Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the privilege and opportunity to testify before you today.
I've spent the past two and a half years living part time in Ukraine. I have written, as a freelance journalist, almost 100 articles about the country. Through my work, I've tried to dispel some of Russia's disinformation narratives, mostly by working with Ukraine's LGBTQ, Jewish and racialized communities.
Reporting the truth in this context can feel Sisyphean. Russia's propaganda machine is formidable and well funded. As we saw with the recent Tenet Media scandal, influential commentators are sometimes paid to disseminate poisonous falsehoods. We also know that many people happily share Moscow's narratives for free, because they have been seduced by propaganda that has been carefully tailored to flatter their ideological world views. It is difficult to distinguish these useful idiots, who genuinely believe what they say, from paid or unpaid actors who work under the direct or indirect orders of the Russian government.
Dimitri Lascaris, an eco-socialist activist who is popular among Canada's fringe left, is a seminal example. Since Russia's full-scale invasion began, Lascaris has promoted Moscow's propaganda narratives with aggressive obsession. In the spring of 2023, he visited Russia, met with foreign ministry officials and sycophantically whitewashed Putin's regime and war crimes. He has also made repeated appearances on RT, a sanctioned Kremlin-owned media outlet that Global Affairs Canada has identified as an arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus. He has done this despite recognizing, in his own writing, that RT is propagandistic.
Lascaris's Potemkin adventures, which he says were fully self-funded, were widely criticized, including in an article I wrote for the National Post and, more importantly, in an essay written by Alexey Kovalev, a prominent Russian dissident journalist who now lives in exile. Yet it remains unclear whether Lascaris is an agent of foreign influence or just a zealot. It is also unclear to what degree he is receiving assistance from the Russians, whether wittingly or not.
As a simple journalist, I lack the capacity to make these determinations. The media may play a vital role in reporting on disinformation, national security and foreign affairs, but our resources are limited. It is up to Canada's state institutions, with their formidable investigative powers, to review ambiguous cases and build legal frameworks that define, identify and punish unacceptable collaboration with hostile foreign governments.
I want to emphasize that this is not a partisan issue. While Lascaris exemplifies the failures of the far left, the far right has been just as toxic. In early 2023, for example, there appeared to be a coordinated campaign among MAGA Twitter influencers to portray the war in Ukraine as a hoax and to assert that no footage of it exists. Their claims were so exasperatingly absurd that they seemed impossible to respond to. How do you argue with someone who insists that the sky is red, not blue?
I cannot offer much insight into the specifics of Russia's propaganda operations, nor the tools available to thwart them, as that is beyond my expertise. What I can provide, however, is a sense of how this propaganda plays out on social media, along with analysis of the knowledge gaps that have allowed disinformation to proliferate.
Insofar as recommendations go, I advise that Canada proactively protect its information environment by funding public and media education initiatives. It is not enough to shut off a sewage leak. Some environmental remediation is needed. One way this could be done is by amplifying minority voices within Ukraine, particularly LGBTQ Ukrainians, who could dispel myths circulating in ultra-progressive circles, and Jewish Ukrainians, who could engage with conservative audiences.
I also believe that first-hand experience is a powerful, if imperfect, antidote to disinformation. Many of the journalists I met while in Ukraine said that they were surprised when they first visited the country. It seemed that, beforehand, their perceptions had been coloured by outdated, negative stereotypes about eastern Europe. Upon seeing Ukraine in real life, it was apparent to them that Russia's narratives, predominantly regarding neo-Nazism and the so-called persecution of Russian speakers, were ridiculous.
To that end, I would recommend funding opportunities for media figures and thought leaders to visit Ukraine, so long as this is done in a careful manner that does not undermine the independence of the Canadian media.