WINNIPEG – A Winnipeg man faces charges of threatening a Manitoba cabinet minister in letters that contained racist language, the city’s police force said Tuesday.
The 72-year-old faces charges of criminal harassment and uttering threats as a result of an investigation that lasted several months into anonymous letters sent last summer.
Police did not identify the politician, but Nahanni Fontaine, the province’s families minister, said she was the target.
She said she has received many hateful comments since being elected in 2016.
“I don’t know if I’ve become numb to it over the last 10 years, but I think that those letters, those were particularly violent,” Fontaine, who is a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, told reporters.
“In the moment, what I was thinking was this is a reflection of the violence that’s perpetrated and levelled towards Indigenous women — like they were so racist and violent because I was an Indigenous woman.”
An initial batch of six anonymous letters containing “vile and grotesque” language was sent to Fontaine’s legislature office in July, she said. She initially threw out the letters but her chief of staff and another cabinet minister urged her to give them to police.
A few months later, another letter came, she said. It was around the time in September when Fontaine’s constituency office, in the St. John’s neighbourhood of Winnipeg, was firebombed.
A 35-year-old man was later charged with setting that fire, along with attempted arsons and break-ins at more than a dozen locations, including the constituency office of fellow NDP cabinet minister Bernadette Smith, another Indigenous woman.
Fontaine said she doesn’t know the man arrested on suspicion of sending the letters.
Abusive language aimed at politicians has escalated since the COVID-19 pandemic, and politicians who are Indigenous or persons of colour seem to be predominantly targeted, she said.
“You’re expected to just take it — day after day, year after year — all of this abuse levelled to you. And I think, for me personally, that’s one of the hardest things. I can’t respond in the way that I would like to respond.”
Opposition Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan condemned the threats.
“Manitoba must remain a place where public service is met with respect, where disagreements are expressed peacefully, and where women can enter politics without fear of harassment or violence,” a message on Khan’s Instagram page read.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 21, 2026.
