BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'Chief criticizes councillor for 'inconsiderate, unsympathetic' remarks on Twitter' published on Jan. 6.
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Very rarely, if ever, do we witness an elected official openly mock their local police service’s ongoing criminal investigations.
Such inconceivable conduct made headlines earlier this month when Barrie Coun. Keenan Aylwin, via Twitter, ridiculed the Barrie police for pursuing two incidents: the theft of baby formula from a Shoppers Drug Mart, and a hockey jersey autographed by Sidney Crosby stolen during a break-and-enter.
“Barrie police are making a very compelling case for defunding the police this week,” Aylwin said Jan. 5 via Twitter. “First, going after a person who stole baby formula in the midst of a global pandemic. And second, two officers assigned to the case of the missing hockey jersey.”
Aylwin, an unyielding advocate to redirect police funding to social services, evidently cherry-picked these incidents to advance this endeavour.
The following day, Barrie Police Chief Kimberley Greenwood and Mayor Jeff Lehman responded to Aylwin, calling out his rhetoric for what it was: inconsiderate toward victims, ignorant toward the offences.
Lehman questioned whether it was a violation of the City of Barrie’s Code of Conduct.
The mayor also added what should have been obvious to Aylwin: “The police can’t and shouldn’t ignore a break-and-enter and theft from a home.”
In lieu of reflecting and apologizing for crossing the line, Aylwin elected to double down on his conduct and gaslight the mayor and chief by stating: “I would hope that we could all engage in a good-faith conversation about resourcing, budget priorities, and crime prevention rather than misrepresenting comments in the media.”
Aylwin contends that his comments were misrepresented when, in fact, he was the one who minimized a break-and-enter theft by condescendingly referring to it as “the case of the missing hockey jersey.”
Aylwin alludes to Chief Greenwood and Mayor Lehman not engaging in a good-faith conversation, whereas he chose Twitter as his preferred forum to undermine active criminal investigations — rather than attend a police services board meeting where he could have raised his concerns in good faith.
Aylwin alleges a desire to address crime prevention by mocking the police for pursuing such a crime amid a pandemic. Aylwin could have used this incident as an opportunity to utilize his platform constructively by referring families in need to the Simcoe Muskoka Family Connexions and encouraging donations from the public.
But Aylwin doesn’t seem to care about any of these issues; he cares about virtue signalling and furthering his political agenda. Aylwin’s Jan. 11 tweet proves this, in which he shared an online article reporting a man who trespassed and chained himself to an Orillia RBC the day prior to intentionally resist arrest. Aylwin tweeted in support of this by stating: “Props to this guy for putting his body on the line in the fight for a livable future.”
To recapitulate, Aylwin denigrated the police for investigating crimes and not even a week later, openly commended an individual for engaging in illegal conduct and intentionally wasting police resources.
This is not appropriate behaviour from anyone, let alone an elected official. Unfortunately, however, this is not the first time Aylwin has shown his true colours. On May 22, 2019, Suzanne Craig, the integrity commissioner for the City of Barrie, concluded that Aylwin contravened the Code of Conduct by using social media in an insulting and offensive manner when he implied, without warrant, that Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard was a white supremacist sympathizer.
Despite the integrity commissioner’s findings, Aylwin showed no remorse, stood by his comments and shifted the blame onto the complainant, suggesting that Brassard’s grievance – as opposed to Aylwin’s own baseless remarks – is what distracted from council’s day-to-day business. Ah, more gaslighting. Noticing a pattern?
Albeit one issue for Aylwin to repeatedly use social media – and his heightened platform – inappropriately, it’s a much bigger issue for him to incessantly double down, manipulate and show no regret when his misconduct is addressed.
If Aylwin strives to be more than a one-term councillor, he needs to quickly become acquainted with the nonpartisan trait of intellectual humility.
Chris Morris
Barrie
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