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The personal safety of parliamentarians has been a growing concern for years. Most parliaments have responded to individual incidents or threats by expanding and refining their security protocols and procedures. Yet, even after a decade that saw a fatal shooting spree near Parliament Hill and a weeks-long protest in downtown Ottawa (the Freedom Convoy) which resulted in a hostile climate for certain parliamentarians and staff members, MPs overwhelmingly report feeling safer on Parliament Hill than within their own constituencies. Drawing on research completed for the Parliamentary Internship Programme which explored MPs’ general perceptions of safety following the Freedom Convoy, in this article the author narrows his focus to exploring why MPs and staff tend to have more concerns about their safety in constituency offices, private residences, or in public within their constituency than when working on or around the Hill. He explains that parliamentarians and staff members belonging to specific groups have heightened concerns about security, notes the widely varying relationships they have with local police forces, and points to specific factors such as pandemic-related isolation and the growth of polarized social media as probable reasons for the alarming growth of security incidents involving parliamentarians and staff. The author also briefly reviews the situation in parliaments across the country. He concludes that more must be done systematically and proactively to enhance parliamentarians’ sense of safety and security, and to prevent fears of personal and familial safety from discouraging people from fully participating in parliamentary representative democracy
