Fake News And Politicians’ Lies Find Believers In Ill-Informed Public

Patrick Gossage • February 2, 2024

The rise of social media as an unreliable news source and the precipitous decline of traditional news media serves as an answer to the question: How is it possible that so many people believe the outright lies of politicians and the frightening spread of disinformation?

To be presumptuous, if the New York Times and other major authoritative media were the only source of information for the vast majority of Americans, the ongoing lies of Donald Trump would have little currency. The same might be said for our own Pierre Poilievre who disdains regular, “mainstream” media, and relies heavily on social media channels and YouTube to disseminate his message. Consider if Canadians relied on the Globe and Mail and other major other national “traditional” media who analyze economic trends and causes independently, Poilievre would not have the power or willing audience to blame Justin Trudeau for the current unaffordability crisis.


Andrew MacDougal, Prime Minister Harper’s director of Communications put it this way in an insightful article for The Line: “The House (the mega social media sites) actually prefers and privileges the crank’s counterfeit currency. It’s cheaper to make, it goes viral more often, it keeps more people engaged for longer on their platforms…Quality doesn’t count in the online information casino… Why stay hemmed in by truth when you can invent a vastly more entertaining “Pope endorses Trump” fiction? Whatever keeps us stuck in the casino. We stay, they sell ads, we go broke. Say it with me: the House always wins.” This is how it is in the information age we now live in.“  Not news but Clickbait and controversy.


Perhaps the most horrific inflation of a fake story occurred in 2016, when it was alleged that Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton and her chief of staff, John Podesta, were operating a child sex ring out of a pizza parlour’s basement in Washington, DC. What started as internet rumour quickly became a social media trend. The hashtag #pizzagate went viral as thousands of accounts tweeted “evidence” both for and against the story.


Political lies may be appealing because they deliver a moral narrative or confirm sentiments that people already hold.  A study in Social Psychological and Personality Science+

 suggests people have more leniency for politicians' lies when they bolster a shared belief that a specific political stance is morally right.  “It appears to be because those lies are perceived by supporters as an acceptable and perhaps necessary means to achieve a higher moral end,” says the lead author of the study. “A troubling and timely implication of these findings is that political figures may be able to act in corrupt ways without damaging their images, at least in the eyes of their supporters.” 


The other fact worth noting about the amplification on social media of the most controversial and startling stories including fake ones is that once you pull up a few of these on your phone or computer an algorithm kicks in that makes sure you get more like it. Unwillingly and likely unknowingly you become a target for political lies and fake news.


In a prescient Policy Magazine in 2017 Andrew Potter described the transformation of news consumption this way:  “A journalist was someone who worked for a media organization that had formal and effective procedures for ensuring transparency, accuracy, correction of errors and basic accountability, and this fact alone provided a considerable degree of what we might as well call consumer protection. Then along came the internet, blogging platforms, social media, smart phones with cameras and video and editing and publishing apps, and suddenly anyone on the street has more publication power, in terms of platform diversity and potential audience reach, than the entire New York Times newsroom of just 25 years ago. Add to this the cult of the ‘citizen journalist’ and the now-discredited late-1990s cant about the democratizing power of the internet, and you get people seriously claiming that ‘everyone is a journalist.’ Journalism has been effectively de-institutionalized because those consumer protections are no longer in place. There is no longer any way of ensuring that we can trust the news.” 


Canada is not immune from the power of an untrue story which now passes as the truth given its widespread amplification in alternate media. This is evident in the claim by Pierre Poilievre that the Carbon Tax imposes major costs on all Canadians. In Winnipeg last month he made his case on the cost of the tax standing near two trucks:  "Everything transported in these trucks becomes more expensive because of the Trudeau tax on carbon and on diesel." His endless “Axe the Tax” campaign ignores the fact that numerous analyses over the years have shown that most households receive more in rebates than they pay in direct and indirect carbon-tax costs. He promises that there will be a carbon tax election. One run on a false premise. Something to look forward to!


Those few of us who do relay on traditional media are not as exposed to the outrageous fiction which can dominate conservative news outlets, many open line programs and alternate news sources. A recent event in Alberta featuring the discredited Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Premier treated the audience to the most egregious views on immigration of the far right. Carlson said: “Canada has the highest immigration rate per capita in the world…If you change the population of the country you change the country and you dilute the voting power of the people who are invested in that country.” This “replacement theory” so  prominent in far-right circles claims that white people are being replaced by nonwhites to further the ideology of leftists. 


And of course, there is Trump who empowers conspiracy theorists everywhere. He uses his own social media to pump out his own fictional version of what’s wrong with America, and what will make it right including sending all millions of illegal immigrants out of the country. Responsible TV Media like the US networks and CNN wrestle daily with how much of his vitriol to carry live. 


To make matters worse CNN’s fact checking by the Canadian Daniel Dale doesn’t have the prominence it once did – but he is still on the case – witness this CNN report: “Trump Tuesday night (in New Hampshire) said, ‘Do they hate our country? They must hate our country. Because there’s no other reason that they can be doing the things they do. Take a look – the taxes, they want to raise your taxes times four.’ Facts First: This is false. Neither Biden nor other top Democrats are proposing anything close to quadrupling people’s taxes.” Think how revealing this kind of treatment would be if given to Poilievre's or Doug Ford’s or Danielle Smith’s regular bending of the truth.


In a New York Times recent editorial Maureen Dowd made an interesting suggestion: “Maybe we should just run a Chryon (subtitle) under Trump at all times: No your opponents are not vermin, no immigrants are not poisoning the blood of our nation, no January 6 was not a beautiful day, no Presidents should not have total immunity because crooks can be President.”


There is a rule of thumb when hearing politicians distort the truth. If it sounds too simplistic or too good to be true for the source it probably is not true. And this from a career PR man.


I would be remiss if I did not examine the use of exaggeration, spin or near lies which is so much part of just about any utterance by any politician. Our PM Justin Trudeau is no exception as I listened intently to his rosy speech to the troops at a recent caucus meeting. He went through a recounting of his greatest hits – the child tax benefit that has lifted hundreds of thousands out of poverty. He reiterated the success of Liberals “working hard to strengthen the middle class and support those working hard to join it” which means nothing to the millions dreading the renewal of their mortgages in the next two years. Then he closed with a strange line that took him further into some fantasy world of good intentions: “As we build the prosperous future that everyone is looking for in this country, we have remembered that the economy is not numbers. The economy is people.” Really? A new value with which to confuse a worried public. 


This refurbishing of reality is very Canadian. It’s a long way from the arrogance, hate and basic deception of Trump, but it is worrisome click bait nonetheless.


Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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