Canadians have been exposed to a significant disinformation campaign about pricing pollution from fossil fuels on the unregulated and thus unaccountable social media platforms. Most egregious is the claim that pollution pricing is a driver of inflation which has been clearly refuted by economists published by Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. Investigative journalists in Canada uncovered significant amounts of money being spent on misleading Facebook and Instagram ads in the past year. Source: ‘Grassroots campaign’ in support of Canada’s oil and gas industry is spending big bucks on anti-carbon tax ads, November 27, 2024 Adding to this, the government of Canada has done a poor job of informing the public about their rebates. As well, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has a policy of not promoting key government programs. CCL Canada has been lobbying for them to do more to counter the pollution pricing disinformation and they have but more work needs to be done by the government to protect us all. This will be one of CCL Canada’s key lobbying asks in 2025. Furthermore, the decline of media outlets in rural Canada has accelerated over the past decade, with 169 local media outlets closing between 2008 and 2016 and many others reducing services, particularly after 2017 with the asset swap between Torstar and Postmedia. This trend worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Postmedia closed 15 community newspapers and SaltWire Network on the East Coast suspended weekly publications. Good things are happening for your notes. CBC is expanding local and regional news coverage across Canada using funds collected from Google to fund the news programs. Laser Talk: Canada, Disinformation and Accountable vs Unaccountable Media
Laser Talk: Canada, Disinformation and Accountable vs Unaccountable Media
Posted on December 7, 2024 in Laser Talk
