Finding Common Ground in Polarized Times

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed nearly every aspect of daily life. Schools, workplaces, and social gatherings moved online almost overnight. Less frequently discussed, however, is how profoundly the pandemic altered political leadership. Council chambers, committee meetings, and public consultations were suddenly replaced by Zoom calls, email threads, and virtual decision-making. Leaders who once met constituents face-to-face found themselves governing through computer screens.

For municipal leaders, the challenge extended beyond maintaining government operations. They were also tasked with preserving relationships with the communities they served during a period of uncertainty, fear, and social isolation. Drawing on an interview with London City Councillor Anna Hopkins, this profile explores how the pandemic reshaped local leadership and what its lasting effects reveal about the importance of engagement, trust, and connection in public life.

Hopkins describes herself as someone with "a very quiet voice" who never sought attention and preferred to work behind the scenes. Over three terms on council, however, she learned that leadership sometimes requires stepping beyond those comfort zones and speaking up even when doing so feels uncomfortable.

Speak up. Ask a question. Even if it may be a silly question, speak up. Because if not, it wouldn’t even have been known that you were at that meeting, except that the clerk has recorded you in attendance. You have to speak up.

The pandemic reinforced a lesson Hopkins had been learning throughout her political career. Leadership is not always about having the loudest voice; sometimes it is about finding the confidence to use the voice you have. Through experience, she came to see speaking up not as self-promotion but as part of the responsibility of leadership. The experience of governing through virtual platforms reinforced the importance of making one's presence and perspective known, particularly for women in leadership positions. It is required to build and maintain connections and relationships that define women’s leadership.

Leadership in a Time of Disconnection

One of the most significant consequences of the pandemic was the growing sense of distance between political leaders and the public. While virtual platforms allowed governments to continue functioning, they could not fully replicate the spontaneous conversations, informal interactions, and personal connections that often help build trust between elected officials and residents.

For Hopkins, the challenge was deeply personal. As an elected official, she suddenly found herself conducting the work of representation almost entirely through a screen.

We were all sent home; we weren’t allowed to meet in person; we weren’t even allowed to come into the offices. … We were assigned to meetings on Zoom, and it was a difficult time because as an elected official I sit in these four walls and on this screen, and this is my only connection to the community that I represent.

For nearly two years, her primary connection to residents was through virtual meetings and online communication. While governance continued, she felt increasingly disconnected from the people she represented. “We were just checking off the boxes,” she explained. Council meetings continued, policies were passed, and committees met, but many of the spontaneous conversations and relationship-building opportunities that characterize local government disappeared. Meetings became more transactional, while opportunities for collaboration and relationship-building diminished.

The result was not only a change in how leaders worked, but also in how communities experienced local government. Hopkins' experience reflects a broader challenge many municipalities faced during the pandemic: maintaining public trust when face-to-face interaction became impossible.

Even after the return to in-person governance, some of these changes have persisted. Hopkins noted that residents are now more likely to send emails than attend public meetings or speak directly with elected representatives. While digital communication increases accessibility in some respects, it can also limit opportunities for dialogue and shared understanding. As a result, many residents encounter decisions without the context behind them, contributing to frustration and skepticism toward political institutions.

The effects of this isolation became particularly clear when in-person events resumed. Hopkins described meeting someone she had worked with regularly on a board throughout the pandemic. Looking at them face-to-face, she found herself struggling to place them. “Do I know you?” she asked. The individual replied, “Yeah, I've been working with you on the board for two years.” Having only seen one another through small squares on a screen, they had lost the contextual cues that make relationships feel real. For Hopkins, this moment captured the extent of the disconnection created by virtual governance.

It was quite embarrassing how disconnected we were; that was the hardest part for me coming out of COVID more than anything. Interesting times. And then we had to figure out a new way of doing things, and [deal with]issues rising to the top: housing, homelessness, mental health. Those were, I think, the three biggies that we had to deal with in my municipality and continue to deal with.

Women's Leadership in Polarized Times

The pandemic also intensified political and social divisions. Debates surrounding public health measures, economic recovery, housing, homelessness, and mental health often became highly polarized. For leaders, navigating these tensions required balancing competing interests while maintaining public confidence.

For Hopkins, women leaders can play an important role in these environments because they are often willing to bring together different perspectives rather than frame issues as a contest between right and wrong positions.

She argues that women often bring a different approach to leadership during periods of conflict. In her experience, women are more likely to seek collaboration across differences rather than insist on a single solution. “It doesn't mean that you and I have to vote the same way or agree,” she explained, “but I do think we can collaborate together much more.” At a time when public debates increasingly appear divided into competing camps, she sees this willingness to work across perspectives as one of the strengths women bring to leadership.

I like to think of the positive things that we can offer. I think that women get it. I think we are able to understand overall how communities work, how families work, how we need to all work together. I think women do a better job at that, especially today because we are polarized. We do a good job at bringing two different points of view [together]. It doesn’t mean that you and I have to vote the same way or agree, but I do think we can collaborate together much more than men. Men have this thing: this is the way. Or [ask] ‘why are you being a troublemaker’, if you are not voting the same way or if you bring up a certain motion. I would never say to my colleagues, or my male colleagues, that they’re being a troublemaker. … It is a different perspective; it’s okay to disagree.

Periods of polarization can therefore highlight strengths that are sometimes overlooked in political leadership, including collaboration, relationship-building, and openness to multiple viewpoints. At the same time, these environments can create additional challenges for women leaders. Increased public frustration often brings heightened scrutiny, criticism, and personal attacks. Hopkins noted that women, particularly those who may already feel vulnerable due to age, living circumstances, or other factors, can face unique pressures when political tensions intensify.

The pandemic thus revealed both the opportunities and challenges facing women in public leadership. While their approaches to collaboration and engagement may be especially valuable during difficult periods, they must often navigate these environments under greater personal and political pressure.

Communication

Hopkins also points out how the change in methods of communication between the City and citizens has helped increase polarization. Though we are no longer bound to computer screens, this polarization remains as the public is less inclined to go back to face-to-face interactions with their councillor and are more drawn to writing emails as opposed to calling directly like before.

I could get up to 100 emails in a day; that’s a lot of emails when you think of all the other things I’ve got: I’ve got committee work, I’ve got board meetings to go to, [and] I have to meet with residents. Our workload has really intensified, and a lot of that is because of the way we communicate now. I read a stat when we were going through the budget last year that in the past 4 years, here at City Hall, emails have increased by 30%. That tells you everything when it comes to how we communicate; now people don’t phone. … I think that that is a big part of how we have become polarized as well.

Usually, after about the fourth or fifth email, I will tell the resident, please call me, because it takes so much time to read all these emails back and forth, back and forth, that after a while I sometimes forget what the issue originally was. If it’s really important, just give me a phone call. And residents don’t usually phone. While I think that the screen gives an opportunity for residents and it's great for me to hear their concerns, they don’t have all the information, so they’ll make a comment like ‘don’t support the site plan application’. Well, I have to support it; it’s part of our policy, but there is no understanding or information shared; it’s getting harder and harder.

This means that the public remains less informed than they were before the pandemic, which causes them to question the decisions which are being made, leading to growing frustration, especially in regard to the decisions about current crises such as housing, homelessness and mental health. This disconnect between the public and their leaders creates a polarized landscape for leadership where the public feels that they aren’t being heard or well enough informed and leaders are being faced with more skepticism and anger than ever before.

Rebuilding Trust Through Engagement

For Hopkins, one of the clearest lessons of the pandemic was the importance of public engagement. The experience reinforced her belief that effective leadership depends not only on making decisions, but also on creating opportunities for people to understand, question, and participate in those decisions.

There’s a lot of information out there that I don’t even know because of all the changes, so we have to work harder at making sure we are all informed. It’s not just about getting back and communicating and answering an email, I get texts now, …‘what about this; what about that’. It’s like, put it in an email so at least I have a record of it, and I can go back to it. That’s not public engagement, just because you have reached out to a counsellor. It’s sharing information and listening to one another and understanding things; we need to do more of that.

Rather than accepting the new distance between residents and councillors as permanent, Hopkins deliberately sought ways to reconnect with residents. She began organizing information sessions in libraries and community centres throughout Ward 9, bringing staff and residents together to discuss major city initiatives and issues such as transportation, development, and infrastructure. These forums provide residents with opportunities to ask questions, learn about ongoing initiatives, and better understand how decisions are being made on their behalf.

For Hopkins, these sessions are about more than sharing information. They are about rebuilding relationships. As she explains, “It's not public engagement just because you have reached out to a councillor. It's sharing information and listening to one another and understanding things.”

So I have made it a point now, every year I hold 4 information sessions, picking a topic like climate emergency or the mobility plan, or whatever big plan we are going through as a city, I have staff there, I invite the public to attend the meeting at the library or a community center in the ward, to share information and to have me listen to concerns. It’s not about debating an issue; it's sharing information, because community residents have less information these days.

Research from the International Association for Public Participation Canada supports this approach, finding that direct engagement through public forums and community discussions can strengthen trust and reduce feelings of alienation from political processes. In this sense, rebuilding relationships after the pandemic requires more than returning to in-person meetings. It requires intentionally creating spaces where meaningful dialogue can occur.

Hopkins also reflected on a mentoring relationship she maintained during the pandemic. Despite the challenges of distance and isolation, she continued checking in with a young woman interested in public service. Years later, the former mentee contacted her to explain how much those conversations had mattered in shaping her career path.

I was part of a mentoring program through COVID, and I still remember bringing the mentee that I had at the time. … We were shutting down here at City Hall, and I wanted her to see the offices. We couldn’t come in, and we were told we could go up to the cafeteria and have a cup of coffee, but we had to sit separately. Those were really difficult times, and I think we persevered, though, as much as we were disconnected in our meetings on Zoom; square faces don’t really connect. … It's all up to us to do something. So with this mentee, we were disconnected most of that year, but we kept on having conversations … through phone calls, or we’d just meet once in a while. She reached out to me not too long ago and really appreciated those conversations, which I didn’t think really even mattered, but I think that sometimes we don’t realize that if you keep at it…: keep talking about issues, keep talking about concerns. It's not changing a big policy; it's making those little steps. She reached out to me, and she was reflecting on a new job. She wanted to work with policy in the federal government, and now she works for a smaller municipality. Her journey went a different way than she thought, and I just reflect back that sometimes we don’t realize how we are influenced along the way, and it's hard to do because we were disconnected.

The experience reminded Hopkins that leadership often operates through small acts of encouragement that may not seem significant at the time. Even during periods of isolation, relationships remained central to how leaders support and inspire others. Hopkins also expressed optimism about the growing involvement of younger residents in local politics. She pointed to increased youth participation at recent budget meetings and a broader willingness among younger generations to engage with community issues. This renewed civic interest offers an encouraging sign for the future of local democracy.

Looking Beyond the Pandemic

As municipalities confront ongoing issues such as housing affordability, homelessness, and mental health, the lessons learned during the pandemic suggest that strong leadership depends not only on policy solutions but also on maintaining meaningful connections with the people those policies are intended to serve.

The pandemic exposed the fragility of the relationships that connect leaders and communities, while also highlighting the importance of communication, trust, and engagement in effective governance. For Anna Hopkins, the experience reinforced a simple but important lesson: leadership is ultimately about relationships. Whether through public meetings, community forums, or everyday conversations, rebuilding those relationships remains essential to addressing the challenges that communities continue to face.

Despite the challenges she identifies, Hopkins remains optimistic. Much of that optimism comes from seeing younger residents become involved in local politics. Reflecting on recent budget meetings, she described young people attending, asking questions, and expressing their views as “my happy place.”

I do think that the public, when it comes to that polarization, has to be informed, and we need to do a better job at helping that happen, but ultimately, it's up to the public to come together. I really look at young people today … because that’s what we did back in the 70s. We’ve stopped doing that; we’ve stopped having those conversations. It is up to younger people today to take that on, to be a little bit more informed and a little bit more engaged. At the budget session, when I see young people engaged, that’s my happy place because I know that they are the ones that are going to change things; that it is not going to the older generation, it’s going to be the younger people realizing ‘oh wait a minute, I have a say about the budget, I can come and express myself’.

Looking back, Hopkins sees the pandemic as a reminder that democracy depends on engagement. Technology may help bridge distances, but it cannot replace the relationships that sustain communities and public life. As she reflected, "You don't want to do it the way we did it through COVID. That's not how a democracy works." For Hopkins, the future of local leadership lies not in more screens or more emails, but in creating opportunities for people to listen, learn, and work together.