Opinion: M is for misinformation
“His dad (PM Trudeau’s father) started ruining the country” — Constituent in the Riding of Durham to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. “Well, they’re both Marxists,” Poilievre responds.
A video of this stunt performed by Canada’s opposition leader alongside his candidate in Durham, Ont. and a constituent they called Peggy is now polluting social media, contaminating Canada’s political environment with misinformation.
I have no doubt that the choreographed door-knocking video with someone looking like Mrs. Front Porch, Ont., saying the Trudeaus are ruining the country, plays well with the so-called Conservative base. There is little doubt the Conservative base loves seeing the person who wants to become the next prime minister calling this prime minister and his father Marxists.
Justin Tang / The Canadian Press
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre labelled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a Marxist while door-knocking in Durham, Ont. It’s a new low.
Justin Trudeau has been called worse things. The problem is that many Canadians who aren’t acquainted with Marxist ideology, will take this piece of amateur political theatre seriously and think of our prime minister as a Marxist.
For those who are interested, Marxists are the kind of people who would happily take away Mrs. Front Porch’s home and business, car and everything else that she owns. They might even take her away.
Marxists do not respect property rights, human rights, or Pierre Trudeau’s most enduring legacy, the Charter of Rights.
What does Justin Trudeau have in common with Marxists? Absolutely nothing.
But in the environment we live in, many who engage in political dialogue love using the words “What about?”
They might say, didn’t Trudeau suspend the bank accounts of some members of the so-called Freedom Convoy? And what about those vaccine mandates? Didn’t the PM tell Canadians they couldn’t fly back into Canada, unless they had their vaccines? And weren’t those vaccines all about installing microchips in people’s bodies so that Trudeau could track them?
Yes, some of this is just gibberish masquerading as information. People like University of Alberta Professor Timothy Caulfield use the term misinformation. Caulfield thinks misinformation is a threat to our way of life, especially when it’s harnessed by those in the political world who wish to demonize their opponents by saying things that simultaneously assassinate character and truth.
The author of multiple books, including the bestselling “The Science of Celebrity,” Caulfield, says 20 to 30 per cent of Canadians believe the coronavirus vaccine contained microchips. The pandemic became an accelerant of misinformation. And the elephant in every misinformation room is Donald Trump. His “Big Lie” about the stolen election of 2020 is believed by up to 70 per cent of Republicans.
In what Caulfield is calling an “Age of Untruth,” many members of the public are open to shopping for and purchasing absurdity. The professor thinks journalists are playing a large part in disseminating nonsense by engaging in false balance. This involves presenting opposite viewpoints, in the interests of balance. While the viewpoints are indeed in opposition to each other, one of them may have no scientific foundation at all. Giving them moral equivalence is to insult the thinking mind.
But if journalists don’t interview vaccine crackpots or stolen election cranks, or climate change deniers, they run the risk of being accused of silencing dissent or censorship.
In the short term, the biggest risk to the public exposed to increasing amounts of misinformation, is that their level of certainty about all things becomes affected.
At the moment, millions of Canadians on a host of important issues go to the famous default position, stated in simple English with phrases like: “I’m just not sure,” “I’m a bit confused,” “I’m uncertain,” and “I’m undecided.”
In a recent interview for my podcast, Caulfield told me about a recent survey of dog owners in the U.S. Two out of every five don’t want their dogs vaccinated because of their fear of side effects. Let’s offer some certainty here.
We’re talking about the owners’ fear — not the dogs. Many of the dog owners with no evidence to back them, think their dogs will become autistic if they become vaccinated for rabies or anything else. It doesn’t matter how much debunking takes place.
Misinformation continues to contaminate the information environment. Uncertainty is on the rise and that creates a fertile playground for mass manipulators who like to farm rage and create not only uncertainty but hardcore hatred toward political targets, like a Canadian prime minister.
Justin Trudeau, historians will agree is a proponent of liberal democracy, not a Marxist. Pinning him with the M-word, is a disservice to the public and beneath the dignity of Canadian democracy.
Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.
Credit: Opinion: M is for misinformation
