Canada's Federal Government Generates Disinformation at Scale

And I've got the receipts

What are we supposed to think when official government statements contain obvious disinformation or, as it used to be known, lies? Here’s one recent example.

According to the National Post, Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser recently rejected Alberta’s request for input into the selection of judges - including Supreme Court justices - explaining: “We need to rigorously adhere to the boundaries of the Constitution, including the need to protect the independence of the judiciary.”

Now it's well known that the Province of Quebec already has significantly greater powers than Alberta is looking for. So it would seem obvious that the minister intentionally employed a false justification for his government's policy.

Put plainly, seeing that upset me. But it also made me wonder how often our government uses disinformation when talking to us.

Well first of all, how often do they try to tell us stuff? An awful lot, it turns out. Through just 2025, Global Affairs Canada - for example - issued 411 information releases through their canada.ca page. Multiply that by the more than 100 departments and agencies that enjoy communicating in one way or another, and it’s clear that government produces a steady torrent of communications.

How many federal public sector workers are involved in the government’s messaging-industrial complex? Searching on the Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS) page shows us that there are 1,660 individuals across government whose job descriptions include the word “communications”. Of those, 770 are Communications Advisors and 117 are Communications Assistants.

There are an additional 336 positions identified by terms like “engagement” (106), “marketing” (43), or “outreach” (58). That’s around 2,000 full-time positions that are officially advertised as messaging-related. But I’m sure there are countless more who are expected to devote only partial focus to communicating and others whose job titles aren’t caught by my simple search.

We can safely assume that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of official press releases regularly pushed out into the world are boring and routine. They’re hardly the stuff of controversy, much less deceit. But if even one in a thousand contains a willful attempt to misdirect our attention away from an inconvenient truth, then the government’s credibility is damaged.

I’m afraid I can’t accurately estimate the likelihood that a given news release will contain lies. But I can assure you that Sean Fraser’s Justice Department is far from the only dishonest source of official disinformation.

Since the next examples will also relate to climate change policy, I’m sure some of you will complain that I’m over-focused on anti-left talking points. And that’s true. But it’s because, for the past decade, we’ve had a left-leaning government in power. For better or for worse, no one else has been authorized to issue official announcements.

With that caveat in mind, I’ll note how multiple federal ministers recently attributed rising food prices in Canada primarily to climate change. In fact, François-Philippe Champagne (Minister of Finance and National Revenue) himself rose in the house to confidently assert that climate change at least partially explains the inflation we’re experiencing:

“All of this is part of our response to a rapidly changing and increasingly uncertain world. We know, for example, that while inflation has cooled off since its postpandemic peak, food inflation remains stubbornly high for Canadian families. Global supply chain shocks caused by tariffs, geopolitical disruptions and climate change have all caused food prices to rise around the world.”

Given how Canada’s food inflation right now is more than double what they’re seeing in the U.S. and the highest among G7 countries, this claim is clearly untrue. If it’s really about the climate, shouldn’t everyone suffer broadly similar inflation? I wasn’t aware that global warming respected national borders.

I’m sure that, one way or another, climate change is impacting economies around the world in many ways. But to hang the local food inflation of the past year or so on the climate - rather than more relevant influences like government policies - sounds like a hammer desperately in search of a nail. And it’s not honest.

Similarly, official communications on the Climate Competitiveness Strategy makes objective claims that simply don’t reflect reality. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (Lena Metlege Diab) claims that:

“Canada must continue to take climate action to protect our planet and the competitiveness of our economy”

Considering how, after $200 billion and a decade’s worth of government effort, global warming hasn’t reversed or even slowed down, that’ll be a hard sell. Even if the actual results of continued climate change were unavoidably catastrophic, government action is highly unlikely to make any difference. Claiming otherwise is - what’s the word? - disinformation.

But the real whopper here is the claim that climate action can “protect…the competitiveness of our economy.” I’m unaware of any support for the idea that diverting $200 billion away from business growth, infrastructure investment, and social services will deliver an economic result that doesn’t involve suffering for low income Canadians.

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change (Julie Dabrusin) claims:

“With the Climate Competitiveness Strategy, we are positioning climate action and economic growth as inseparable. Canada must continue to take climate action to protect our planet and the competitiveness of our economy”

There’s no serious evidence that we’re “positioning” to do anything of the sort. And there’s a great deal of evidence that it’s current government efforts that are killing economic growth.

All of those examples could have played very differently with just a few minor edits. Instead of:

Canada must continue to take climate action to protect our planet and the competitiveness of our economy

Something like this would have inspired more trust and confidence:

Taking reasonable counter arguments in account, the government has nevertheless chosen to focus on the anticipated benefits of continued climate action

A government that’s genuinely open with its citizens and receptive to their concerns is a government that at least might be trusted. But publishing content built on disinformation - and then trying to restrict the free speech of its opponents - is setting itself up for trouble.

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