Alt-right conspiracy theories are creating chaos in the city of Pickering, Ont., as online and offline worlds collide—causing confusion for local residents and politicians.

On Dec. 30, the city’s mayor, Kevin Ashe, seemingly reached the end of his tether. In a remarkable video, complete with threatening music and fake film scratches that allegedly exposes mysterious figures targeting the city, Ashe announced that all council meetings would now be held online until further notice for security reasons.

The video is just the latest missive in a bizarre, years-long drama that has permeated Pickering’s politics. At the centre is city councillor Lisa Robinson who, along with a cabal of online supporters, has been accused of spreading alt-right conspiracy theories and harassing local politicians.

Robinson started a four-year term as a councillor in Pickering in October 2022, winning 22 per cent of the vote in her ward—around 1,600 votes. She had been dropped as the Toronto-area Beaches-East York candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada in 2021 after Islamophobic comments she allegedly posted online in 2017 resurfaced. She posted an apparent apology in 2018, but later denied making the racist remarks.

Since entering Pickering’s political scene, Robinson has appeared in at least 13 Rumble videos and podcasts hosted by Kevin J. Johnston, a prominent Canadian anti-vaxxer, hate speech purveyor, and former mayoral candidate for Calgary. In clips from the Pickering video, Robinson can be seen smiling or nodding along as Johnston calls her colleagues in Pickering pedophiles, Nazis and fascists.

At one point, Johnston says Robinson’s colleagues deserved a “baseball bat to the face” and suggested a series of violent ways to disrupt council meetings. In a subsequent video, Robinson said she did not agree with all the remarks.

Robinson also held a town hall meeting in Pickering at the end of November that was, according to the video released by Ashe, run “by outsiders with unknown intentions.” City staff were “explicitly barred from attending,” the video claimed.

On Friday, Robinson released a video, also with ominous music, in response to the city’s, calling it “cowardly.” Her pay has already been suspended four times, city spokesperson Mark Guinto said—the latest for breaching council conduct for comments on a recent show on Rumble, the Toronto-based right wing video platform.

Many mayors and councilors have contacted Ashe in solidarity, as they’ve experienced “similar situations,” Guinto said. “It does seem like Pickering is ground zero,” said Guinto. “We do have a sitting member of council that has been very public with her views, opinions, and accusations.”

Robinson is just one of a growing number of local politicians, in Canada and elsewhere, riding a wave of support from high-profile right-wing promoters who tap into global conspiracy theories, said Fenwick McKelvey, a professor of communication technology at Concordia University.

It’s also more straightforward for politicians at the local level to leverage conspiracy theories as they aren’t held accountable by a political party, according to John Grant, a politics professor at King’s University College. “It is easier for the average person to have more influence locally,” he said. “Because accountability to a party is missing from most local politics, it provides a greater opening for someone like Robinson to thrive.”

Local politicians also often need very few votes to get elected, while media scrutiny is normally non-existent, Grant added, but there is nothing unique about Pickering that makes it especially prone to alt-right politics.

As conspiracy theories rage online, Pickering’s residents are left wondering what on Earth is going on. “Municipal politics, unfortunately, aren’t as sexy as certain other jurisdictions in the country,” said Taylor Michaelson, a 30 year-old project manager who has lived in the city since May 2024. “Until something like this.”

Michaelson only found out about the controversy through Ashe’s Dec. 30 video, suggesting that much of the drama has played out online, rather than off. He hasn’t seen anything happen on the ground, but says that the problem with all the online noise is it’s impossible to tell if any of it is being made locally. “You have no idea if any of these people actually live within the region,” Michaelson said. “I haven’t seen protests pop up or anything like that.”

It’s challenging to figure out the best way to respond to conspiracy theories, Mckelvey said. And Ashe’s video surprised him. “It’s not necessarily objective,” he said. “It has this kind of sinister soundtrack. It looks like an investigative piece. It’s more in line with political campaign literature.”

Alison Meek, a professor who researches conspiracy theories at King’s University College, said silencing tactics—like cutting pay or preventing gatherings—can sometimes feed conspiracy theories that claim the authorities are clamping down on dissenting voices to hide something. There’s no one right way to tackle conspiracy theories, Mckelvey and Meek said.

Producing a video as Pickering’s mayor’s office did, or trying to fight conspiracy theories online with anything besides a rational conversation, is not the best response, Meek said. “Dramatizing the whole thing—you’re adding fuel to the fire,” Meek added.