Two-Faced: Trudeau Liberals peddle falsehoods despite constantly preaching about misinformation
Trudeau’s Liberals love to talk the talk on misinformation and disinformation, but they have clearly shown that they’re not willing to walk the walk by choosing to lead by example.
Photo: @justinpjtrudeau Instagram
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party love to preach about the harms of misinformation and disinformation. However, despite their talk, they constantly peddle falsehoods for political gain.
Trudeau’s Chief of Staff Katie Telford recently stirred up controversy after she shared a misleading claim on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), resulting in her receiving a Community Note.
Telford posted a link to a Guardian article titled “Canada has zero pro-choice Conservative MPs, watchdog says.” The latter was about the left-wing Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) deciding to place all Conservative MPs on its “anti-choice” list over their support of the Violence Against Pregnant Women Act, also known as Bill C-311.
The bill, introduced by Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall, sought to add abusing and causing physical or emotional harm to a pregnant woman to the list of “aggravating circumstances” during sentencing. Wagantall cited the fact that over 80 pregnant women in Canada have recently been killed as a motive for the legislation. The bill, which was unfortunately defeated in the House of Commons in June, had nothing to do with abortion.
In the Guardian article, ARCC director Joyce Arthur is quoted saying “[Bill C-311] is basically singling out pregnant people for special protection. In an ideal world maybe that would be OK, but the bill was actually introduced by Cathay Wagantall, who’s got a reputation for introducing anti-abortion bills.”
While MP Cathay Wagantall is pro-life and has previously introduced a Private Members Bill to ban sex-selective abortion, she also previously introduced another bill to protect vulnerable pregnant women.
ARCC's argument is devoid of substantive facts and logical reasoning. This is not surprising given they are a militant pro-abortion organization registered as a third party political group with Elections Canada.
The word "abortion” is not mentioned anywhere in the text of Bill C-311, because its purpose was to protect pregnant women and hold aggressors accountable. MPs who voted in favour of it were therefore not voting against abortion in any way, shape, or form.
Unfortunately, the facts don't matter to the ARCC, nor do they matter to Telford, who chose to double down.
Telford’s dishonest conduct comes amid her boss, Trudeau, and the Liberal Party continuing to preach about the harms of misinformation and disinformation.
Trudeau constantly lectures Canadians about misinformation; including Muslim parents concerned about gender ideology, journalists who ask him questions about his policies, as well as Canadians who question his handling of the pandemic or are concerned about immigration numbers. There are many other examples that I could cite...
A search on Open Parliament shows 781 instances of the word “misinformation” and 383 instances of the word “disinformation” being used by Liberal politicians in Parliament since Trudeau was elected in October 2015.
In addition to lecturing Canadians about misinformation and disinformation, Trudeau and his Liberals often accuse their political opponents of spreading it.
Conservative Party leaders Andrew Scheer, Erin O’Toole, Candice Bergen, and Pierre Poilievre have all been accused by Trudeau's Liberals of spreading misinformation.
Trudeau also accused independent media outlet Rebel News of peddling misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, and claimed they were responsible for division in Canada seen during the 2021 election campaign.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland recently accused Conservative Party Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman of “peddling blatant misinformation”, but ended up spreading misinformation of her own along with her accusation. Freeland's false carbon tax claim was hence hit with a Community Note.
Telford's and Freeland's recent cases of spreading falsehoods online are not one time isolated incidents, but rather part of the Trudeau Liberals’s pattern of spreading misinformation and disinformation for political gain.
At the time that Wagentall’s Bill C-311 was being debated in the House of Commons, Trudeau and other Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs chose to falsely claim the bill would restrict “a women’s right to choose.”
https://twitter.com/alissagolob/status/1656510439273140224?s=20
The Trudeau Liberals also spread misinformation about the Freedom Convoy to justify invoking the never before used Emergencies Act. They falsely claimed that the police asked for the Act, that a large part of convoy donations were foreign, that guns were being stored in the trucks, that convoy protesters attempted to start a fire in an apartment building and desecrated the war memorial. None of this was true.
Liberals have also shared misinformation about their firearm policies and their treatment of Indigenous peoples, as well as about what’s going on in Iran.
Misinformation and disinformation are both real and harmful. The latter leads to distrust in important institutions, the undermining of the democratic process and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and junk science.
But while Trudeau’s Liberals love to talk the talk on misinformation and disinformation, they have clearly shown that they’re not willing to walk the walk by choosing to lead by example. They prefer to use misinformation as a talking point to virtue signal, and a weapon to attack their opponents – all while continuing to peddle falsehoods for political gain.