The creation of a team to combat Russian state-sponsored disinformation was among the countermeasures against Russia that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday.
The declaration was delivered during the virtually hosted second annual Heads of State and Government summit of the International Crimea Platform.
“Canada will continue to counter Russian state-sponsored disinformation by creating a dedicated team to help increase Canada’s capacity to understand, monitor, and detect Russian and other state-sponsored disinformation and enable deeper international collaboration, including through the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM).” According to a statement released by the government,
Germany will be working with Canada to focus on tackling “the threat of subnational foreign interference at community, municipal and regional levels.”
Trudeau has been hyper focused on his war against “Russian disinformation”. For a while now the government has had partnerships with G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM), NATO, Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), and Freedom Online Coalition (FOC).
The posting describes the way of how Putin is able to pump out propaganda and disinformation by placing restrictions on independent media and foreign social media platforms.
“The Kremlin is also placing new restrictions on independent media and foreign social media platforms in Russia. This is an effort to control information available to the public. These tactics put lives at risk at a moment when access to factual information is critical.”
However the Trudeau government is currently trying to push forward with their own restrictions on independent media with Bill C-18 “Online News Act” and foreign social media platforms in Canada with Bill C-11 “Online steaming Act”.
In March of this year Trudeau called for the banning of Russian tv channels Russia Today and Sputnik TV. Minister Joly then claimed it’s her job to battle “propaganda online” and censor Canada’s internet.
In July of this year while Trudeau was flying via private jet all over the world, he landed in British Columbia for a quick set of photo-ops and banned media from asking him questions and threaten them with police action to have them removed if they dare ask questions.