Polarization in Canada is not new. Indeed, it has been prevalent and politically expressed since pre-Confederation days. However, what is new, is that our historic polarizations (which have ebbed and flowed in intensity over time), mostly based on specific religious, racial or cultural identities have been superseded by a novel composite, made up of numerous and disparate components, linked together by bonds of emotion and ideologies. This polarization is characterized by a desire for simple answers to complex problems, a distrust of scientific evidence, preferred adherence for autocratic leadership and a mistrust of democratic processes, civic institutions, and the rule of law. Emboldened by an inchoate sense of anger and a willingness to echo conspiracy theories, this type of polarization is now growing within Canadian society. It echoes a similar development occurring in our southern neighbor, where its two-party political system and Presidential electoral framework has helped inflame an emotionally driven and ideologically enmeshed political polarity that we would be well served to avoid.
And, while this polarization has many different components and is enabled and spread using social media, it is health disinformation that has both helped drive its development as well as maintaining its momentum and direction.
Toxic health disinformation has helped erode our social contract, decreased public trust in democratic institutions and degraded civil discourse. This impact has fueled social and political divisions and hindered collective action and cooperation in common salubrity and economic interests.
Wellness hokum and predatory sales of magical treatments for all real or imagined ills, emotional distress or for anticipated self-improvements have been part of the human experience for centuries. In today’s world, these predations have been widely disseminated through health disinformation promoted in social media. However, it was the COVID-19 pandemic, infused with the concurrent rise of toxic populism, that has driven the health disinformation impact on the political polarization that we experience today.
Promoted and weaponized by political leadership in countries as disparate as the United States of America and Brazil and driven by self-appointed health “experts” and alternative media organizations, health disinformation has spread widely and rapidly. It has also become an entry into ideologies that promote global conspiracy theories about the causes of COVID-19, the role of the World Health Organization in pandemic preparedness and the World Economic Forum. Health disinformation has become both a focus of social and political polarization and a vehicle for it. The anti-vaccination movement, already disruptive pre-pandemic, acquired new life and an increased popular presence that mixed with ideologically driven and political identity promoted messages. These extoled the virtues of ineffective and dangerous treatments such as Ivermectin, derogated public health advice, drove hate attacks on independent health care expertise (such as Dr. Fauci and Dr. Hoetz in the USA and health care facilities and public health leaders in Canada) and promoted distrust of democratic institutions.
Individuals with strong adherence to health disinformation share several beliefs that in whole in or part, attract or embody certain political ideologies. These include but are not limited to anti-LGBTQ+; anti-immigration; anti-Semitism; anti-science; climate change denial; anti-democratic institutions and anti-women’s reproductive rights to identify a few. These various components both inform and help define the ideologies now driving polarization in political, social and civil domains.
The anti-vaccination movement has been an entry point for many whose foray into the health disinformation universe has linked them to a variety of these other anger fueled beliefs. This has occurred through the echo chambers of social media and the common use of “alternative news” sources (such as BitChute, Infowars, Rumble; TruthSocial) and “Pink Slime” sites (such as The Denver Guardian). These vehicles both promote these ideas and reinforce these beliefs. Citizens have also been encouraged in spreading disinformation by opinion leaders who provide simplistic slogans as solutions for complex problems: such as “it’s the fault of the elites”; “the country is broken”; “make America great again”.
Health disinformation was weaponized by ideological adherents and antidemocratic promoters during the COVID-19 pandemic for political purposes. For example, in the USA, the then President Trump used health disinformation to promote “Trumpism” and to enforce his autocratic hold on the Republican Party. Through this process, individuals of a particular political persuasion were encouraged to believe in untruths such as that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen,” and that seasoned and trustworthy democratic processes and institutions were unreliable at best and likely part of a grand conspiracy to keep Trump from returning to the Oval Office.
Canada is not immune from similar forces that drive polarization when two important components of political devotion—identity fusion and sacred values are involved. These have been demonstrated to play a key role in misinformation sharing, highlighting the identity-affirming dimension of health disinformation’s impact. Unfortunately, health disinformation has been the royal road to helping create and perpetuate such politically polarizing processes.
However, understanding this relationship provides civil society with a method of addressing polarization without rancor, denigration of others, creating obstacles to freedom of speech or being accused of trying to homogenize social values. Part of the address of polarization, is to widely apply effective methods of countering health disinformation so that it can no longer serve as either an entry point for, or promoter of, the ideologies that drive polarization. And we have reasonably good evidence of what can be done.
The best available evidence-based techniques that are known to effectively counter health disinformation include fact-checking health information related statements from opinion leaders and politicians, debunking health disinformation when it appears in social media and in the mainstream media and providing Canadians with skills and media know-how so that they can better identify health disinformation when they encounter it and other such approaches. These interventions must utilize best in class scientific communication techniques (such as found in Science Up First and McGill Office for Science and Society) and be user friendly across cultures, geographies, and social strata. In addition, they must be robust, widely disseminated and created and promoted by independent and trusted health organizations—such as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons; The Canadian Nursing Association; The College of Family Physicians of Canada; the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada; the Canadian Dental Association, the Canadian Medical Association and others.
Main street media also has a role to play in helping cut through the tangle of health disinformation that is challenging us today. In the United Kingdom, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has created its first specialist disinformation and social media correspondent to do so. Sadly, the incumbent has been the focus of ideolog hatred and anger. Now, about 80 percent of the abuse towards BBC journalists is targeted toward her. Perhaps key national media organizations in Canada can learn from the BBC experience and create effective approaches to addressing health disinformation while ensuring the safety and autonomy of their journalists. The work of the Globe and Mail health reporter Mr. Andre Picard is a good example of how mainstream media health writing can be done.
We will always have differences of social, civic, and political opinion in Canada. These differences of opinion are to be subject to respectful critical analysis and must be considered in all social, civic, and political discourse. But differences of opinion are not the same as polarization that serves to create schism instead of compromise, substitutes inchoate anger for critical thinking and is used as a weapon for political gain.
We need to celebrate our democracy and its institutions, with all their existing strengths, while we work to improve existing weaknesses. This can be achieved, not by trying to tear our democracy down, but by vigorously addressing disinformation in all its forms and guises—starting with health disinformation. This is not a “job” for government. It is a necessity for every member of civil society.
Stanley Kutcher is a Senator from Nova Scotia.