Thank you for those good questions.
I can't answer the question about the capacity to resist election disinformation, because my security clearance doesn't allow me to know everything. I have read the reports that have been published, and I can say that, internally, Canada is certainly able to identify disinformation and share information about it.
I'm more of an expert on what's possible for Canada's universities and citizen groups. We have a real capacity. We look at what's happening online, we conduct analyses and we communicate that very well. In fact, we have some of the best capacity in the world to do that kind of research and analysis. That's largely thanks to the Canadian Digital Media Research Network.
We have a lot of capacity, but it should be noted that the data we can access and our ability to understand the situation are really limited because of the platforms' decisions. A very relevant example is the platform X, which decided this week to publish the location of all accounts on its platform. We don't know exactly how it goes about accurately finding an account's location, as well as its definition. For example, the CBC was located in the United States, and tons of accounts were identified in different places. That doesn't mean the CBC is located in the United States; that isn't true. It's also a matter of transparency. We need to know how the platform made that decision. We lack the real-world data to do that properly, to properly protect Canadians from efforts to manipulate information. That's my answer to the first question.
It's a lot harder to answer the second question. Are political parties using information manipulation tools, the tools and capabilities of these platforms, and our current ecosystem to manipulate Canadians' opinions?
I personally think that politics is an exchange of values, a debate on public policy, and an effort to convince Canadians of what's real and what isn't. For our part, our research doesn't focus on political parties or politicians. It's up to you to convince Canadians. However, it's certain that, from time to time, these manipulations manage to convince members or political parties of something that isn't real. That means that you yourselves are also victims of all these dynamics. I'm not going to say that one party or another is spreading disinformation, but you are victims of it as well. I know you don't want to lie to Canadians; that's fundamental. That's the way to think when it comes to believing in democracy. I don't think our system is set up so that you have enough information to react properly, communicate properly, and know if something is true or an effort by a person or a state to convince you of something that isn't real.