Toronto mayoral candidate Celina Caesar-Chavannes is speaking out after someone wrote racist and derogatory remarks about her on a news clipping and sent it to her current employer, Queen’s University.
Caesar-Chavannes posted an image of the letter on her Instagram account on Wednesday and wrote in the caption, “This week has been a lot.”
The former Whitby Member of Parliament told Now Toronto that the letter was addressed to Queen’s University Principal Patrick Deane, but was intercepted by security.
Caesar-Chavannes works part-time at the university as a Sr. Advisor of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Initiatives and Adjunct Lecturer.
The news clipping has comments written on it calling Caesar-Chavannes an “illiterate” N-word and an “abrasive egoist with major mental problems.”
Caesar-Chavannes says she wasn’t shocked but disappointed to see the disturbing remarks. Unfortunately, she’s received this type of hate mail before.
“One of the things that I don’t really talk about is that I’ve had death threats. My children have had death threats,” Caesar-Chavannes told Now Toronto on Thursday.
READ MORE: Former MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes enters Toronto’s mayoral race
Upon first learning about the letter, Caesar-Chavannes said she wanted to retreat from the Toronto by-election and questioned why she was re-entering politics after leaving her federal seat in 2019.
But, she says there’s a greater service to act and make sure “hate does not win.”
“Hate has proven, it has the audacity, if we’re talking politics, to run in an election, to win an election. We’ve seen it not just in the U.S. but other places in the world. And we even see it here in Toronto. That fear, even in this election, that we can cater to the lowest denominator of our humanity, our fear and anxiety, and that is a strategy. And that can’t be a strategy,” she said.
“Hate, fear, anxiety, it’s not normal… so we can’t keep treating it like it’s OK because it’s not OK, it’s not normal behaviour. We can do better, we are better,” she added.
Although she was scared by the letter, it motivated her to win the election and “do politics differently.”
“Love can win, hope can win. A vision of Toronto that doesn’t involve fear and, you know, suspicion of our neighbours is better, there’s a better way, and I’m willing to offer that to them (residents),” she said.
Caesar-Chavannes is among a long list of candidates running in the race to be mayor, including city councillors Josh Matlow and Brad Bradford, former city councillors Olivia Chow and Ana Bailão, and former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, among others.
The mayoral by-election is set for June 26.
