‘Freedom’ protesters being used like pawns

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/02/2023 (926 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Over the long weekend, people from around Canada gathered at Dugald as part of the so-called World Unity Convoy. This marked the anniversary of the “freedom convoy” protests, which gathered at Parliament Hill and the Manitoba Legislative Building, and shut down border crossings across the country, including the one at Emerson.

Many of us were left wondering: what are they protesting now? What is driving these “freedom fighters” to gather once again, from all over the country, in a tiny spot in Manitoba to hear People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier espouse what many consider conspiracy theories?

Simply put, they’re being exploited, by the very people they’re looking to for salvation.

A large banner at the World Unity Convoy gathering stated “Reject Agenda 2030.” It was in reference to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which Canada adopted in 2015.

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) set by the UN include laudable actions such as reducing poverty, ending hunger and providing inclusive education to everyone. However, the agenda does raise concerns that pursuing these goals will lead to artificial-intelligence surveillance and the invasion of privacy for Canadians.

In other words, these protesters think our privacy rights will be lost in the course of monitoring how and if Canada meets any of the goals set out by the UN.

This fear of surveillance also came up recently in the agreement between the federal government and the provinces over health care.

Both Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe and Alberta’s Danielle Smith sounded the alarm that the federal government may be creating a “digital ID.” The new funding came with a caveat that health-care information and digital tools had to be improved so transparency could be enhanced on important measurements such as wait times, and medical records could be shared between institutions to save lives.

Suddenly, social media came alive with conspiracy theories that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to have access to our personal health-care records. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet those fears were being fanned for political purposes.

For many Canadians, protecting our privacy is a very real issue. Indeed, in a 2020-21 survey on Canadians’ privacy rights, a majority felt concerned about protecting their personal privacy. Many Canadians are likely to feel uninformed about how their personal information is handled by businesses and government, and many feel they have little control over how their information is used.

Only about a third of Canadians surveyed felt comfortable allowing the government to collect and use personal information as part of intelligence-gathering activities. That support dropped even more when asked whether they support giving the government more powers if that means giving up privacy.

But protesters should be far more concerned about the data being collected by social media companies than by the government. Data brokers are buying our personal data every time we log into a social media site such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Mining social media data has become a key business strategy of companies, allowing them to understand the demographics of who’s interacting with their platforms to build brand awareness.

These social media companies are precisely how these protest movements get their “legs” and gain popularity.

And political parties, including the People’s Party, the UCP and the Saskatchewan Party, also use personal data to shape messages and policies to win elections.

Another continuing theme from last year’s protests and this year’s World Unity Convoy gathering is that the mainstream media can’t be trusted because it’s pro-Liberal (in particular the CBC). The Dugald gathering would not allow mainstream media reporters to attend the gathering.

Again, these protesters aren’t that far off the mark compared with most Canadians. Reuters Institute’s 2022 survey revealed only 42 per cent of Canadian respondents trust “most news, most of the time,” down from 45 per cent the year before.

There was also lower confidence in the news media’s independence from both political and commercial influences.

Many of us read the newspaper and watch television with a jaded eye (and that’s good — we should be aware news consumers). But that doesn’t mean we only rely on media sources that are obviously slanted, such as Rebel News, the Western Standard and Post Millennial. All these “alternative news” websites have been heavily criticized for publishing erroneous stories during COVID with headlines designed to convey misinformation and controversy. In other words, they fuelled the fires of the protests not out of public service, but to build their readership.

The folks who gathered at Dugald over at Camp Hope share some of the same concerns most Canadians have about media and privacy. But they have been used liked pawns by politicians and alternative news sources who are simply out to make a name for themselves.

Shannon Sampert is a communications consultant and former politics and perspectives editor at the Winnipeg Free Press.

shannon@mediadiva.ca