We're talking about the spread of misinformation. We had two political parties, the Liberals and the NDP, that went out...and the media printed as sure fact that without having verified the claims, this was something that was paid for. There were allegations that it was orchestrated through foreign state actors.
Now, look, we're at a time in our country when we have an inquiry happening into foreign interference in our democracy. We have real state actors who are spreading disinformation. It's being propagated, of course, in the political discourse, but also in media.
Here we have an example of, for once, an independent group disproving the claim that was printed without it having been proven. Then we have political parties, the Liberals and the NDP, that didn't withdraw the allegation or didn't say, “Oh, I stand to be corrected,” or “We believe this because it was again leveraged for partisan purposes.”
Let me read you a quote from the author of the report, who said, “The finger-pointing without evidence is actually quite destructive and leans into this hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized information ecosystem that we find ourselves in today in Canada.”
The study says that the initial bot campaign that was used received very little attention because it was from sock puppet accounts, and they don't have a real following, but it was amplified with millions of impressions by Canadian political actors who didn't have altruistic intentions.
I'll start with you, Madame Lalancette. Is this type of misinformation that's being propagated, in this case by the Liberals and the NDP, part of the problem? Certainly that's what the report's author suggested.