From The Democracy Fund

The Hogue Report recommends the creation of a government surveillance department to monitor Canadians for online disinformation.

TDF is troubled by comments in the Hogue Report that “disinformation” is an “existential threat” to Canadian democracy. Disturbingly, the Report recommends that the government consider creating a separate entity to “monitor the domestic open-source online information environment for misinformation and disinformation that might impact Canadian democratic processes.”

Problematically, while the report claims that “disinformation is difficult to detect,” the report does not sufficiently define “disinformation.” It assumes that there exists people in government capable of infallibly discerning truth from falsehood.

No government has been able to defend or articulate its claim 1) to a superior theory of knowledge or 2) that government agents have extraordinary truth-seeking cognitive skills. In fact, history demonstrates that governments are often the biggest purveyors of falsehood. TDF lawyers have repeatedly raised this issue, particularly during a 2023 meeting with UNESCO representatives.

Additionally, the Hogue Report claims that “information manipulation (whether foreign or not) poses the single biggest risk to our democracy.” It even acknowledges that online disinformation campaigns could be used to create conflict and amplify division.

However, the Liberal government’s Bill C-63 would require social media companies to create a system whereby anyone in Canada can flag and report “harmful content.” As outlined in TDF’s Online Harms Brief this would, unwittingly, allow for mass reporting of content by bad faith actors, human or AI, domestic or foreign (through a domestic proxy). Rather than strengthen the information environment against manipulation, Bill C-63 would weaken it. It is a contradiction for the government to complain about the manipulation of the information environment while simultaneously pushing a law that makes it easier to do so.

Litigation Director Mark Joseph said: “The Report laments that Canadians are exposed to disinformation, as if this is something new: people have always been exposed to ambiguous or false claims. Canadians have simply used basic human discernment to differentiate between truth and falsehood. It is perilous for citizens to surrender their role as final arbiters of civil, political and moral truths to the government since government censors have no special claim to truth-seeking or infallibility.”

About The Democracy Fund:

Founded in 2021, The Democracy Fund (TDF) is a Canadian charity dedicated to constitutional rights, advancing education, and relieving poverty. TDF promotes constitutional rights through litigation and public education and supports access-to-justice initiatives for Canadians whose civil liberties have been infringed by government lockdowns and other public policy responses to the pandemic.

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Foreign Interference Commission Justice Marie-Josée Hogue recommended in her final report on election interference that additional taxpayer money be pumped into legacy media outlets that are already receiving billions from the government to make sure news is ‘trustworthy and of good quality.’

The Foreign Interference Commission in one of its many recommendations suggested that the Canadian government hand out millions of additional dollars to legacy media outlets for combating supposed “misinformation and disinformation.”

The suggestion to pump up legacy media with more taxpayer money was made by Foreign Interference Commission Justice Marie-Josée Hogue in her final report on election interference that was released last week. It was one of 51 recommendations from her investigation into election meddling in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

Hogue’s 44th recommendation reads that the federal government, which already spends billions to support legacy media, “should pursue discussions with media organizations and the public around modernizing media funding and economic models to support professional media, including local and foreign language media, while preserving media independence and neutrality.”

According to Houge, “Traditional journalism is struggling,” and because of this “Media organizations are facing financial challenges as citizens turn away from mainstream media, and towards social media or non-traditional platforms that may, for a variety of reasons, be more susceptible to misinformation and disinformation.”

Houge noted that she was on board with a Department of Canadian Heritage witness who testified at a commission hearing that Canadian media should be supported to make sure news is “trustworthy and of good quality.”

“I share their concern about Canada’s professional media. Canada must have a press that is strong and free,” Hogue said.

“It is crucial to have credible and reliable sources of information to counterbalance misinformation and disinformation,” she added.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the final report from the Foreign Interference Commission concluded that operatives from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have had a hand in helping to elect a handful of MPs in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections.

Hogue urged in her January 28 final report that Canada “remain vigilant because the threat of foreign interference is real,” but stopped short of saying CCP interference was influential enough to tilt the outcomes of the elections.

When it comes to legacy media in Canada, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that it will spend millions more propping up the mostly state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

This extra funding comes despite the fact the Department of Canadian Heritage has admitted payouts to the CBC are not sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running.

There have been many cases where the CBC has appeared to push ideological content, including the creation of pro-LGBT material for kids, tacitly endorsing the gender mutilation of children, promoting euthanasia, and even seeming to justify the burning of mostly Catholic churches throughout the country.

Furthermore, in October, Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s department admitted that federally funded media outlets buy “social cohesion.”