Trudeau’s resignation: a right-wing propaganda coup d’etat

In “How Justin Trudeau lost Canada,” Max Fawcett argues that the Liberals wasted many opportunities to implement consistent policies, and one can hardly disagree. I and others on the left have not held back our criticism of the Liberals’ failings. Crucially, the Liberals failed to implement democratizing political reforms and allocate resources to communicate the need for such reforms and their benefits, as well as citizen engagement in policymaking. But, unlike the populist far-right movement, our criticisms were rooted in proposals to strengthen the country’s democracy.

It matters deeply that it is not criticisms of policy failures or proposals for reform that have caused Trudeau’s downfall, but rather a coordinated campaign of misinformation and personal attacks on Trudeau from the right. This campaign, building in strength since Pierre Poilievre took over the Conservative Party, has dominated media content and shifted public opinion to the right. It is the right that has cause to celebrate a government coup that has opened the path to its seizure of power. t is urgent that we grasp what this means for Canadian democracy — and for the electoral prospects of centre-left parties. 

To this end, I offer a different take on Trudeau’s resignation, one that shifts attention from the Liberals’ mistakes to the roles of right-wing parties, their corporate allies and the largely corporate-owned media. This bloc created a tsunami of propaganda that demonstrates their control over the existing media system. What we are witnessing is a right-wing coup d’etat led not by military forces, but by the media. 

The very fact that centre-left commentators repeat the right’s claim that Trudeau’s policies or political style were “divisive” indicates how successful the far-right has been in blaming Trudeau for the divisions its own actors have worked assiduously to construct. Their intention was to make it impossible for the Liberals to govern. 

The concentration of mass media in the hands of a small number of profit-driven and right-leaning corporate owners and the dynamics of social media have played leading roles in political “polarization.” Corporate and conservative political actors have had an enormous advantage in struggles to shape public opinion. 

Postmedia, which owns the majority of the largest English-language daily newspapers, as well as tabloids and small papers across the country, has been a reliable purveyor (and financial beneficiary) of the propaganda of conservative parties, right-wing think-tanks, business associations and organizations like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. 

Longtime media analyst Marc Edge describes Postmedia as the chain that replaces local content with “political and oil propaganda.” Its editors and columnists have played a significant part in generating the deluge of anti-Trudeau and anti-Liberal punditry and news coverage. We should not underestimate the effectiveness of the incessant repetition of selected messages across the country and across time in shaping public opinion.

At the “progressive” pole are smaller, independent news organizations like Canada’s National Observer, the Narwhal, the Tyee, the Breach, Press Progress and numerous local or provincial-level, website-based news sources, blogs and podcasts. These offer high-quality journalism and political analysis, but reach smaller or more localized audiences than the “mainstream” commercial news outlets. 

According to recent data, five companies, led by Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), own more than half of all commercial radio stations. Many of these skew ideologically to the right — especially their talk show hosts and pundits. Sixty-eight per cent of Canadians listen to commercial radio at least every week, while 32 per cent listen to CBC Radio/ICI Radio Canada. The “tuning share” of non-commercial radio stations (community, campus, Indigenous, religious) was 2.3 per cent.

The CBC — which Poilievre and his circle believe is run by communists — has shifted noticeably to the right in its framing of many issues (particularly CBC television news). Thanks to budget cuts under Liberal and Conservative governments, the CBC no longer has adequate resources for investigative journalism. More than 200 experts surveyed in 2018 positioned CBC and Radio Canada as just left of centre on the ideological scale. However, what this means depends on what constitutes the “centre” when the question is asked. 

An analysis of social media’s influence on generating divisions among Canadians would, I believe, support the argument that much of the “polarization” attributed to Trudeau’s policies or personality has been manufactured by actors on the political right. 

There is no scope to develop such an analysis here, but I note that comparative research and research on Canada have shown that far-right organizations have used social media more effectively than left-wing organizations. This research by Professor Marc Owen Jones indicates that MAGA and “Make Canada Great Again” bots played a significant role in X calling for Trudeau’s resignation.

For years now, conservative provincial governments — most significantly, in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario (and New Brunswick, under former premier Blaine Higgs) — have waged propaganda campaigns against the “nation-building” social programs and environmental policies supported by the Liberals and NDP. 

The only action presented by the Liberals as being in the “national interest” that these governments supported was the purchase of the TMX pipeline from Kinder Morgan. (Even then, the Liberals did not get much credit from the right.) These governments do not hesitate to mischaracterize the system of equalization payments, or climate policy, taking every opportunity to foment nativist sentiments that pit one region of the country against the other, as well as the federal government. 

Governments of Alberta (Conservative, NDP, and UCP) have spent millions on media campaigns and an “energy war room” to persuade not only Albertans, but also other Canadians, that every initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector is a conspiracy against the livelihoods and energy security of Canadians. 

The Ford government committed $30 million to oppose the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act. During election campaigns, right-wing, third-party advertisers with donations from people with deep pockets play significant roles in shaping public opinion.

At a deeper level, we should be paying attention to the corporate interests supporting the provincial and federal populist, far-right parties and their civil society organizations (think tanks, “grassroots” groups, trucker convoys).  

At their core are the fossil fuel corporations and their business associations — hence the longstanding captured nature of politics and government in the fossil-fuel exporting provinces. But, as social science researchers have shown, there is an interlinked elite that develops collective responses to government initiatives through their interactions on corporate boards and business associations. 

Despite their privileged access to federal civil servants, and their considerable success in shaping federal climate and other areas of policy, corporate interests have simultaneously used every means available to obstruct federal policy and regulations they perceive as threatening their bottom lines. And one of their favourite strategies is pitting one group of Canadians or one region against another. The hypocrisy involved in constructing these conflicts to achieve one’s political-economic objectives, while blaming the targeted policymakers for the ensuing crisis of governability, defies description. 

Could the Liberal government (or any government) have withstood this propaganda onslaught? In theory, yes, had it armed itself with the means of communicating directly with Canadians and engaging citizens in meaningful deliberations about policy options, and had it provided substantial resources to progressive civil society organizations, the CBC, and independent media. Stronger measures to require online media to fact-check and filter hate speech are also likely to be needed. Herein lie critical lessons for any future government of the left or centre-left.

Laurie Adkin is a professor emerita of political science at the University of Alberta, and the editor and-author of books and other publications on environmental conflict and democracy, as well as the restructuring of post-secondary education. Her website is https://apps.ualberta.ca/directory/person/ladkin.