Brampton Councillor Charmaine Williams says she’s been the target of racist phone messages, emails and social media comments from across the country in response to her recent paid gun amnesty proposal.

Williams was elected in wards 7 and 8 last October after campaigning heavily on public safety issues.

In March, she tabled a motion to partner with Peel Region police on a cash-for-guns amnesty program that would pay residents $100 for turning in unwanted firearms.

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“I presented the motion because we want to get guns out of community,” Williams said. “During my campaign, I made a promise that I would put the motion forward. When I put the motion forward the gun lobby worked very hard to have it defeated.”

Council ultimately rejected her proposal on March 27, opting instead to continue its support of Peel police’s existing non-paid amnesty program.

Williams said she received several phone messages, emails and social media comments from gun enthusiasts in Brampton and across the country in opposition to her plan.

“Once word of the gun buyback proposal got out, members of the Canadian gun lobby responded online with vicious and attacks on social media. Many were tinged with racist overtones about the root causes of crime and the need to profile racialized people of colour like ‘Blacks and Brown people,’ ” Williams said in a letter to council.

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“People came from as far away as Kamloops, Calgary, 100 Mile House, Moncton and Kelowna to name a few,” she added.

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Williams provided the Brampton Guardian with examples of some of the social media comments, as well as a pair of recorded voice messages. The comments ranged from polite disagreement to outright vile and racist attacks.

“We got that petition from you in the mail today, and I’m sorry to tell you but it’s not going to work. What you need to do is to stop bringing in the Indian countries and black people into our country. You need to wake up, lady,” one unidentified man said in a recorded voice-mail message.

The second voice mail she provided the Guardian was made up entirely of offensive and racist language and insults cannot be repeated here.

Williams added other examples of racist comments have since been deleted from her page for violating Facebook’s terms of service.