The Pollution of Baked-In Misinformation in Canadian Politics

The reason jurisdiction matters is that elected Members of Parliament routinely mislead the media, and the public by making accusations of the impossible

I find it painful to watch most politics. I find most of it profoundly and instantly irritating and unpleasant - like suddenly discovering yourself being swarmed with ants under your shirt.

In a world where the prevailing political mood is profound nausea, I usually focus on the things that are the most egregious that come across my radar.

I am interested in the reality of the actions and their consequences, which means ignoring the B.S. as much as possible.

Sometimes that proves impossible, because the B.S. comes to the fore and dominates the debate - when politicians and the media traffic in ideas that are technically and realistically impossible, but the public is being led to believe otherwise.

The whole thing hangs on technicalities about the way government actually works in Canada, but the result is that our entire political discourse is being polluted with bad information.

And by bad information, and a polluted debate, I mean that we are arguing about things that are imaginary and impossible, when the facts of the matter are very clear and the rules are clearly stated in black and white.

People are being accused of being to blame for things that they could not possibly be responsible for. It is not about partisan disagreement, or differences in values. It’s dishonest political theatre, and what’s more, and it’s not new: these are well-rehearsed political manoeuvres that, despite their dishonesty, are used all the time by multiple parties.

All Talk, No Action: Passing Off Lip Service

The first two are both related to the same parliamentary process - having a debate and a vote on a proclamation.

A parliamentary proclamation is just that: it is a statement, and it has no impact beyond the statement. When legislatures vote to condemn or support some event or community, the proclamation doesn’t come with any money or authority to make it happen. It’s a form of offical lip service.

It is not legislation, and it cannot make things happen. This is important, especially when it comes to the understanding of government in Canada.

Opposition political parties routinely present these debates as if the government is voting on a law or on spending that will make a difference, when they have no impact and are not binding. A proclamation has even less impact than legislation with no spending attached.

That’s why I found it galling to read this headline and some of the comments in Canada’s the Globe and Mail, ostensibly Canada’s paper of record:

The headline “Liberals say…” makes it sound as if it is a political position, when it is a statement of fact. The journalist, Bill Curry, is a veteran and the Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief.

“The minority Liberal government says it is not bound by a House of Commons vote this week calling on it to release a budget or economic update before the summer recess.”

It goes on:

Liberal Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon played down the implications of the vote earlier in the day.

“It was a non-binding advisory resolution of the House of Commons. I suspect you’re going to see a lot more of them,” he told reporters on his way in to a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill.

These are not opinions. The fact that it is not binding is due to a fundamental rule of the way Canada’s parliament and legislatures work. Proclamations are also a routine part of the legislative process. Every Canadian should know they are not binding.

Instead, we’re treated to phony drama over and over, on proclamations whose only purpose is often nothing but dreary political gamesmanship.

Pointless Delaying Tactics Being Passed Off As Opposition

A second example of a hackneyed political tactic was a video from a Manitoba Government MLA who complained that the Opposition had played procedural games in order to keep MLAs sitting until the middle of the night. In 2020, when the parties were reversed, the Opposition had done exactly the same, so they could say that the government had chosen to pass their budget under the cover of darkness. Having engineered the situtation themselves, they they accuse of the other side of suspicious behaviour.

It’s all incredibly tedious, in every possible way, but despite the repetion, politicians and media alike go along with the charade.

Blaming the Federal Government for Failures that are Provincial Jurisdiction

The latest example of this was reported by APTN News, which said that Leah Gazan, an NDP Member of Parliament from Manitoba had called for an Emergency Debate in the House of Commons about the devastating wildfires that have forced the relocation of 17,000 people from the North. The smoke from the fires has blanketed North America.

The article reads:

“The NDP is taking the federal Liberal government to task for failing to react quickly enough to raging wildfires in Manitoba.

“I’ve been speaking to some of the leadership in northern Manitoba who are trying to get their folks evacuated and the response I’ve heard is it has been quite bureaucratic,” Winnipeg NDP MP Leah Gazan said outside the House of Commons on Monday. “People aren’t getting the information that they need and they’re saying, ‘Look, people over bureaucracy. This is a crisis and we need to get people out quickly.’”

Calling for an Emergency Debate is perfectly appropriate, because First Nations have complained that there have been bureaucratic delays.

However, the place this debate really needs to happen is the Manitoba Legislative Assembly - because that is the level government that is legally responsible for Emergency response.

As the Government of Canada makes clear, in Canada, Emergency response starts at the local level of municipalities, then provinces, who have to declare a state of emergency and ask the Federal Government for assistance.

Under “Wildfires” the Government of Canada webpage makes it clear:

In Canada, emergencies are managed first at the local and then at the provincial or territorial level; if they need help, they can ask the federal government for more resources. The Government of Canada has programs, policies, and initiatives to keep Canadians informed about the wildfire situation and to support provincial and territorial efforts to combat wildfires.

It’s still the provincial or territorial government that is responsible, even when the Federal Government is helping.

In Manitoba, the responsibility for fighting fires, evacuations, and preparedness lies with the Emergency Measures Organization, which has been in place since 1959.

EMO is “A central coordinating body ensures clear and consistent direction and communication with partners and stakeholders in mitigating against, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from emergencies and disasters.”

This is part of a bigger problem with how we talk about politics in Canada, generally.

Someone may have a perfectly valid complaint about government failing to prepare, or failing to deliver, but they may well be blaming the wrong level of government.

It is routine to blame the Federal Government for things over which they have no control, it is a political strategy that has been repeated so often our entire sense of how government works in Canada is totally distorted.

Once in a while you’ll hear someone say “Canada is one of the most decentralized countries in the world,” and what that really means is that the provinces have more power and responsibility than states or provinces in other countries do.

People treat Canada as if Ottawa is head office, and the provinces and municipalities and First Nations are all just branches of a giant conglomerate.

There’s a kind of belief that if you have a problem at a lower level, you just have to go over their heads to their manager. If you have a problem with a Mayor, go to the Premier. If you have a problem with the Premier, go to the Prime Minister.

The problem is, that’s not how Canada works. Legally, the Federal Government often has no power to step and and fix whatever the provincial government is ruining. If they do, Premiers will scream that the federal government is interfering in provincial jurisdiction.

In Canada, the combined budgets of provinces and municipalities exceeds the budget of the Federal Government, and their capital assets - especially infrastructure - far exceed the property held by the Government of Canada.

For Provinces, this strategy is the gift that keeps on giving. They are responsible for nothing - everything is blamed on the Federal government, even when it is impossible.

And by impossible, I mean that there are rules in place in the Constitution and in legislation that make it impossible for the Federal Government to Act. It’s the province’s job.

20 years ago, I worked, briefly, for Western Economic Diversification Canada, a Federal Government department that made announcements of grants and investments in infrastructure projects that were split between all three levels of government.

I sat on the Communications Committee of the “Canada-Manitoba Infrastructure Secretariat” and had the pleasure of setting up press conferences for Federal, provincial and municipal politicians, and writing speeches that politicians didn’t read, announcing projects they had nothing to do with choosing, being paid for with someone else’s money.

What I learned from this is that, in my province at least:

• The Federal Government has the most money, and the least number of things to spend it on

• Provincial Governments have a bit of money, and lots of very costly programs to run (health care, education)

• Cities have almost no money, and have huge unmet infrastructure needs.

This was always reflected in the cost-sharing, which was not 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 because muicipaliities - who have to balance their budgets every year - couldn’t afford it. Instead, it might be 50% federal, 30% provincial, 20% (or less) municipal.

The strategy of blaming everything on the Federal Government by conservative Premiers is because they are campaigning, not for themselves, but for their Federal Conservative counterparts. The same talking points, the same speeches, the same questions, the same slogans - even the same legislation.

By contrast, Federal NDP MPs are effectively campaiging for their provincial counterparts (when you buy a membership in the NDP, you become a member of both).

From a practical point of view - it means that for people who have a grievance, they can’t get their problem sorted.

It’s like going to the wrong store entirely - like going to a cellphone store when what you want to buy a pet.

This really is bad for democracy, because it’s not based in reality, and it flies in the face of accountability.

If Emergency Measures are failing, it is the legal responsibility of the provincial government, and blaming the wrong level of government makes for confusion, frustration and anger in what is already a crisis.

For reporters and the media, politicians are deliberately putting them in a tough spot. Stories do have fact checking, but a source’s quoted statements are their quoted statements. Accusations of the impossible stand, all the time.

Provinces are responsible for income supports; housing and rent control; roads, highways, bridges; health care, mental health hospitals, addictions, long-term care; families and children, natural resources, the environment; K-12 and post-secondary education, as well as creating and regulating municipalities and land use, as well as labour law, business and securities regulation.

The vast majority of the most important programs that have impacts on Canadians everyday lives are the responsibility of either provincial or municipal governments, though the Federal Government does play a role in funding.

This is not reflected in our politics, and it is a problem. How are voters and citizens supposed to engage meaningfully, and make political judgments and decisions when a false impression of the way the country works is continually being presented to them?

Drawing a Foul By Breaking the Rules on Purpose

The overlap in messaging and policy between Provincial Conservative Governments and Parties and par the Federal is often absolute, but the NDP in the West also blames everything on the Federal Government.

It’s all performative, and what’s worse, it’s all totally insincere.

The people involved know that nothing they are doing will do anything to make anyone’s life better.

The speeches they deliver at committee and in the house aren’t about providing a genuine critique to policy or legislation: the entire point of being on committee or speaking in the house is for the purpose of getting moments to put on social media, or for going viral.

It’s all scripted ahead of time. People are handed questions to and speeches to read, and mindless compliance is rewarded, while stepping out of line is punished, as reported in this article:

If you repeat the slogans, you get rewarded, said a Conservative source.

You are celebrated in front of the entire caucus for being a good cheerleader. And you get more speaking time in the House and during question period.

Those who refuse to parrot the lines lose their speaking time, another source added.

Another example of the kind of cheap and manipulative theatre at play is when someone deliberately breaks existing rules in order to make themselves look like a free speech martyr.

As I have written, Canada’s parliamentary system evolved from courts, and there are various rules for the way that Members of Parliament or Legislatures are supposed to refer to one another.

It’s a very basic rule, but you’re not supposed to disparage the character of another Member. In fact, the whole point is that it’s not supposed to be personal: you refer to the person strictly by the position they hold.

You can say things about the government as a whole - you can call an institution corrupt - like the government or a political party - but not an individual. It’s called “unparliamentary language” and while people roll their eyes about it, there are good reasons for these basic rules, which is to prevent the exchange from becoming an outright screaming match or brawl.

In any other workplace, this kind of behaviour would be considered abusive and unacceptable. The term “Toxic workplace” is apt.

Freedom of speech is considered the single highest principle and right of parliamentarians, but it does not come without guardrails. “Parliamentary privilege” means that Members and witnesses can, while on the legislative record, accuse people of crimes without fear of being sued in court.

Together, parliamentary privilege and unparliamentary language mean that you can accuse someone of murder, or sexual assault, or embezzlement - or any other crime - but you cannot call them names.

Everyone knows this - everyone. However, both leaders of the Conservative Party and the NDP were ejected from the House of Commons for breaking this rule.

Of course, people make mistakes, and if they break these rules inadvertently, or make a comment in the heat of the moment, they have the opportunity to withdraw their remarks and apologize, which is the appropriate thing to do.

Instead, the adult leaders of national Canadian Political parties choose to act in a way that is so deliberately obnoxious that they get tossed out.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was kicked out of question period after he called the prime minister a “wacko” and refused to withdraw the language when Speaker Greg Fergus asked him to.

Following Poilievre's removal, the Conservative caucus left the Commons chamber en masse, following their leader.

The NDP Leader did the same

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been expelled from the House of Commons for calling a Bloc Québécois MP racist and for refusing to apologize and withdraw his comments.

Speaker Anthony Rota kicked Singh out for the rest of the day after Singh called Alain Therrien racist for refusing to support an NDP motion dealing with systemic racism in the RCMP.

This is pathetic, manipulative behaviour. In both cases, grown men who were the leaders of National Canadian political parties are choosing deliberately to break the rules of the house so they can “draw a foul” on themselves, then paint themselves as free speech martyrs who are standing up against a government that’s trying to silence them.

It’s exactly like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur meets Dennis, the Anarcho-Syndicalist peasant, who ends up bleating “Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I’m being repressed” - except while Dennis the peasant is earnest in his anarcho-syndicalist beliefs, these politicians are playing everyone for fools.

It is all much more insidious - it is the deliberate crafting of a false impression of the way politics and our governments work, in ways that seriously obscure the truth, and where fictional problems and these amateur theatrics are very successfully used to distract people’s attention, at colossal public expense.

These schemes may involve dozens or hundreds of elected officials and party appartchiks, and hundreds of supporting staff, generating misinformation that will be shared with millions of people.

It’s all profoundly dishonest, and we’re all expected to go along with the charade, even though the ultimate purpose is clear - to create a fictional reality.

This total disregard for truth, and the willingness to create a false reality is directly tied to undermining democracy.

OpenCulture has an excellent article : Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism

Making someone repeat an obvious lie is an expression of power: people are forced to surrender their individual morality and integrity.

“Why the constant, often blatant lying? For one thing, it functioned as a means of fully dominating subordinates, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the leader by shame and complicity. “The great analysts of truth and language in politics”—writes McGill University political philosophy professor Jacob T. Levy—including “George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel—can help us recognize this kind of lie for what it is.… Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism.”

Arendt and others recognized, writes Levy, that “being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless.” She also recognized the function of an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist, the phenomenon we now refer to as “gaslighting”:

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.

The epistemological ground thus pulled out from under them, most would depend on whatever the leader said, no matter its relation to truth. “The essential conviction shared by all ranks,” Arendt concluded, “from fellow traveler to leader, is that politics is a game of cheating and that the ‘first commandment’ of the movement: ‘The Fuehrer is always right,’ is as necessary for the purposes of world politics, i.e., world-wide cheating, as the rules of military discipline are for the purposes of war.”

With the breakdown of any sense of objective reality, we can no longer have meaningful discussions or debates, because the purpose of the misinformation is to strip people of their individual judgment, so they come to rely entirely on what they told, without engaging in personal ethical or moral reflection.

It’s not just a question of civics. In addition to be being asked to ignore our brains, and the evidence of our eyes and ears: we are also asked to set aside our moral conscience.

Professional reporters and media have generally been so decimated that they are not in a position to rein in politicians whom they depend on for access and for stories. The proliferation of “influencers” means that there are many ways to go around an old-school reporter who does their job of calling out a politician’s fantasy world-building.

Opinions and confabulation are cheap, and facts are expensive. This is all the kind of easily disprovable BS that needs to be called out.

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