Sometimes what it takes is a ‘blue-collar truck driver’ from the Prairies to fight disinfo online

Monologues about the federal carbon tax abound on Canadian social media, but few are quite like Saskatchewan's Karl Hren's. Posted to TikTok on Monday, the clip shows the self-described "uneducated, white, blue-collar, oilpatch-working truck driver" clad in coveralls and nestled in the cab of his Kenworth truck ranting about the carbon tax.

But while the setting and tone echo the social media accounts of right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists who want to kill the carbon tax, it doesn't take long before Hren reveals himself as a disinformation crusader and comedian.

In the 83-second video viewed about 44,600 times as of Wednesday, Hren takes some of the most common conservative arguments about the carbon tax — that it is unaffordable and impacts individuals most strongly — and parses through dense legalese and his own gas bills to show how they are inaccurate.

He points out the tax only adds a small amount to his yearly gas costs, which is largely offset by the rebate most Canadians receive through the program. In 2021, the tax gave all Canadians who paid the national levy an average rebate of $804 — about $250 more than they paid.

That's a problem, he jokes, "because everything I hate, (policymakers) have thought about."

Hren's carbon tax rant is a "brilliant example of how social media platforms can be leveraged to effectively counter mis- and disinformation about the carbon tax," wrote Tanner Mirrlees, a professor of communication and digital media studies at Ontario Tech University, in an email to Canada's National Observer. The video "is an effective means to counter those who misrepresent the carbon tax as harmful and to inform those who may have been misled."

The clip is the latest in Hren's side gig fighting against the "rampant prevalence of ignorance," particularly on what he calls "blue-collar" social media. It is an environment where facts are routinely superseded by claims that hold a powerful emotional appeal, eroding people's ability to assess the actual impact of policies, including the carbon tax, he said in an interview with Canada's National Observer.

Part of the problem lies in the name "carbon tax," he said. For many people, and particularly his "demographic," the term "tax" hits a nerve.

"We have this emotional response of: 'I don't want to be taxed. I'm busting my ass, I'm struggling to feed my family, I'm struggling to pay rent. I don't want more taxes,'" he said. "That's an extremely emotional response, and when you're in that state, you stop hearing the logic and reasoning — no matter how precise the information."

Moreover, conservative attacks on the policy focus on how it impacts individuals and omit its broader social benefits, which help lower-income Canadians the most. Focusing on whether the tax adds a few cents to the price of common foods is irrelevant compared to the impacts of climate change and the revenue it generates for the government, which can then be redistributed to Canadians more equitably.

Shifting debates around the carbon tax from its impact on individuals to assessing how it fits into the broader economic and power inequalities shaping society are key to reaching a broader audience, he said. Hren said he grew up poor in rural Saskatchewan, a background that taught him to "hate everything," including himself.

"I still have this voice in the back of my head that says if I'm struggling to pay bills, it is because I'm not working hard enough — I need to do more as an individual," he said. "But the problem isn't my work ethic. The problem is the society we've developed puts people like me at a disadvantage.

"My whole life was a struggle," he recalled. "You learn to hate society, you learn to hate life, you learn to be angry." For most of his early twenties, that rage made him "extremely angry and cynical" and he "very much hated society and existence."

Then, on a long drive along a Saskatchewan highway, he started to change. Bored with the radio, he turned on the audio version of British biologist Richard Dawkins' book The Magic of Reality, which explores key existential questions using science. The book made him see that "the reality of our universe is more impressive than ghosts and demons and monsters" and pushed him to foster curiosity about other aspects of the world around him.

From that moment on, he started trying to "take the time and understand things economically, politically, environmentally, biologically." It was a shift in perspective that made him see more nuance and complexity in the world, eventually replacing his frustration and anger with more nuanced perspectives grounded in reality.

"It is so easy to learn nowadays with technology and so many universities even putting huge amounts of information out (in the world) completely free," he said. "To live in a world where we're loud and angry and just factually wrong bothers me."

That frustration prompted him early in the pandemic to start creating TikToks and other social media content to fight online misinformation. As a self-described member of the "blue-collar" demographic equipped with "fairly good communication skills" and willing to "take the time to read," he saw an opportunity to push back on the misinformation and conspiracies adopted by many of his peers.

That first account was closed several months ago after one of Hren's followers accused Hren of harassment for calling out his racist remarks. Still, Hren has continued to produce content like the carbon tax rant that delivers accurate information with a comedic spin.

And for some of his audience, the comedy is essential: "My wife only watches the jokes," he laughed.