Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. It's no problem at all that my colleague intervened there. I'm glad that MP O'Connell is joining us. I know she'll have a lot to offer on this important conversation.
I was just about to cover a few other findings of this misinformation and disinformation report that was done by the Media Ecosystem Observatory and that I think are really interesting. They did a comparison of the volume of misinformation related to the 2019 election and the 2021 election. Their analysis was based on 166,000 stories pulled from 159 Canadian media outlets that posted articles to their Facebook page. They did a seven-day rolling average. The graphs show that in 2019 the number of mentions and spread of misinformation and the volume of related discussions was much higher than in 2021.
That's interesting, right? It seems that this topic is coming up in our discussions now, and what's interesting is that it didn't come up as much after the 2019 election. We could talk about that in terms of why the 44th Canadian federal election had less misinformation and less discussion about it on average than the previous election. I think that's kind of an interesting question to ask ourselves: Why? I would have anticipated, based on all the opposition's focus on foreign election interference, that you would see...and the fact that most of foreign election interference is probably misinformation and disinformation online. I think it's interesting to compare and contrast the two elections.
There's another thing that I think is important in terms of the summary, which said, “Misinformation related to the election and to COVID-19 was detected on all social media platforms examined.” As well, “Despite more assertive moderation and election integrity policies, large social media platforms continued to be home to widespread misinformation.” What's funny is that when I was reading this report, I didn't realize that this was actually the direct quote from Morris Rosenberg's report, where he cites that exact finding. It's a signal to us and to the Canadian public in terms of that public report that we need to do more thinking and more work on the prevalence of misinformation. As the threat environment evolves, misinformation needs to be an area of focus for us in terms of our work in preventing foreign interference in future elections.
Here's another important finding: “The strong link between misinformation and social media has been well documented in recent years.” I mean, they don't talk about just one social media platform. They really talk about Facebook as being by far the most-used social media platform, at 79% of the population, followed by YouTube at 61% of the population, Twitter at 35%, Reddit at 14% and then TikTok at 14%. All those findings are really interesting. I thought it was also interesting that more than 60% of Canadians aged 18 to 34 report that they are using Facebook or Instagram as a source of political news, as compared with only 20% of those 65 or older.
What do we take from all this? I think we know, but I think it's important for us to ask these questions in our work.
Here's another finding: “Social media use is also strongly associated with whether individuals believed misinformation stories.” That is really interesting. They found a direct correlation between how much you use social media and how much you believe misinformation stories or stories that include misinformation.
There are many examples of this. I note that some of the mainstream social media platforms have made attempts to limit the spread of misinformation online, and some of them have done a reversal on that in recent months as well.
Another really important factor in all of this is that there are niche social media platforms. They mention platforms that include Rumble, Gab, Gettr, 4chan, Telegram, Audacy, Discord, Substack, Locals, BitChute. I've never been on any one of those, but I think there's this concept that there are other niche social media platforms that are playing a part in many of the.... What they say is many of the individuals who seem to be predisposed to wanting to consume this information, who are getting hooked, are now moving to these other niche social media platforms. That's where a lot of this misinformation can circulate more readily and without any sort of regulation because they're contained and not as open, which is also scary.
You can see that perhaps this sort of movement to radicalization or polarization of the Canadian public and their views can be further brought to extremes by cordoning off, going into these other chat groups and social media platforms that are niche. That's, to me, quite scary as well.
Probably the most important part of this report, I would say, is chapter 7, on “Disinformation and Foreign Influence”. This one I'll spend considerable time on because it really flies in the face of some of the things that have been said at this committee in terms of some of the perceptions or opinions of members. I think it's important for us to spell some of this out. I think it has again a direct impact on whether we ask campaign directors or managers to come before the committee, which is what I had proposed, so it's directly relevant to the amendment that I put forward.
The first finding here is, “A majority of Canadians are somewhat or very confident that Canadian elections are free from foreign interference. Canadians believe that China is the country most likely to have interfered in the election.”
That's I think consistent with what we've heard, and why we're all here talking about this. It is pretty important as a finding. Again, it couples the fact that Canadians have confidence in our elections and then also that Canadians believe that China is most likely the country that would have interfered in the election, which is interesting.
Another finding is, “Chinese officials and state media commented on the election with an apparent aim to convince Canadians of Chinese origin to vote against the Conservative Party.”
That's clear. So misinformation coming from state media, Chinese-sponsored state media, did try to encourage voters to...so that's wrong, that's 100% wrong. We should be cracking down on that. Again, it's another reason why I take this so seriously.
However, I think the latter part of that finding is “However, we find no evidence that Chinese interference had a significant impact on the overall election.” They also say, “We cannot fully discount the possibility that some riding-level contests were influenced.”
This is important.
This is an independent report that suggests that there were attempts at interference through state-sponsored misinformation campaigns, and we have that. The Rosenberg report includes examples of that. It's in this report.
What's interesting is that we can dive into this topic. There are some really key findings here, and I think we should know about how that was done and what impact it might have had or might not have had.
Why are these experts, again, all lining up and saying the same thing? Why is the previous Conservative campaign manager saying, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no impact on the federal election results from 2021? Why are they all saying the same thing? All the experts are saying the same thing, yet we all know that there were attempts at interference, that there were misinformation campaigns put out there and that they did attempt to interfere. No one's denying that. No one has ever denied that. No one will deny that, yet we need to take it seriously and do the work associated with this.
In a recent media article, Ward Elcock said, “Chinese interference is not news.” He is a former CSIS director. To paraphrase him, he says that this is not the big media story that it should be because it's been around for a long time. That's what we've been saying all throughout our committee's work on this topic.
Ms. O'Connell has said that. I've said that. There are many members of this committee who have said that. For whatever reason, the Conservatives just woke up now to this and want to make a media story out of it for their political advantage. That's why they want to continue this charade, when we want to get down to work on the real issues. It's really too bad.
Here's another important quote: “...those who frequently consume political news on social media are less likely to believe that our elections are safe.” I found that really interesting. The more you consume political news online or through social media sources, the more distrust you have for our system, which is interesting as well. It shows a direct correlation, and they've done the research to determine that result.
Another finding is that “Canadians are critical of foreign propaganda, with 78% considering that it is either quite harmful...or very harmful...for democracy.” Canadians are agreed that foreign propaganda or misinformation will have a harmful impact on our democracy. I think that's important.
They cite examples of specific Chinese language social media and Chinese language platforms. They've found that the largest amount was confined to a single platform, which was WeChat, which is where there are several views that were presented during the election campaign that could have had an impact on voter intentions.
What's interesting, though, is that they looked at Chinese state-affiliated social media accounts. They say, “...we evaluated known Chinese state-affiliated social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter to assess the extent to which they were commenting and potentially influencing the election.”
They used publicly available lists of Twitter accounts and others, and they yielded a total of 29 Twitter accounts and 17 Facebook pages. Of the 4,094 unique articles that were shared on Facebook pages since the beginning of the 2021 election, only 33 mentioned Canada, the Canadian election or Canadian Chinese issues. That's 0.8%, so less than 1% mentioned Canada, the Canadian election or Canadian Chinese issues.
On Twitter, out of 32,317 tweets shared by Chinese state media accounts, only 261 mentioned Canada, the Canadian election or Canadian-Chinese issues. Again, that's 0.8%, which is interesting in itself. Out of all of the information that was shared, just a fraction, less than 1%, was on the state-affiliated social media accounts.
The information they were sharing during the election was less than 1% on Facebook and Twitter, which are the two main sources of political information, and where people comment. Less than 1% made any reference to Canada, the Canadian election, or Canadian-Chinese issues. That's interesting in itself.
Then it says, and this is really important, “When Canada was referenced, it was almost always in relation to Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and the cases of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.” That's also interesting.
What's interesting is that the vast majority of misinformation shared online by state-affiliated social media accounts from the Chinese government can be directly linked in some way. Out of all of this, a very small fraction, less than 1%, related to the Canadian federal election, or to Canadian-Chinese issues at all, and almost all of that was then focused on Huawei's executive and the two Michaels. That's really interesting to me. It suggests quite a different focus from what the Conservatives have said.
Again, this report documents very clearly that there were members of different parties who were targeted, and that there was misinformation online. There's no doubt about that. There's no denying that. We have examples that are documented in this report.
What's interesting, though, is that of all the social media platforms that the majority of Canadians use for political information, i.e., Facebook and Twitter, when doing the analysis....Most of the information that was being shared, or articles that were being shared, a lot of it, 99% of it, did not focus on the Canadian election, for one. The portion that did focus on the Canadian election was almost exclusively focused on Huawei's executive and the two Michaels.
Remember, the two Michaels came back to Canada four days after the federal election. That's also interesting to note. At the time, there was tension between Canada and China, and pressure to get those two Michaels back, of course, because we all wanted them back. What they went through was just horrifying.
Was this a positive thing? Did the information somehow skew voters? This isn't even documented as misinformation. These are just the articles that were shared. The specific instances of misinformation related to some of the views that....
They're documented here. They stated, “Notably, anti-Conservative mentions and articles increased, and a set of false or misleading claims and narratives emerged; the CPC would sever diplomatic relations with China once it takes power; CPC politicians were targeting Chinese Canadians for political gain; the CPC does not care about anti-Chinese discrimination; and all ethnic Chinese with ties to China would be required to register as foreign agents.” These were views shared by the Chinese language social media during the campaign.
No one has ever denied that it's true, that it's not right and that it should be stopped.
Are the Conservatives opting to regulate social media companies to prevent disinformation that targets candidates of all political parties? I've never heard them say that once. They've never acknowledged that most of the information was spread through online platforms and that, perhaps, we should be looking at further regulation in order to deal with the misinformation and disinformation that circulate online and that may impact voter intentions. I haven't heard them say that. It's interesting.
Another finding that's here is, “We find that, overall, Chinese state media tends to get far more interactions on Facebook.” That's interesting, too. That the Chinese state media tends to get more interactions on Facebook means they're targeting Facebook more often, because they probably know it's more effective and it's going to get more engagement.
Here's a big finding that I think will shock everybody.
They did a major look at engagement on Facebook and Twitter posts by Chinese state-affiliated social media accounts during the Canadian federal election of 2021. They looked at engagement across both platforms. What's interesting is they said they observed “no substantive differences in engagement between Canada-related content and other content.” This tells me that Chinese state-affiliated social media content that was pumped out on Twitter and Facebook did not have more engagement than any other social media content. That's a really important finding for us. When you think about how disinformation and misinformation coming from state-sponsored actors, specifically China, impacted voter intentions and voter behaviour...it didn't get any more engagement. That is what this report independently concludes. That's interesting.
There are some other findings here that are interesting, too.
This is an assumption, but I would say it a true assumption. If there were the true intention of the Chinese government to influence voter behaviour—and I'm not saying they didn't have that intention, but I'm assuming that if they did that—they would have tried to amplify content on social media around the election period. What's interesting is this report suggests there was minimal spread. In fact, the finding is, “Overall, we find no evidence that content produced by these or other Chinese state media were amplified during the election and their limited spread appears organic.” That information spread online, but it wasn't amplified.
We've often talked about bots on Twitter, etc., and how they're in campaigns that try to spread that information online. They're not organically spreading it; actual people are sharing it. That's a really interesting finding, too. Not only did that shared content not get more engagement, it also didn't get amplified superficially using a subversive strategy to try to amplify that. That's an interesting finding, too.
Again, this is not me saying this. I'm looking at this independent report done by researchers across Canadian institutions as reputable as McGill University and the University of Toronto. They have done this independent research and review of the 2021 election and are making these observations and conclusions based on their research. I trust that they have no political motivations.
Again, it comes back to the point that, over and over again, the Conservative Party wants to pursue this for political gain.
We want to do the work based on reality, evidence, science, facts and information to make our country and our democracy better, safer and, essentially, to protect it from the threat of foreign interference. It really is, truly, a threat that we take seriously.
The next section is even more telling for me. It's the section called “Evaluating impact”. It evaluates the impact of foreign interference in the federal election in 2021, related to misinformation and disinformation through online campaigns.
I would like to share a couple of findings on that, which I think are really important. Here is the big one: “If it is these Chinese Canadian voters who shifted against the Conservative Party, it should be detectable in the survey data. We evaluated whether Chinese Canadians switched their vote intentions or changed their evaluations of the Conservative Party using survey data collected during the campaign and just after election.”
“We compared Chinese Canadians' vote intentions during the first two weeks of the campaign to their vote intentions during the last two weeks, with the results in figure 22.” I can't hold it up because it would be a prop, but you can look at the report yourself.
“The two left panels show that there was no change among Chinese Canadians from the first two weeks to the last two weeks for overall evaluation of either the Conservative Party of Canada or Erin O'Toole specifically. The third panel shows that there was no shift in intention to vote for the CPC among Chinese Canadians between those surveyed during the first two weeks and those surveyed during the last two weeks of the campaign.”
Again, there is another graph in figure 22. “The far right panel shows self-reported vote for the Conservative Party among Chinese Canadians which closely resembles stated vote intention the pre-election period.”
To me, this is a “wow”, because this is one question I've had in my mind since we started this study. To what degree can we honestly say this happened? The misinformation that we know happened during the 2021 election, which circulated online although a very small amount, was a sliver of information that spread organically, it was not amplified and it did not impact voter intentions or voter behaviour. There is no evidence of that. It was independently verified by researchers at universities across the country.
In fact, remember what I said: It was less than in 2019, and it was 1% of all the state-sponsored articles that were shared on social media. Less than 1% related to Canadians. The vast majority of the articles and information were related to the Huawei executive and the two Michaels.
The reason our security and intelligence experts are saying this over and over and over again is because it's true—