MACLEOD: Are Canadians being taught what to think?

Something unsettling is happening in Canada. Many no longer argue from evidence, history, economics, or national interest. They argue from slogans. They repeat approved narratives with the confidence of people who believe they are independently informed. In reality, they often sound like they have simply downloaded the last acceptable opinion from television, social media, or government-funded messaging campaigns. I have recently experienced this on several occasions in casual conversations. It is troubling.One of the more disturbing examples is the growing suggestion that China or Russia may somehow be more valuable to Canada than the United States (US). That is not serious analysis. It is geopolitical illiteracy. The US is Canada’s largest trading partner, closest military ally, continental security partner, largest export market, and the country with which millions of Canadians have family, businesses, property, travel, investment, and cultural ties. China and Russia are authoritarian powers with strategic interests that often run directly contrary to Canada’s security, sovereignty, and democratic values. Yet somehow, far too many Canadians have been nudged into seeing America as the real threat and authoritarian regimes as misunderstood, viable alternatives.This schism does not happen by accident. It happens through compromised media, repetition, emotional manipulation, selective reporting, algorithmic reinforcement, and institutional messaging. It happens when propaganda becomes almost ambient, a constant, recurring pressure in the public atmosphere..A clear example is foreign interference by the People’s Republic of China. Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference documented disinformation targeting Erin O’Toole and former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu during the 2021 federal election. That inquiry confirmed that Canadian voters were targeted. Ethnic media, community networks, and diaspora platforms were used as channels for political influence. That is psychological manipulation. False claims spread through Chinese-language media and platforms such as WeChat, portraying Conservative policies as hostile to Chinese Canadians and suggesting O’Toole would ban WeChat. Chiu’s proposed foreign influence registry was also distorted in ways likely to alarm or alienate voters in affected communities.Opposition to AI data centres is no longer just a local debate over water, land, power, or transparency. It is also part of a larger strategic fight over who will dominate artificial intelligence. A May 2026 Bitcoin Policy Institute report alleges that Chinese state media, CCP-aligned networks, and foreign-linked funding have helped amplify criticism of North American AI data centres, focusing on electricity costs, grid strain, and environmental damage. Kevin O’Leary has made similar claims about foreign-linked opposition to a Utah data-centre project.All the while, China rapidly subsidizes its own AI infrastructure. There are many “useful idiots” who succumb to this narrative. Canadians should be skeptical when the same talking points that would weaken North American AI capacity also conveniently benefit China’s race to dominate the sector.Russia has every reason to weaken Canadian public support for Ukraine, NATO, sanctions, and Western unity, and it has directed disinformation at Canada’s position. CSIS has warned that Russia uses proxies, online amplification, AI, and polarising social issues to discredit Canada’s position on Ukraine. The technique is not always to make Canadians love Russia. It is often to make Canadians tired, cynical, suspicious, and divided. The long campaign against Alberta’s energy industry is another prime example. Alberta’s public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns reported substantial foreign funding flowing into Canadian-based environmental initiatives, including campaigns connected to anti-pipeline activity. One can debate the inquiry, its tone, its politics, and its conclusions, but the broad issue is undeniable: foreign money, Canadian activist networks, environmental messaging, media campaigns, divestment pressure, and government policy have all intersected in ways that have helped damage Alberta’s core industry. As well as its fledgling independence movement..This matters because the language used against Alberta has often been moralized rather than debated. Alberta oil was not simply described as a resource with environmental trade-offs. It was branded as dirty, illegitimate, and socially unacceptable. Independence is branded as stupid, reckless, traitorous, and destabilizing. Once that emotional frame was established, rational discussion became nearly impossible. Pipelines became symbols. Workers became villains. Entire communities were treated as obstacles to progress. That is how propaganda works: it replaces facts with moral theatre.But there is also the quieter issue of government-funded civil society. Governments routinely fund non-profits, advocacy groups, research institutes, and public education campaigns. Some of that funding is legitimate and useful. But Canadians should be honest about the conflict of interest. When an organization, or a legacy media company, receives public money and then produces research, campaigns, petitions, or public messaging that conveniently supports the government’s preferred policy direction, citizens have every right to ask whether they are seeing independent civil society or a subsidized narrative management.Environmental advocacy provides a clear example. Organizations such as Environmental Defence campaign aggressively against oil and gas subsidies, emissions, pipelines, carbon capture, and federal support for fossil fuel development. Its own materials celebrate pressure campaigns that helped move federal policy on fossil fuel subsidies and emissions caps. Its audited statements show some government contribution revenue, while federal grant databases also show taxpayer funding to climate-policy organizations such as the Canadian Climate Institute. Alberta’s anti-energy inquiry reported $1.28 billion in foreign funding of Canadian-based environmental initiatives from 2003 to 2019, including funding connected to anti-pipeline campaigns and “anti-Alberta resource development activity.” .This raises a fair democratic question: why should taxpayers fund organizations that then lobby, pressure, or publicly campaign for the very policy agenda the government already wants advanced?The effect on Canadians is visible and, I fear, becoming much more pronounced. Many people now speak in prefabricated conclusions. They call censorship “safety.” They call central planning “climate leadership.” They call the US partnership “dependence,” all the while downplaying the risks of authoritarian influence. They treat Alberta’s economic interests as selfish, but Ottawa’s ideological projects as national virtue. They trust unnamed experts, but distrust neighbours who work in the industries that actually pay the bills.My greatest fear is that Canadians have lost the capacity for critical thought. These days, every country is subject to propaganda. The greater danger here is that many Canadians no longer recognize it unless it comes from an enemy they have been instructed to dislike. Russian propaganda is propaganda. Chinese propaganda is propaganda. But government messaging, activist campaigns, subsidized research, selective media framing, and algorithmic repetition on social media can also shape public opinion in ways that are manipulative rather than informative.A mature country would respond by demanding transparency. Who is funding the campaign? Who benefits from the narrative? What evidence is being excluded? Why are certain views amplified while others are ridiculed? Why does dissent so often get framed as extremism, misinformation, or moral failure? This is especially true in the responses to the Alberta independence movement. .The question Canadians must now ask is blunt. Is public opinion merely being influenced by foreign actors, activist groups, and media bias, or is our own federal government also participating in the deliberate shaping of public attitudes? When the government funds advocacy-adjacent organizations, subsidizes its preferred narratives, regulates speech and online platforms in the name of “safety,” and then politically benefits from a public trained to fear the wrong enemies, Canadians should be deeply suspicious. That is not a healthy democracy. That is “opinion management” dressed up as public interest. Skepticism is not paranoia; it is the minimum responsibility of any citizen who still values independent thought.Alberta and Canada do not need more curated opinion, approved messaging, or taxpayer-funded activism masquerading as grassroots concern. We need more citizens willing to ask hard questions. Who is shaping the narrative, who is paying for it, who benefits from it, and why are so many Canadians being encouraged to distrust our closest ally?

MACLEOD: Are Canadians being taught what to think?

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