Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses for helping guide our committee through this study.
Dr. Nora Cuppens, I would like to start with you.
In your opening remarks, you were talking about the information war that exists and Russia's responsibility in that. Here in Canada, during the month of February, we noticed a switch at the end of that month from a lot of groups that were involved in anti-vaccine protests. Suddenly, with the war beginning in Ukraine, there was a noticeable shift to a pro-Russian stance. They started echoing Russian propaganda and really trying to promote that. It was almost overnight from the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Dr. Nora Cuppens, what can we learn from that?
I guess it speaks to the level of Russian involvement in developing that misinformation and spreading misinformation in Canada. I think many of us rightly perceive that as a threat to our democracy, if we can't even agree on a common set of facts.
Moreover, what programs and policies can the federal government effectively enact to combat that when we have a state actor that is very hostile to Canada's interests meddling in our internal affairs and exploiting those divisions in our democracy?