The Freedom Convoy was a wake-up call, writes award-winning investigative journalist JUSTIN LING, who authored the report. Translation: Time to pump the brakes on “intense social media videos” that launder misinformation on high-emotion issues for votes.
“We still have time and ability to address these problems, but we require leaders who want to reduce this polarization and are willing to abandon the tactics that drive it,” Ling writes.
“That does not require that individuals in our political system and media water down their beliefs or mute their criticism of each other, but it does demand that they do so thoughtfully, and with awareness of their own potentially corrosive impact.”
— The stakes: Growing anxiety among young Canadians. “If these trends continue, our politics will become more gladiatorial and performative. More voters will tune out and drop out, leaving less territory in the middle and on the margins to be contested. Politics will devolve further into trench warfare.”
The report is the culmination of a three-year democracy project in which the think tank, led by EDWARD GREENSPON, sought to learn how digital technologies are shaping the way Canadians between the ages 18 and 35 think and feel about politics in this country.
— The goal: To understand how polarization manifests and what trends propel it forward.
The Freedom Convoy and Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU’s decision to use vaccine status as a wedge issue in the last federal election received scrutiny in the report.
— There were high-level disclosures: Anonymity was traded with politicians, staffers and journalists in exchange for candor.
Two unnamed Conservatives MPs told the PPF they’re aware they play a role in a “toxic feedback loop” in which they whip up anger and distrust among supporters in order to fuel party fundraising campaigns.
“Those supporters, in turn, are becoming increasingly fervent in their beliefs, distrustful of rival parties and demanding of ideological purity. To meet those members where they are means the party must in turn become more confrontational and dogmatic.”
Trudeau’s approach with anti-vaccine groups “really divided” people and encouraged score-keeping, one Indigenous leader said, adding that public health policies designed to protect the vulnerable could have been communicated without denigrating others.
— Inside Ottawa: Partisans argue the Hill climate isn’t more polarized than ever, noting that MPs and staffers from different parties still chit chat and drink together when cameras are off.
— Outside: 38 percent of young adults surveyed by online polling firm Real-Time Interactive World-Wide Intelligence on behalf of PPF think political division will increase in Canada.
“Multiple MPs,” party affiliation not identified, noted how polarization is fated to grow because of an apparent trend in centrist voters rejecting Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE, forcing the party to shop for support among right-leaning, “unplugged” corners of the political system.
“This strategy could radicalize the conservative movement in Canada, as it has done in other rich countries,” the report reads. “It is a risk, they admit. But they say it will be worth it to win.”
— Digital dupe: Facebook’s 2018 algorithm change that prioritized content from users’ friends and families (and their ranty posts) got a shout out as a factor that inadvertently fueled a “rage arms race” for partisans.
“By promoting friends to the exclusion of strangers, Facebook deprioritized news and politics, forcing news outlets and politicians to work harder to break through.”
— Smash cut to today: Facebook’s parent company is feeling experimental again.
Meta announced Tuesday that it has started ending news availability for all Facebook and Instagram users in Canada as a strong-arm tactic in response to Bill C-18, the Liberals’ Online News Act. (They’re not fans.)
All major party leaders posted to their Facebook and Instagram accounts the same day. (They’re still fans of the platforms.)
Talk of the town
MEANWHILE IN OTTAWA — Poilievre was on Parliament Hill to take questions for 8 minutes and 38 seconds from journalists Tuesday and dumped on the prime minister’s assertion that the Conservative leader is angry and dangerous.
Trudeau has spent a chunk of his summer touring the country and saying Poilievre’s name while mocking the Conservative leader’s “everything’s feels broken” sloganeering, painting him as an angry politician.
“Justin Trudeau and some of his supporters in the media are really concerned that Canadians are angry with him,” Poilievre said, adding he’s concerned about affordability and people not feeling safe in their communities. “Justin Trudeau is upset that I'm saying things are broken. Maybe he should stop breaking them.”
Zing. But the blame game didn’t end there. During his presser, Poilievre lobbed high-emotion, rhetorical talking points to torque questions about immigration and housing.
— Zinger: “I was surprised that Justin Trudeau chose the worst immigration minister in Canadian history to be his housing minister,” Poilievre said, blaming SEAN FRASER for refugees sleeping on city streets and an international student controversy over fake admission letters.
Also, CHARLES STEWART, whose tenure as acting minister of immigration and colonization eclipsed with the racist Chinese Immigration Act coming into force 100 years ago.
— Another zinger: “Do you think the 35-year-old who would have easily been able to afford a home in his 20s when I was the minister responsible, but is now stuck in his parents’ basement wouldn't have noticed that he's living in a basement?”
— What got a pass: The now 35-year-old’s decision to not buy a house in his 20s when Poilievre was employment and social development minister.
— Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU is in the Ottawa-area with “private meetings” and a call with South African President CYRIL RAMAPHOSA on his agenda.
12 p.m. (10 a.m. CT) Crown-Indigenous Minister GARY ANANDASANGAREE is in Tisdale, Saskatchewan with Kinistin Saulteaux Nation Chief FELIX THOMAS to announce a specific claim settlement agreement.
1 p.m. (10 a.m. PT) Energy and Natural Resources Minister JONATHAN WILKINSON is in Surrey, British Columbia with a “2 Billion Trees” announcement and media availability in his schedule.
MEDIA ROOM
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally on July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pa. | Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo
— STEPHANIE TAYLOR reports Justice Minister ARIF VIRANI had to re-take his Cabinet oath because the last one was missing wording added after the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
— Over at iPolitics, KADY O’MALLEY’s pick for most interesting change to Parliament’s cross-aisle micro-climate: KARINA GOULD as the new government House leader.
— Former Liberal leader MICHAEL IGNATIEFF gets candid about defense spending in an interview with the CDA Institute. One talker: “Whoever’s in power in Canada in the next decade is going to have to spend a lot more money on defense, and we’re going to have to rethink our whole military configuration because the technologies are changing so rapidly that it’s anybody’s guess what we’re going to need by the end of the decade.”
— Finally, our colleagues in Europe report on the worst-kept secret in Brussels: THIERRY BRETON is interested in the EU’s top job.
Birthdays: Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND celebrates today. U.N. Ambassador BOB RAE is 75! And HBD to PRABMEET SARKARIA, president of the treasury board of Ontario.
Conservative campaign operative STEVE OUTHOUSE's next webinar for right-leaning politicos on Thursday: "How to run a province," featuring MARSHALL SMITH, chief of staff to Alberta Premier DANIELLE SMITH (no relation).
Liberal MP KRISTY DUNCAN lifting weights to confront a week of chemo and commemorating her “third non-hospital outing in seven months” … Labor Minister SEAMUS O’REGANretweeting SEAMUS O’REGAN:“It’s not good enough to rant and roar about problems. You have to work hard on the solutions.”
The Fredericton Pickleball Club, scoring C$127,930 in funding from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Canada Community Revitalization Fund wallet … The House of Commons is looking for entry-level procedural clerks to fill hybrid positions.
Movers and shakers: AVRIL BENOÎTon the Forbes list of 50 over 50. “To be clear,” she noted on LinkedIn, “no single leader deserves credit for all that Doctors Without Borders” … ADAM GOLDENBERG, called to the bar in British Columbia.
In memoriam: Poilievre, MPs TODD DOHERTY and PHILIP LAWRENCE,mourning the sudden passing of ALS awareness champion BRETT WILSON, who had worked as an intern on the Hill and in Doherty’s Prince George riding office.
Tuesday’s answer: In 2021, MPs in the House voted unanimously to designate Aug. 1 Emancipation Day across Canada. “I'm very pleased that there has been overwhelming support,” Green Party Leader ANNAMIE PAUL said after the vote. “For almost 200 years Emancipation Day has gone generally uncommemorated, and untaught.”
Props to SHAUGHN MCCARTHUR, GOZDE KAZAZOGLU, SARA MAY, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, DAVID VALENTIN and ALLAN FABRYKANT.
