Thank you and good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be here today.
My name is Shlomit Broder. I'm the CEO of Digital Public Square, a Canadian not-for-profit that, throughout the last decade, has worked to bolster civic resilience in Canada and abroad by creating digital spaces that allow for greater participation, encourage critical thinking and invite more voices to be shared and heard in a productive and respectful manner.
Today I will speak to two areas—the state of polarization in Canada and the role digital spaces can play in strengthening civic resilience.
Across the world, we are seeing deepening polarization, growing information manipulation threats and declining trust in institutions. Canada is not immune to these challenges. It is a critical moment to take a thoughtful and proactive approach to safeguarding and strengthening our civic resilience.
Our nationally representative surveys show that Canadians perceive the country to be far more polarized than it actually is. Many believe that those with opposing political views are more extreme than they truly are and underestimate how much common ground exists in our shared priorities and values.
In our July 2025 survey, 30% of Canadians said the country is highly polarized, and 62% stated they are concerned that the political left and political right can't speak to each other about political and social issues. However, when we look at how Canadians identify politically, the picture is quite different and more nuanced. Most Canadians self-identify as ideologically centrist. Within our survey, 66% of Canadians placed themselves in the three middle pillars on a seven-point scale between political left and right. Only a small minority identified at the ideological extremes.