By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle

“Done and dusted” was what I thought the recent election was, but apparently the dust just refuses to settle. 

Lingering unhappiness in some quarters continues to fester with a recent computer hacking incident leading people to draw lines between the dots, fuelling conspiracy theories and perhaps even paranoia. But I’ll come back to this in a moment.

In many ways it was an election that reflected the prevalent current running through Canadian society in this post-pandemic lockdown environment, one of irritability and polarization.

From the get-go the Osoyoos election was polarized and it’s no mystery as to the whys and wherefores. The big-city ‘slate’ strategy of Osoyoos First and its leader Dustin Sikora who, whether he likes it or not, will always bear what many consider to be the stigma of having supported the so-called “Freedom Convoy”. 

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I truly believe he might have overcome this (and perhaps even done a good job as mayor) had he only moderated the “attack-dog” approach he took in campaigning against the incumbents. And whether knowingly or not, he clearly flirted with a populist vibe, not full-on gut wrenching Poilievre, or nauseating Danielle Smith, but definitely small ‘p’ populist. 

Surely the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for many voters was his unrelenting, fist-pounding demands over the election sign issue that in my view were disproportionately harsh. 

I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of the incident nor the outright affront that it was to Sikora. He was well and truly within his rights to be upset and pursue police action but he just kept going and going and ultimately it was just too much.

The ancillary problem however, was that his actions had the effect of amping up his nascent populist base. Social media mayhem that exhausted besieged moderators, a change.org petition, and even email and phone harassment that also extended to children of those involved. 

While much of this subsided following the election results that spelled out Sikora’s “close but no cigar” mayoral bid, unfortunately some of his supporters still appear to be reluctant to let go and move on. 

To help shield the very successful Osoyoos Farmers’ Market (of which Janis St. Louis has been undeniably instrumental) the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market Society board shed its only paid employee, Marcel St. Louis, the man at the centre of the election sign scandal. 

Janis St. Louis’ resignation from her role as president was rejected by the board, which is wholly reasonable. She is not responsible for her spouse’s misdeeds and to infer without a shred of evidence that she was party to his actions in either thought or deed, is simply wrong. 

So back to cyber-hacking. When is a coincidence just a coincidence? The hacking of the Osoyoos Farmers’ Market website with the perpetrators engaging in both financial fraud and the attempted uploading of child pornography is deeply disturbing. It seems too big of a coincidence to actually be a coincidence, but what is the alternative explanation? 

There is no way that Sikora himself could possibly be involved. Firstly I don’t believe he would commit or sanction such an illegal act and secondly even if he did, as a successful businessman he would just stand to lose too much through such recklessness. 

The only other alternative would be someone amongst his supporters. Equally disturbing, but far more likely if you choose to believe that it was something other than a coincidence. We will probably never know. Investigating such incidents is onerous on limited resources and let’s face it, there are a lot bigger problems out there. 

For now at least, it’s just easier and probably better from a mental health perspective to just file this under “the things that go bump in the night.”