting had fat-shamed him in front of his colleagues. 

Council meetings in the Montreal suburb are normally convivial with residents taking the mic to pose questions or politely gripe about a municipal issue. But Masella says it took a nasty turn one day last October.

He said he doesn't want the "derogatory" term about his weight published because those who were there would be able to identify the woman, but he said, for him, it was a personal "tipping point."

"I never had thoughts about giving up in the middle of a term. I've never had those thoughts before. I'd always say, 'You know what, I'll get to the end of my term, and then I'll reevaluate.' And I never entertained thoughts of saying, 'Maybe I just need to quit now and that's it,'" he said in an interview with CTV News.

"But let me tell you, I absolutely had those thoughts."

At the meeting, he didn't address the remark even though he was furious. But after much reflection, he decided to write about the experience in a report, which was published in the February edition of the town paper, The Informer, where he denounced the verbal attack and other kinds of harassment about his weight and his Italian background he has faced over the years.

• Read the mayor's report

"I have been doing this for 16 years already and have been called a crook, had snide remarks directed toward me about being on the take, been likened to a mobster because of my Italian background, and now, have blatantly and publicly been ridiculed because of my size," he wrote in the paper.

"Many people who witness these attacks question my patience in not lashing out. Maybe I have a high tolerance for this level of abuse and felt it was part of the job. But, it isn’t. So I won’t be bullied nor will I continue to stand by idly while being attacked. No one should."

Masella says the behaviour needs to be denounced.

"I had weight loss surgery 10 years ago, and it's a tremendous change in my life. So I may have picked up another 10, 15, 20 pounds, but I don't need it to be called out," he said.

Other politicians facing abuse 

It's not the first time public officials have been at the receiving end of online and in-person abuse to the point where it affected their careers.

Last year, Pointe-Claire city councillor Erin Tedford stepped down from her seat after enduring what she called a "toxic" environment at city hall that spilled into her personal life. She said part of the reason for leaving was because angry residents would sometimes show up to her house to berate her about municipal issues.

Longueuil Mayor Catherine Fournier stayed on in politics despite facing death threats from a resident to the point where she needed police protection.

The RCMP had to get involved when Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was verbally harassed by a man who was yelling profanities at her as she walked into an elevator in August 2022.

Masella said this type of behaviour he and other public officials face is a phenomenon that is growing in all jurisdictions that he believes has gotten worse because of social media.

"It affects a lot of people. I've had colleagues in other towns, other cities that have actually resigned because of it, they couldn't take that pressure. They couldn't take that bullying," he said.

Behaviour bad for democracy, professor says

Chris Tenove, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia, said some of the movements that emerged during the pandemic and certain brands of U.S. style politics are some examples why some people might feel emboldened to attack politicians either online or offline.

"It's not like things were always clean and healthy in our discussions with public figures in the past, but some of this does seem to have become more common," said Tenove, the Interim Director of the Centre for the Study of democratic institutions at UBC.

Much of the abuse happens in the digital space. In 2020, Tenove co-authored a study that looked at online abuse targeting politicians in the 2019 federal election campaign. The study examined more than one million tweets directed at candidates and found that about 40 per cent of the posts tweeted at candidates were uncivil, while about 16 per cent of them were abusive. Just 7 per cent were positive.

This type of behaviour doesn't just take a toll on the individual politician — it's also bad for democracy because it serves as a barrier to political engagement, he said Thursday.

"People who might want to participate more [in politics], see someone being treated this way and think that's not what I want, I'm not going to expose myself to that, and therefore perhaps more likely to drop out or not engage," Tenove said.

Masella said he hopes his Informer article drives home the message that shots at his weight and other hurtful, personal language should not be tolerated

"I do my job. It's a public service. We're definitely not doing it for the money, believe me. So we're doing this as a public service and to have somebody negatively crap on you like that is not acceptable and shouldn't be acceptable," he said, "and it should not have to become part and parcel of the job."