I was fortunate to learn research methods in university, and I taught critical thinking and media literacy to kids from JK to 6th grade. Learning to question everything (Is this true? How do I know?), finding primary sources, asking questions about who might stand to benefit from sharing specific information that’s not true, and who might be harmed by it…are all good places to start. The more we learn to question the firehose of mis/disinformation coming at us, the healthier our society will be. These skills are foundational to being able to sort through the increasingly murky information landscape we’re dealing with today.
My suggestion as we talk to people in our families and communities about disinformation: start with some of these questions. Set the table with the stuff we agree on: we all want the best for our country, and our families. If the conversation veers off into misinformation territory, then ask some questions about where the beliefs or information came from, and see if we can find solid sources together. Sometimes we can gentle people into questioning their beliefs, and sometimes we can’t, but it’s worth a try.
David M. I care and frankly, like Trump and Danielle Smith in Alberta, they are experts at gaslighting. Poilieve has said anything that isn't BS since becoming laeder. He takes an item, not an issue , out of context, exaggerates it as if it is the end of the world, then blames Trudeau and has been damn successful at it.
Living in rural Alberta, my fellow seniors listen to the clip and consider it gospel.
Like the USA plan to destroy confidence and trust in our institutions, he continues to hate on that. Then our election process to which Smith has now introduced ID requirements for Alberta voting and banned automatic vote counting machines or voting machines and hand counting required. Has there been fraud or issues with our sysytem? Nope! Just prevention they say what what actually do the Conservative voters feel? Where there smoke, perhaps fire.
Last week our Conservative MPs decided the big issue was plant based ice cream cannot be called ice cream. Great priorities.
We perhaps need a boutique of Fascism type Conservative politics and authoritarian leadership to wake us up! We have it in Alberta where Smith continues to consolidate all decision making within her office, decisions to be made by non elected paid hacks, not even public servants. And if a municipal councils or municipal politicians dare disagree, she can call a recall or dismiss the decision or replace the Council. Ah isn't freedom of expression wonderful when u can only express ideas or opinions that Smith agrees with. And Poilievre does have the mental ability to actual make a rational suggestion, only tell us Canada is broken. And this 80 year doesn't believe it, not for one minute. So yes most don't care about the BS, but yesterday Doug Ford Premier of Ontario mused on an early Ontario election! Why because he can see and hear the BS from Poilievre and the fed election is prior to the Ontario election and Duog is astute enough that we are meaning Ontario voters are really going to be peed off with electing Poilievre and hus right wing agenda
Well after that, I just had to check. Your piece is 1272 words so a bit of a bonus and as usual, great work. I am hesitant though to read an article in a big paper and follow the series. I'll go with for as far as the paper will let me. But it raises a red flag for what will come. Paywalls are something seniors on fixed income try to avoid. Why a media outlet would create a $5.00 per month or more barrier is baffling. $.25 per month from a much wider subscriber base make more sense? Is there a website or app that does that with a very comprehensive list of media outlets? I could handle $10 or $15 a month to be able to read every Cdn daily, pick some small town locals, add in a few American dailies. Apple News used to do this but the selection was very poor from a Canadian perspective.
To use your click-generating header, David..."Bullshit".
I do consider the Toronto Star to be unbalanced--hence not truthful. However, the CBC headlines the following "Ottawa allowed B.C. to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl starting in 2023".
The BC Emergency Health services reports "The total number of 2023 responses to overdoses/poisonings (42,172) represented an increase of 25% from the previous year. While corelation isn't causation, I'm buying it. Legal drugs = more overdose deaths.
I was in Prince George last week and spoke with some RCMP members. They are finding the "free" drugs on the open market. And that's as close to "the truth" as you're going to get.
Well after Prohibition was over, a study looked over such stats as were available back then and concluded that Prohibition had indeed cut deaths from alcohol by about 50%, despite all the bootlegging. It was a greater saving than the deaths lost to gang wars and turf fights.
But they didn't bring back Prohibition to go back to saving all those alcohol-ended lives. Partly because, those lives that were being ended by their own actions - we treasure freedom so much, we protect your freedom to take stupid, deadly risks, on mountains, or in bottles. Or syringes.
There's little difference in the philosophical argument for other forms of Prohibition from that on alcohol, save that alcohol was enormously more popular and took far more lives. All depend on the paternalistic attitude that you must be protected from your own actions, like a child. Not a hard lift when it's "street people" who are ill-spoken, very poor, and pathetic.
But opioids started addicting "regular citizens" with jobs and homes, who got addicted with their bad back prescription, and they actually did more dying, because they had homes and none to save them when they overdosed alone. Busting them was MUCH more awkward than "street people", and here we are.
Roy, your argument is a "bridge too far". You argue that opiods for people addicted by their doctors should have access due to inadvertent addiction and that should apply to ALL USERS.
I agree that doctor assisted addiction should result in 2 things: drug availability and doctor responsibility. I believe that most others, however, should be left to the results their own decisions.
However, Moscrop's article focuses on "popular political slogans and talking points". The assertion that "legal drugs do NOT cause increases in overdoses" is, again to use David's subtlety, "bullshit".
I could have sworn was that my argument was that Prohibition DID suppress deaths from alcohol.
I admit to leaving it implied that this is logically the same as saying that the end of Prohibition caused an increase in alcohol deaths - and it's not just more overdose deaths, it's accidents and traffic deaths that went up.
The argument is quite literally that the increase in drug-related death was still worth the benefits of ending Prohibition. In both cases.
Roy, perhaps we're arguing different ends of the same rope. To be clear: my belief is that government permission for legalized usage of non-prescribed addictive drugs is wrong.
I believe that doctor-assisted patient addiction is relatively easily identified and easily medicated. Ditto: mentally impaired users.
I believe, very harshly I agree, that self-addicted users should be left to their own destiny. Successful public rehab on the 1st try...or private rehab...or the inevitable death.
I believe that Moscrop's assertion of wrongness of Poilievre's assertion "Trudeau legalized illicit drugs throughout B.C. (and its results) is, to be repetitive, "bullshit"
And I believe you are flat out wrong because you believe every word out of PP’S mouth. Otherwise you wouldn’t be arguing about an article about FACT CHECKING!
Great article, however, I think the title of your article is unfortunate. How can I share this with people I’m hoping to sway to the light side? It will put their backs up right from the get-go. Regardless, I did share to FB. I’m still hopeful that some people have retained enough brain cells to make informed decisions.
That’s what I was thinking too. Even teaching primary/junior kids about critical thinking and media literacy always starts with having them to ask themselves a few questions:
Is this true? How do you know? Where would you find a primary source? Who might benefit from spreading information that’s not true about this topic?
What is particulary depressing is to see the number of comments critizing Patel's facts checking below the article from PP fans. Partisanship have been always present but all politicans should be fact-checked not only the ones we don't like.
Should we care? It's getting less and less likely that he'll be our next PM. I hope he'll soon be a small footnote on Canadian history like Scheer and O’Toole.
The fact of the situation is: serious intoxicants were decriminalized, overdoes deaths went up during this time, as such Pierre Polievere bringing up this objective information is accurate and insightful regardless of any personal feelings on the individual.
The print media in Canada, including the Toronto Star, has mostly been taken over by the Postmedia group. They have a tendency to actually suppress information and allow misinformation, mostly through “editorials”. I have found they do still allow good journalism to slip through (which Patel seems to have done) but it usually isn’t worth wading through the rest.
My wife has recently started using Ground News which fact checks news sources and so far that seems to be legitimately working. It is a subscription based service but does collect and filter information from a lot of sources.
I couldn’t like this more, thank you!
I was fortunate to learn research methods in university, and I taught critical thinking and media literacy to kids from JK to 6th grade. Learning to question everything (Is this true? How do I know?), finding primary sources, asking questions about who might stand to benefit from sharing specific information that’s not true, and who might be harmed by it…are all good places to start. The more we learn to question the firehose of mis/disinformation coming at us, the healthier our society will be. These skills are foundational to being able to sort through the increasingly murky information landscape we’re dealing with today.
My suggestion as we talk to people in our families and communities about disinformation: start with some of these questions. Set the table with the stuff we agree on: we all want the best for our country, and our families. If the conversation veers off into misinformation territory, then ask some questions about where the beliefs or information came from, and see if we can find solid sources together. Sometimes we can gentle people into questioning their beliefs, and sometimes we can’t, but it’s worth a try.
It is definitely worth trying. The one thing we cannot do is throw our hands in the air and give up. Thank you for this.
Spreading bullshit is is how rage farmers cultivate their crop of votes.
David M. I care and frankly, like Trump and Danielle Smith in Alberta, they are experts at gaslighting. Poilieve has said anything that isn't BS since becoming laeder. He takes an item, not an issue , out of context, exaggerates it as if it is the end of the world, then blames Trudeau and has been damn successful at it.
Living in rural Alberta, my fellow seniors listen to the clip and consider it gospel.
Like the USA plan to destroy confidence and trust in our institutions, he continues to hate on that. Then our election process to which Smith has now introduced ID requirements for Alberta voting and banned automatic vote counting machines or voting machines and hand counting required. Has there been fraud or issues with our sysytem? Nope! Just prevention they say what what actually do the Conservative voters feel? Where there smoke, perhaps fire.
Last week our Conservative MPs decided the big issue was plant based ice cream cannot be called ice cream. Great priorities.
We perhaps need a boutique of Fascism type Conservative politics and authoritarian leadership to wake us up! We have it in Alberta where Smith continues to consolidate all decision making within her office, decisions to be made by non elected paid hacks, not even public servants. And if a municipal councils or municipal politicians dare disagree, she can call a recall or dismiss the decision or replace the Council. Ah isn't freedom of expression wonderful when u can only express ideas or opinions that Smith agrees with. And Poilievre does have the mental ability to actual make a rational suggestion, only tell us Canada is broken. And this 80 year doesn't believe it, not for one minute. So yes most don't care about the BS, but yesterday Doug Ford Premier of Ontario mused on an early Ontario election! Why because he can see and hear the BS from Poilievre and the fed election is prior to the Ontario election and Duog is astute enough that we are meaning Ontario voters are really going to be peed off with electing Poilievre and hus right wing agenda
Well after that, I just had to check. Your piece is 1272 words so a bit of a bonus and as usual, great work. I am hesitant though to read an article in a big paper and follow the series. I'll go with for as far as the paper will let me. But it raises a red flag for what will come. Paywalls are something seniors on fixed income try to avoid. Why a media outlet would create a $5.00 per month or more barrier is baffling. $.25 per month from a much wider subscriber base make more sense? Is there a website or app that does that with a very comprehensive list of media outlets? I could handle $10 or $15 a month to be able to read every Cdn daily, pick some small town locals, add in a few American dailies. Apple News used to do this but the selection was very poor from a Canadian perspective.
Where are the facts about Poilievre spreading bullshit??? Your headline is misleading.
To use your click-generating header, David..."Bullshit".
I do consider the Toronto Star to be unbalanced--hence not truthful. However, the CBC headlines the following "Ottawa allowed B.C. to decriminalize small amounts of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl starting in 2023".
The BC Emergency Health services reports "The total number of 2023 responses to overdoses/poisonings (42,172) represented an increase of 25% from the previous year. While corelation isn't causation, I'm buying it. Legal drugs = more overdose deaths.
I was in Prince George last week and spoke with some RCMP members. They are finding the "free" drugs on the open market. And that's as close to "the truth" as you're going to get.
Well after Prohibition was over, a study looked over such stats as were available back then and concluded that Prohibition had indeed cut deaths from alcohol by about 50%, despite all the bootlegging. It was a greater saving than the deaths lost to gang wars and turf fights.
But they didn't bring back Prohibition to go back to saving all those alcohol-ended lives. Partly because, those lives that were being ended by their own actions - we treasure freedom so much, we protect your freedom to take stupid, deadly risks, on mountains, or in bottles. Or syringes.
There's little difference in the philosophical argument for other forms of Prohibition from that on alcohol, save that alcohol was enormously more popular and took far more lives. All depend on the paternalistic attitude that you must be protected from your own actions, like a child. Not a hard lift when it's "street people" who are ill-spoken, very poor, and pathetic.
But opioids started addicting "regular citizens" with jobs and homes, who got addicted with their bad back prescription, and they actually did more dying, because they had homes and none to save them when they overdosed alone. Busting them was MUCH more awkward than "street people", and here we are.
Roy, your argument is a "bridge too far". You argue that opiods for people addicted by their doctors should have access due to inadvertent addiction and that should apply to ALL USERS.
I agree that doctor assisted addiction should result in 2 things: drug availability and doctor responsibility. I believe that most others, however, should be left to the results their own decisions.
However, Moscrop's article focuses on "popular political slogans and talking points". The assertion that "legal drugs do NOT cause increases in overdoses" is, again to use David's subtlety, "bullshit".
I could have sworn was that my argument was that Prohibition DID suppress deaths from alcohol.
I admit to leaving it implied that this is logically the same as saying that the end of Prohibition caused an increase in alcohol deaths - and it's not just more overdose deaths, it's accidents and traffic deaths that went up.
The argument is quite literally that the increase in drug-related death was still worth the benefits of ending Prohibition. In both cases.
Roy, perhaps we're arguing different ends of the same rope. To be clear: my belief is that government permission for legalized usage of non-prescribed addictive drugs is wrong.
I believe that doctor-assisted patient addiction is relatively easily identified and easily medicated. Ditto: mentally impaired users.
I believe, very harshly I agree, that self-addicted users should be left to their own destiny. Successful public rehab on the 1st try...or private rehab...or the inevitable death.
I believe that Moscrop's assertion of wrongness of Poilievre's assertion "Trudeau legalized illicit drugs throughout B.C. (and its results) is, to be repetitive, "bullshit"
And I believe you are flat out wrong because you believe every word out of PP’S mouth. Otherwise you wouldn’t be arguing about an article about FACT CHECKING!
Great article, however, I think the title of your article is unfortunate. How can I share this with people I’m hoping to sway to the light side? It will put their backs up right from the get-go. Regardless, I did share to FB. I’m still hopeful that some people have retained enough brain cells to make informed decisions.
Lots of good advice here. Reminds me of things I’d say to my Grade 9 students. Wonder if any of it stuck?
That’s what I was thinking too. Even teaching primary/junior kids about critical thinking and media literacy always starts with having them to ask themselves a few questions:
Is this true? How do you know? Where would you find a primary source? Who might benefit from spreading information that’s not true about this topic?
What is particulary depressing is to see the number of comments critizing Patel's facts checking below the article from PP fans. Partisanship have been always present but all politicans should be fact-checked not only the ones we don't like.
Should we care? It's getting less and less likely that he'll be our next PM. I hope he'll soon be a small footnote on Canadian history like Scheer and O’Toole.
The fact of the situation is: serious intoxicants were decriminalized, overdoes deaths went up during this time, as such Pierre Polievere bringing up this objective information is accurate and insightful regardless of any personal feelings on the individual.
The print media in Canada, including the Toronto Star, has mostly been taken over by the Postmedia group. They have a tendency to actually suppress information and allow misinformation, mostly through “editorials”. I have found they do still allow good journalism to slip through (which Patel seems to have done) but it usually isn’t worth wading through the rest.
My wife has recently started using Ground News which fact checks news sources and so far that seems to be legitimately working. It is a subscription based service but does collect and filter information from a lot of sources.
Poillievre has nothing else to spread. If it looks like manure, and smells like manure, it's unlikely to be a bouquet of roses.
It’s worth fact checking to call him out and keep him in line especially when he's likely the next prime minister
https://x.com/McfarlaneGlenda/status/1801387841026478365?t=Knp0a24JwGboyRyZ7Wjw6A&s=09