People are angry at council. Fair enough. There are real decisions to question and real votes to track. But if we are honest about what is warping local democracy right now, the damage is starting long before anything reaches the council table. It is starting on Facebook.
The biggest example is What’s Happening in Northbrook/Flinton/Kaladar/Cloyne & Area (Ontario). That group is pushing toward 18,000 members. At that size, it is not just a casual chat anymore. It functions as public infrastructure. It is the main bulletin board for a huge part of this region.
Inside that group, one of the admins is on record saying:
“I helped Regent win last election, but not this time.”
Read that again. That one line tells the whole story.
If you run what you present as a neutral “community group,” but you openly brag that you helped one candidate win and now plan to turn that machine against them, you are no longer a neutral moderator. You are a political actor. When you then quietly decide which posts, links and articles get through based on who you personally want elected, you are using a community platform to tilt an election. In practical terms, it crosses into election interference.
Let me be clear about something else. We know who said what. We know who the admins are. We have receipts. I am not naming names in this piece. This is a warning shot, not a full call out. Everyone involved knows exactly which side of the line they are standing on right now.
This is not just about one group, either. The same behaviour shows up across multiple local pages. Palmerston. Northbrook. Plevna. Ompah. Kashawakamak. Buckshot. In the end it comes down to the same small circle, maybe four to six people, quietly deciding what eighteen thousand plus residents are allowed to see.
The BESS fight this fall was the clearest example. A petition built on false claims and scare tactics was allowed on every major local Facebook page and even community halls and Lake Associations got in on the fear mongering and “discussion”. It was treated as normal “community concern” and pushed hard. No one said it was “too political.” No one blocked it. No one demanded both sides.
Yet, At the same time, fact-based coverage meant to lay out what BESS actually is, what the proposal actually said, and what questions still needed answers was blocked or buried. A petition full of fear was approved. An accredited journalist trying to give residents information so they could think for themselves was censored and blocked by the same admins selling fear, promoting misinformation, and selling fear based narrative instead democratic fact based discussion.
That is not “keeping the peace.” That is not “avoiding drama.” That is using admin powers to decide which version of reality the community is allowed to see. By the time people walk into a council meeting, most have already been conditioned. They have seen one side amplified and the other side silenced. Council then faces a room that has been primed by a handful of unelected gatekeepers operating in the background. Residents think they are witnessing a grassroots uprising. In reality, they are often seeing the result of deliberate filtering upstream.
If you run a community group and want to participate in politics, fine. Say so. Put it in the description. Call it a political page. Tell people up front that you support particular candidates and that your moderation will reflect that. At least then everyone knows the rules.
What is completely unacceptable is pretending to be a neutral “community hub” while quietly suppressing independent reporting, blocking candidates you dislike, and shaping what people can read based on your own ballot.
If you are a member of these groups, you have a choice to make. You can accept that six to eight unelected locals filter nearly everything you see about township politics and debate, Or you can start demanding basic standards: equal access for all candidates, consistent rules for petitions and articles, and no more shadow bans on independent media. Facebook is not looking out for us as Canadians. We should not even be using it for the simple fact we are not even allowed to share our own news on it.
Council still deserves scrutiny on its own record. They will keep getting that scrutiny. But if we want a healthier local democracy, we have to stop pretending the only problem sits at the council table.
Right now, a big part of the problem sits in private admin chats, on the back-end of Facebook groups, where unelected neighbours are quietly deciding who gets heard and who gets erased.
This is their warning. The next time, I will be bringing receipts.
-North Frontenac News Media
