When will Canada’s political class care about the bullying of four-year-olds the same way they care about the bullying of politicians?

On Friday, Gaz Vaz-Oxlade (private citizen) made a vulgar, insulting, wholly inappropriate tweet to Lisa MacLeod. Here’s a recap. I hope Vaz-Oxlade apologizes. Her comments were over the line, and detrimental to the cause that parents have been fighting for.

Needless to say, there’s been an influx of calls for civility from Canada’s political class. Here’s a couple of examples, but there are dozens more:

Kinsella’s point about being critical of ideas vs. personal attacks is a good one. What’s often been missed in the Ontario Autism discussion is that parents aren’t just facing a policy that’s harmful to their children, but they’re facing a barrage of “vulgar personal attacks” from the government itself. A Toronto Sun editorial from just yesterday is a prime example of missing that point:

Here are just some of the personal attacks from the Ford government that parents, children, and service providers have had to endure:

• Minister MacLeod bullied and threatened service providers with “four long years” if they did not publicly support the government’s reforms.
• Minister MacLeod referred to families who expressed concern about the policy changes as “professional protestors”.
• Premier Ford referred to families with kids on the spectrum as “[having] their hands in the public trough”.
• Those comments followed up Premier Ford’s threatening voicemail to a parent.
• MacLeod about parents with kids on the spectrum: “You give them an inch and they want a mile.”
• The Ford government has lied to parents repeatedly on this issue, as admitted by one of the government’s own MPPs.
• Tory MPPs have repeatedly called the police on peaceful protestors outside of their office, or in one case when grandma and the kids went to visit their local Tory MPP.
• The government appointed Alex Echakowitz to their autism advisory panel, despite Alex’s past attacks on parents with children on the spectrum, which include the comment to one parent: “I hope your children all die under Ford.”

All of this to a group of parents trying to get access to health care for their kids.

None of that has anything to do with policy and everything to do with personal attacks. The combination of the policy changes and personal attacks have caused irreparable damage to families, as one recent article describes:

Despite all of these repeated personal attacks, a large portion of the Canadian political insider class, like Watson and Kinsella, who were quick to condemn Vaz-Oxlade, have stood by in complete silence as parents and children have suffered a series of personal attacks by this government.

Mayor Watson used the term “coward”, which is not a word that should be used lightly. But how much courage does it take to speak out when a private citizen makes a vulgar insult, but stay completely silent when the provincial government continues to bully and insult the politically powerless?