Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2023

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

This may sound like a bizarre question. Given your experience, and your expertise in governance.... We have parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons, which means that during question period, during debate, we can make statements as long as we're using proper language and not using unparliamentary language, but we can state things in the House which could be incorrect.

I'd like to say all 38 million Canadians are watching CPAC, watching QP, and watching us all the time. For those who are watching, I would anticipate you would agree with me that we also have a responsibility as members of Parliament to make sure the content we are creating in the House of Commons, in terms of what we are saying, is factually correct.

Otherwise, hiding behind parliamentary privilege to make statements in the House that are actually misleading and/or disinforming.... Would you agree that as parliamentarians we also have a responsibility to make sure the information we are creating is accurate? We make clips for social media. We use parliamentary ParlVU, or our parliamentary resources, to then post on social media, and a clip may have a missing preamble or whatever. Would you say that would mean we are creating disinformation campaigns as well?

[Sam Andrey]

That's a tricky question. I want to draw a distinction between the cut and thrust of domestic political actors who talk to their constituents and foreign disinformation. The appropriate response to those things, I think, is understandably different.

I agree with the general premise of what you're saying, which is that in an ideal state, our democracy is based on evidence and facts, and voters are informed correctly. What is true and what is false in a domestic debate context is subjective, of course.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I'm out of time, so I'll give that back to the chair.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you so much.

Madame Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Andrey. I'm going to pick up on what he just said and piggyback on a question Mr. Turnbull asked during the previous panel. Hesaid that it was just as important to address foreign interference as domestic interference. He compared a disinformation campaign on WeChat to a party sending out flyers containing false information.

Mr. Andrey, I'd like you to talk about your survey findings. Are people more wary when information comes from a political party—since they realize that it may be politically motivated—than they are when information is shared by their peers, colleagues and people like them on social media?

[Sam Andrey]

I'll start with your first question. In general, the use of messaging apps for news, things like WhatsApp or WeChat.... When people say they use that as a source of news, they are more likely to then also believe in misinformation.

It is in the scheme of these types of media, which are among the worst in terms of their effects on people's belief in misinformation. It is a concerning way in which people are accessing news. There is an inherent trust in the media that you receive through these messaging apps that come from friends and colleagues. It's different from news presented on a feed, where you might just scroll on by. It has a higher likelihood of being read and a higher propensity to be believed.

If I misunderstood your question, please feel free to elaborate.

The second question was, do people trust political parties? We haven't directly asked that question, so I couldn't answer that.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

As we've heard, one of the problems with information online is that it's hard to identify the source, especially when foreign interference is involved.

Would it be possible to use flag icons as a way to label information that is shared online, to encourage people to look at it with a more critical eye or question it further? Would a tool like that be helpful, say, when tweets are retweeted over and over again by bots or when sources outside the country are primarily responsible for spreading information about Canada? Identifying the source can be difficult.

[Sam Andrey]

Yes, absolutely.

A feature that used to be on Twitter, whereby you could see the location of the tweet, was removed recently with the Twitter ownership change, which has been a slight setback in that kind of transparency that you described.

Whether it's domestic or foreign is at the heart of this debate, of course. I've been watching the past meetings. The ability, in a short amount of time, in an election, to understand the source is sometimes not possible, and this relates to the threshold for mitigative communications.

While it's important to focus on what we can do about foreign disinformation through the Elections Act and through the penalties, it's also important to focus on what we can do in general about misinformation, regardless of its source, and how we can make the platforms healthier places for democratic discourse. This goes back to focusing on automated content and on nudges to encourage people to check things, and having different labels, as you described.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

You said that, when people fact-check things they see online using another source, it can help counter disinformation. The media come to mind.

One of the groups we are interested in, as part of this study, is the Chinese diaspora. Are members of that community at a disadvantage because they have access to very few—or no—reliable outside sources in their mother tongue?

[Sam Andrey]

Absolutely. In fact, as one example, we find that French Canadians are less likely to believe in misinformation. It's been proposed that it is in part because in the English language media ecosystem, disinformation flows up principally from the United States to Canada, so the French media ecosystem is less susceptible to it. There are all sorts of linguistic dynamics in our information ecosystem.

Specific to your question about the diaspora communities or Chinese-language communities, one potential solution that we shouldn't overlook is the importance of local media, such as Chinese language newspapers and other smaller outlets, that can be a voice and be a vehicle to address that. I think the federal government has made some efforts around supporting journalism. I think more of that is needed, because that is a key way to address that concern.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

That's all the time I have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mrs. Blaney, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the witnesses for being here today. I really appreciate your testimony.

Mr. Andrey, I am going to ask you the questions that I have today.

I thought it was very interesting when I read about the survey of online harms in Canada. The information was interesting.

I'm really curious, because I know that Canadians' use of social media is growing. I represent a more rural and remote riding, and one challenge for small communities across Canada is that local papers are really struggling to find ways to survive in this economy. There is not as much support for them to make sure there are actually accredited journalists doing the work and making sure the information is true and factual.

I'm curious about this. You also said that Canadians are ready to see action taken on this issue. I'm curious about how people are making decisions about what a trusted source is when they go online.

If we're going to combat misinformation, what kinds of thoughts do you have around what we could provide so that people know if something is a trusted source or not?

[Sam Andrey]

It's a great question.

There are a few things. We have been tracking trust in mainstream media as well as in social media for the last four years. The good news is that most of our mainstream media, like CBC, The Globe and Mail, CTV and Global News, are highly trusted institutions among most Canadians. While it has slipped slightly through the pandemic, which is a global phenomenon, not just in Canada, it has not significantly.

On the other hand, trust in social media continues to fall. In fact, fewer than one in 10 Canadians now say they have a high degree of trust in Facebook, TikTok and Twitter.

I think Canadians are getting the message about where they can access trustworthy information in some respects. On the other hand, though, use of these platforms for news continues to grow. These are a bit at odds, if that makes sense.

To your point, it relates to how we're consuming information and how we're using our phones. In terms of the ability to access forms of media like local media, there are a bunch of factors that contribute to that, which are worrisome. However, I wanted to answer your question specifically about trust.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you for that.

You talked a lot about ethnic media, and earlier today we heard testimony about different countries resourcing media within Canada. There should be more accountability in how people are trained and what resources they're getting. I think that's an important part.

I'm just wondering, when you did this research, if you did any particular research on social media that was in different languages in Canada, or if it was just on the French and English. Is that a gap? Do we need to see more resources to research that, to make sure those methods are really being held to account, so then we can support that transparency?

[Sam Andrey]

That's a really good question.

We did a study two years ago, specifically around messaging apps. We dug into WeChat, in particular. Private messaging apps tend to be a key vehicle for diaspora communities. For example, WhatsApp is heavily used in the South Asian community in Canada. Telegram is used by the Russian and eastern European communities. Different apps are used differently. It's easy to communicate back home, and there are also already groups with family and friends, etc.

Having said all that, in general, the use of these apps is associated with higher exposure to and belief in misinformation. People who use those apps say that they receive misinformation. I think about 40% said that they receive it at least a few times a month, and WhatsApp, WeChat and Telegram stood out among those. We haven't looked specifically at language, but I think our findings are decent proxies for that.

Does that help?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

That does help. Thank you.

This is my last question. It says here that 15% of Canadians have a high degree of belief in misinformation. This really makes me think of living through the convoy and watching journalists go on live television right there and ask people to share their thoughts. People just kept yelling, “Fake news!” and wouldn't say anything. I just watched that and found it so odd.

In any of the work that you've done, is there clarity about why this 15% is believing more misinformation. What can we do to remind people of the fact that Canada has some good things that we should look at?

Where is that distrust, and what can we do? It was mind-boggling to me that when they had a microphone in front of their face, and they could tell everyone whatever, they couldn't think of any words to say except, “Fake news!”

[Sam Andrey]

That's a great question. I think it's the key question.

There's concern that this group is growing and that the online information ecosystem is making it worse. Conspiratorial beliefs have always existed. In some ways we are focusing new attention on a thing that has always existed and maybe was never tracked adequately. Yes, there is a minority of Canadians whom we categorize as having a high belief in misinformation, because they believed at least six of eight statements that were common misinformation about a range of topics.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Andrey.

[Sam Andrey]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Don't be sorry. We appreciate the information you have provided to us. I'd like to thank Mr. Andrey and Ms. Krause for the information.

I would just like to say that if there's anything else you would like committee members to know, please share it with the clerk. We'll have it translated and available in both official languages and shared with members.

We are heading off to two votes, and because it will take a bit longer, we will not return.

We wish you a good rest of the day. We thank you for the information you've provided.

Members, we will see you on Thursday at 10 a.m. in room 025-B.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.