Elections Canada is trying to insulate Canadian voters from false narratives and information during the next federal election by launching an online tool to help voters cut through misinformation and disinformation about the electoral process in Canada.
The ElectoFacts website, launched this week, provides factual information to debunk the most common misconceptions observed by Elections Canada officials in recent years.
“Building resilience against inaccurate information helps strengthen the overall health of democracy,” Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said in a statement.
“ElectoFacts is one additional step electors can take to ensure they are informed and have accurate information about the electoral process.”
The ElectoFacts website says that it does not intend to establish Elections Canada as “the arbiter of truth” that will actively monitor the accuracy of statements and information distributed by parties and candidates. The agency said it will instead focus on providing correct information about elections that Canadians can easily access.
Visitors to ElectoFacts can scroll through eight categories where disinformation is taking place:
Special ballots.
Ways to vote.
The counting process.
Voting technology.
Foreign interference.
The administration of elections.
The administration of Elections Canada.
Campaign finance.
Each category displays the “inaccurate information observed” with an accompanying and detailed explanation of what is accurate.
Special ballots
On the subject of special ballots, or mail-in ballots, for example, Elections Canada said the two largest misconceptions were that 205,000 mail-in ballots were “lost, ignored” or deliberately not counted during the 2021 federal election.
The agency’s counter-information explains it issued more than one million special ballots in 2021 and 883,000, or 87 per cent of them, were returned on time and were counted.
Ballots that arrived late were not counted but have been preserved for a ten-year period, ElectoFacts website reads.
The special ballots information also explains the checks and balances that have been built into the voting system to ensure that people do not vote by mail and then vote again in person.
Other examples of misinformation and disinformation include whether votes can be bought by bribing Canadians, whether non-citizens can vote, whether ballot machines are used to count votes and whether Elections Canada rigs the vote.
Workers prepare the bins with names of candidates into which special ballots from national, international, Canadian Forces and incarcerated electors will be counted and organized, at Elections Canada’s distribution centre in Ottawa on election night of the 44th Canadian general election, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
The Canadian Election Misinformation Project, co-managed by McGill University and the University of Toronto, also looked at the issue of misinformation and disinformation during the 2021 election.
Their report found that while there was “widespread” misinformation and disinformation, its overall impact on the results of the election were minimal.
The report said messages claiming that Canadians who were not fully vaccinated would be unable to vote were widely circulated on social media.
The report also found false messages were being spread on social media claiming that candidates were being removed from ballots and that machines counted all the votes cast, when in fact all votes are counted by hand.
2016 U.S. election disinfo raised alarm bells
Aengus Bridgman, director of the Canadian Election Misinformation Project, told CBC News the 2016 election in the United States, which saw an aggressive and unprecedented Russian disinformation campaign, raised alarm bells in the West over the threat to democracy.
“If our election results are later shown to have been the result of a disinformation campaign that was decisive in an election, it would cause an enormous diplomatic and constitutional crisis,” he said.
Bridgman said it is important to get the right information out there, proactively, where people can access it before the election disinformation begins to spread, because once false information has spread and gained traction, it is much harder to counter.
He said his research has shown that Elections Canada is one of Canada’s most trusted institutions, and so having that information hosted on its website will help establish what is, and is not, factual.
“There’s pretty good evidence that this type of thing should be effective,” he said.
Bridgman said Canadians can also help to fight disinformation in their everyday lives by resisting the temptation to cut family, friends and neighbours off and push them out of their lives if they start espousing views based on disinformation.
“Keeping lines of conversation open is incredibly important,” he said. “One of the things that can happen is that people can join [disinformation] communities and drive their real physical committees away, and then they become isolated and … that becomes very dangerous.”
Make election disinformation illegal, chief electoral officer says
After the 2021 federal election, Perrault published a report that called for a crackdown on hate groups, improved regulation of third parties and new laws to make it illegal to spread disinformation about elections and voting.
The report’s recommendations were based on an analysis of what took place in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections in Canada.
Perhaps most significantly, Perrault’s report called for legislative changes to make it illegal to spread information that disrupts an election or undermines its legitimacy.
The report said that action must be taken because the continued spread of disinformation could “jeopardize trust in the entire electoral system on which democracies rest.”
Perrault said there are laws on the books to deal with disinformation that were used when misleading robocalls were made to voters in Guelph, Ont., during the 2011 federal election.
“But there’s nothing right now in the legislation where there is a deliberate campaign to undermine the process or undermine confidence in the result,” he said in 2022. “This complements a number of existing provisions.”
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
