By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
Hot on the heels of a fractious municipal election that included election sign tampering, the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market (OFM) may have suffered collateral damage after it was hit by a cyber-attack involving both financial fraud and child pornography.
The Market’s Facebook page was hacked on Oct. 20 at around 2 a.m. local time and was eventually frozen by Facebook after its algorithms picked up suspicious activity.
This spurious activity involved repeated attempts at uploading child pornography alongside the purchase and scheduling of fraudulently purchased online advertising.
“It’s been a bit of a nightmare” Su Wolfe, vice president of the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market Society told the Times Chronicle. Wolfe explained that the OFM Facebook page was created through her personal page, which is a common method of setting up a social media presence for small businesses and non-profits.
“Whoever it was, hacked the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market page and tried to upload child pornography and that got shut down and they then hacked my page and did the same thing multiple times,” she says. Eventually, both the OFM page and her personal page were frozen.
Part of the hacking involved the purchase of online ads that were then set up to run on a schedule starting on Sunday, Oct 23. They were set up with a budget of $60,000.
“Facebook shut them down at $1,500 when I cancelled all payments off my account because you can link a PayPal account,” she said. As a result, Wolfe is now on the hook with Facebook for $1,500 and says she’s waiting to hear back from Meta, the official business entity of Facebook.
Osoyoos RCMP commander Jason Bayda confirmed a report had been made over the cyberattack, including both the financial activity and child pornography.
Bayda said that an official police report has not yet been made, with Wolfe saying this will be done this Thursday, Oct 27. She also indicated it will be included with “some other issues” relating to the election campaign which she declined to discuss as they did not directly involve her.
Bayda noted that a computer forensic report would need to be carried out by a third party. He also cautioned that this type of hacking is very difficult to resolve because of the complication and cost of investigation which often involves overseas actors.
But for Wolfe and the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market Society board, the timing with recent events surrounding the election is a curious coincidence.
“Obviously, we can’t prove any of this is linked but it just seemed a bit coincidental that when this all kicked off the market page got hacked,” Wolfe said.
She added that the board has received a number of emails asking if Marcel St. Louis, the man at the heart of the election sign tampering incident and the only paid employee of the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market, would be fired.
Marcel St. Louis has managed the Osoyoos Market on Main (rebranded the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market in spring 2022) for the past five years.
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St. Louis was captured on video only a few days before the Oct. 15 election day removing a campaign sign of mayoral contender Dustin Sikora who contends multiple signs were stolen over a period of just over a week.
St. Louis claimed he was only playing a practical joke by replanting the sign near the Husky gas station where truckers would be able to see the sign. Sikora was Canada’s 5th largest financial supporter of the so-called “Freedom Convoy”, having donated $23,000 to the movement.
The sign tampering, for which St. Louis was arrested but not detained, was followed by vocal calls by Sikora and his Osoyoos First slate for both Marcel St. Louis and his wife Janis St. Louis who is president of the OFM and coordinator of the Osoyoos Music in the Park to be removed from their positions – paid and volunteer.
As of Wednesday Oct 26 the investigation into the sign removal had not been forwarded to the BC Prosecution Service who have sole discretion on all criminal charges. The Times Chronicle understands its unlikely the Crown would proceed with charges in such a case.
A Change.org petition was also created calling for their removal, garnering 177 signatures.
On Monday, Oct. 24 the board of directors of the Osoyoos Farmers Market Society released a statement announcing it had accepted the resignation of Marcel St. Louis from his position as Market Manager.
At the same time, it declined to accept the resignation of society president Janis St. Louis, Marcel St. Louis’ wife.
Wolfe notes her resignation was unanimously rejected by the board, saying: “Janis works so bloody hard for us as our president. She’s been part of the market for 11 years if not longer and the experience she brings is invaluable and we’re not willing to punish her for something she didn’t do. Most of us are either married or in a relationship and we don’t know what our partners do all the time.”
“The board determined it would be inappropriate to act based solely on guilt by association,” the society said in its statement. Janis St. Louis was the designated campaign finance manager for then-incumbent mayor Sue McKortoff but claimed to have had no prior knowledge of her husband’s actions.
“That’s why we called a board meeting because we have to address all of this. We are unfortunately guilty by association and when I say ‘we’ I mean the board and the vendors. We’re all completely innocent of what has happened but we are guilty by association,” Wolfe said.
The Times Chronicle reached out to Sikora for comment on the developments and received this reply by email: “I’m back to being a private citizen and I am not looking to have anything to do with politics, petitions, committees, social media or any other such matters of the like!”
He added that he considers himself “retired and I’m staying that way!”
While Wolfe acknowledges outside pressure was a key factor in accepting Marcel St. Louis’ resignation she also noted that “he cared so much about the market he didn’t want to do us any harm.”
She added: “He has worked for us for five years and he’s a fantastic market manager and he’s done nothing but great things for us and we’re sorry to see him go, it is a huge loss for us.”
Wolfe also says she was dismayed to see the change.org petition calling for the St. Louis couple to both be removed from their volunteer positions within the community.
“When I saw the change.org petition I thought to myself, ‘ask these people who else is going to do it?’ The town of Osoyoos, the fireworks committee, the Cherry Fiesta – all these groups have been screaming out for volunteers for years and nobody wants to step up and help. All these events that people think that the town of Osoyoos put on, are put on by volunteers!” she said.
“When people like Janis come along they are invaluable to the community, and the community needs to see that more than anything else,” she added.
Wolfe also underscored that the Osoyoos Farmers Market is “completely independent, we are a non-profit society, we don’t receive any funding from anybody,” other than a one-time provincial grant through the BC Farmers Market Association for equipment purchases earlier this year.
