Drew Dilkens knows a thick skin is necessary for any politician, but he did not expect he would be the subject of a death threat.
Windsor's mayor is commenting police charged a resident with making a threat at a polling station on Election Day.
Dilkens was unaware of the threat until his wife walked out of their home last Tuesday morning and noticed a police cruiser parked in front of the house.
"She asked me why the police were here, which caused me to look into it and find out they were sent here because there had been a threat the day before at a polling place by a voter to assassinate me if I was re-elected," he recalled.
The voter was arrested, charged, and released on the condition he would appear in court.
Now Dilkens finds himself on a long list of Canadian politicians who have faced harassment, abuse, and even threats in the community.
"That should never be normalized," said Dilkens. "This is the type of thing we should all collectively say, this is not good. This is not what we want to see in our politics because, at the end of the day, it stops good people from running."
Dilkens admitted he never anticipated threats would become a part of his job, but then he said, "I never expected a pandemic either."
The mayor ties much of the anger in the community to the pandemic and the restrictions meant to contain COVID-19.
"There was no playbook for it. Because I never considered that, I never factored in how people would react," said Dilkens. "For some people, they just said, yup, it's the right thing to do. There was a whole subset of the population who were not appreciative of those rules and restrictions -- and a small percentage of that subset acted out."
Dilkens is no stranger to criticism, but talk around the family dinner table about threats is an altogether different conversation.
"You start showing a picture of the person to your kids so they can be in tune with who is around them. Then you have conversations with the family about what to do, how to defend yourself if required," said Dilkens. "When these types of things happen with increasing frequency -- it's the type of conversation that we have in my household."
Dilkens isn't going to say what kind of security precautions he has taken or how he may have changed his routine, but he will say he is satisfied it's appropriate.
