On September 22nd, a confrontation took place between Caryma Sa'd's ProtestMania camera person and Saman Tabasinejad, the executive director of Progress Toronto, outside the Isabel Bader Theatre. Sa'd's video exposes the hypocrisy of Progress Toronto.

On September 22nd, Saman Tabasinejad, the executive director of Progress Toronto, wheeled her bicycle up to a bike ring on Charles street near Queen's Park. Someone with a camera walked quickly towards her. It's uncertain when Tabasinejad first realized what was happening. At the 7-second mark in the video , she looks up and she seems to recognize the camera person. She pulls out her cell phone and points it. She says, "Please stop filming me," as she records the person recording her.

Tabasinejad probably knows a little about film. According to her Instagram, three years ago, she got engaged to Simon La France who has an impressive resume in the Toronto film industry. She also likely knows about legal rights. It's surprising that Tabasinejad wouldn't realize that she has no legal basis to insist someone stop filming her on the street where she has no reasonable expectation of privacy. Or maybe she knows and she's trying to trick the camera person.

If she were being harassed, why didn't Tabasinejad just ride away on her bike? No one was stopping her. She asserts that she's being harassed but she does nothing to defend herself. At the 13-second mark in the video Tabasinejad points across the street. The camera person turns and we see the Isabel Bader Theatre. Now it's apparent to the viewer why Tabasinejad is here. She's attending this evening's mayoral debate.

Tabasinejad is at the debate to help Progress Toronto's preferred candidate Olivia Chow, which means convincing voters that Chow is the right person to lead the city and Bradford is the wrong person. She spends a lot of time and energy thinking about how to defeat Bradford. The next day, Tabasinejad approved a tweet that attacked Bradford for using an app in his campaign that was "based in Israel." There was no explanation why the app's Israeli origin relevant.

The camera person continues filming. The next 60 seconds of video are very awkward, with Tabasinejad trying to lock her bike and make herself presentable to go into the debate. As the camera person films her, Tabasinejad says "Do you speak, or do you just film people?" She repeats several times, "Can you stop filming me?"

The video by ProtestMania (which Sa'd is the owner of) puts on display many of the biases of Progress Toronto and Tabasinejad. Progress Toronto exposes the backgrounds of people they don't want elected, but they don't like the camera turned on themselves. Tabasinejad played the victim this day, but she was hardly a victim. She simply refused to exercise her right to leave because she wanted to go to the debate. ProtestMania's video makes Tabasinjead look silly and selfish. Toronto voters need to see this side of Progress Toronto, which frequently positions itself as holding the moral high ground.

Sa'd's ProtestMania has captured a lot of other interesting and varied moments during the election. She did a video about her mother campaigning for her. She captured audience frustration with the brevity of a mayoral debate. She reminded everyone about election rules for campaign signs. I'd encourage anyone considering voting for Sa'd to scroll through her X.com feed and watch a few of her videos. If Sa'd wins the race for Toronto-Danforth, video will likely form an important part of her work at City Hall.