Controversial chronicler of protests Caryma Sa’d will run for city council in Toronto-Danforth, saying she would be a counterbalance to idealistic officials who enable reckless spending and anti-social behaviour.
Sa’d, who is a lawyer, said Friday that activism “underpins much of what flows out from city hall.”
The consequences of this, she said, include overspending on homelessness and “the normalization of public disorder,” especially around demonstrations.
“I don’t have all of the answers to any of these things,” she said. “I would like to be able to deal with various stakeholders and really try to fill those gaps, because the status quo is not tenable.”
She is the latest to enter an unexpectedly open, and crowded, race in Toronto-Danforth, following Coun. Paula Fletcher’s surprise retirement announcement this week.
Sa’d’s protest coverage has sparked controversy
Sa’d, with her signature bold, rectangular red glasses and large cameraman who follows her on an electric scooter has been a fixture at Toronto protests since the pandemic.
Her critics say she provokes members of the movements she covers, uploading clips of emotional moments out of context, encroaching on her subjects’ personal space.
Sa’d said these claims are without merit. “Simply being present at an event holding up a camera is not instigation.”
Movement Media Hub — a public relations firm for such groups as No Pride in Policing and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East — said in a statement that Sa’d and her videographer create an “atmosphere of fear” at protests. Attendees, it said, “fear becoming targets of the online attention and harassment.”
Sa’d has also been criticized for being willing to speak with political extremists, racists and conspiracy theorists, thereby spreading their messages, her detractors, including the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, say.
On Friday, she defended her willingness to “speak with anybody.” In fact, she said, she considers it an “important quality for a councillor to have.”
In 2024, an investigator with the Law Society of Ontario found Sa’d to have “failed to act with honour and integrity” and “engaged in harassing, and/or discriminatory conduct” for approaching Bernie Farber, the founding chair emeritus of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, at his home. In June, her Instagram account posted a video asking Farber, as he was stepping into his car, if he would “denounce antifa” and if he was “proud of his legacy.”
“To ask someone a question is not harassment,” Sa’d said Friday.
She said she has dealt with what she considers to be genuine harassment, including “physical assaults.”
Following Fletcher’s withdrawal, University-Rosedale Coun. Dianne Saxe, school trustee Sara Ehrhardt and former councillor Mary Fragedakis have all entered the Toronto Danforth race this week.
“It’s the royal rumble,” said Sa’d. “Any man, any woman can win.”
