Having covered Calgary city council for the Western Standard over the past six months, and many more years of coverage before that, Tuesday’s council session was one for the books. A number of motions were debated, but the ‘star of the show’ was departing Ward 8 Cllr. Courtney Walcott’s notice of motion, Combatting Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation (MDM) in Local Government. I called the motion the ‘Ministry of Truth,’ a reference to George Orwell’s book 1984, about the totalitarian regime of Oceania. In the book, the truth ministry was responsible for propaganda and rewriting history. Its focus was on lying to people. Walcott’s premise was that some decisions made by city council, and some reactions by the public and media, were predicated on false or misleading information. His motion called for a new city department to explore and expunge MDM from council proceedings and reach out to the media if any of us, in the mind of whoever was going to run his ministry, was using MDM in our reporting. Essentially, a department of censorship. The premise of the motion was challenged, including by Walcott’s usual allies, known as the Hateful 8, who always vote in a block. Additionally, the city received 72 written submissions, most quoting my earlier column, ‘The Ministry of Truth’ (thank-you!) and all firmly opposed to the creation of such a city department. .“Seems like we've been debating this for a year. We’ve debated both at length in city council and with the public and to me it always comes back to who gets to decide what is misinformation, malinformation or disinformation,” said Ward 13 Cllr. Dan McLean. “I don't have the answer to that, and I don't know if anybody truly does. I mean, I think if it was egregious hate or child pornography, that should be censored.” “But political opinions by politicians, the way they express their own opinions, I think that should be different and that would be decided ultimately at the ballot box.” McLean offered an example of Walcott himself spreading misinformation. “I did a post, and I said, hey, I thought that the blanket rezoning debate, where we were told that it was going to reduce the price of homes and maybe make homes more affordable,” he said, adding Walcott posted information from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) indicating home prices declined. “Look, the prices of homes went down right after we passed that,” posted Walcott, according to McLean. McLean said to Walcott in council on Tuesday, “the very fact that you post a chart from CREB (that) the house price is dropping immediately after we passed them, before any houses were even built yet or for that motion to take effect, that chart I think was misinformation.” .“You talked about the press,” added McLean. “If I read an article about this and I read LiveWire or if I go to the Western Standard, I'm going to get two different stories and different opinions on everything.” It’s a valid point. If, for example, 100 new homes were built on Tuesday and Western Standard and LiveWire report that number, but I say it’s not enough and LiveWire says it is enough, those are opinions. Neither one is right nor wrong.“There’s a difference between news and opinion,” said McLean. Ward 3 Cllr. Jennifer Mian, usually a Walcott ally, also weighed in. “I think we're sort of getting into this place that there's no such thing as objective fact,” said Mian. “There are facts and there are things that exist independently inclusive. Like there are just things that are factual. There's no enforcement mechanism in this. It's simply just trying to say let's understand. This is ultimately censorship.” Mayor Jyoti Gondek, who is running again for the mayor’s job, looked down the road to the fall election and offered a suggestion to administration. .“I would say something for the new council, whoever happens to be on it, something that that council will benefit from, is a presentation from senior leadership that says we understand that misinformation is an issue and we understand that as a corporation we need to tackle it,” said Gondek. “These are the measures that we're going to take, these are the things we're going to do. And come to us with examples. Come back and talk about what happened. Come back and talk to us about how that went, what the lessons learned are, and how they can keep things differently. So, I'm sorry, Councillor Walcott, I can't support this.” Ward 1 Cllr. Sonya Sharp, who is also running for mayor in the fall election said it’s council job to combat MDM. “I am compelled to say some things because my no vote is not because misinformation comes from administration. My no vote is because I know exactly what Councillor Walcott was intending with this. This isn't about administration making problems or missteps,” said Sharp. “It is up to us as governors to tell the truth or not, or have misinformation, or have misinformation or not. It's our job to have the facts.” In the vote, Walcott’s motion was defeated 9-to-4, with Cllrs. Wyness, Spencer, Wong, McLean, Sharp, Chu, Demong, Chabot and Mayor Gondek voting 'no.' Voting 'yes,' were Cllrs. Walcott, Carra, Penner and Mian.What made the day standout was that common sense prevailed, but more important, the usual line of division was erased, and all councillors were introspective and well aware of the potentially dangerous impact of a Ministry of Truth.
