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Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

ottawacitizen.com

111–120 of 145 posts

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it was replaced with the Emergenices Act as I mentioned. In fact Justin Trudeau considered invoking it for the first time since the replacement in the COVID situation. [edit] Between that and the Notwithstanding Clause [1] there's a lot of latitude here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Cha...

Wait, are those two Treudeaus relatives?

Justin is Pierre's son.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#112
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, in Canada. The government may elect to invoke the War Measures Act [1]. Pierre Trudeau did this when he drove tanks into Montreal to quash the Québécois nationalist terrorist organization, the FLQ in the October Crisis of 1962 [2]. [edit] Posse Comitatus is more of an American thing - for the record the War Measures Act was subsequently replaced with the Emergencies Act [3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

More recently, the military was deployed against citizens during the Oka Crisis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis

Highly recommend all Canadians take some time to read about the Oka Crisis, very interesting part of Canada's complicated history with indigenous relations. There's a 2020 film called Beans about a 12 year old Mohawk girl living through the heart of the crisis, thoughtful and powerful Canadian cinema.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#114
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were more local, more flexible, and were used to combat highly-deadly epidemics such as the plague or spanish flu. Such previous epidemics were more deadly, and were perceived as such by the local population, who therefore probably found the measures more justified. Also, the 2020 quarantines arrived at a time where global resource inequalities were at unprecedented levels in human history, and when popular insu…

> They were more local, more flexible, and were used to combat highly-deadly epidemics such as the plague or spanish flu. Such previous epidemics were more deadly, and were perceived as such by the local population, who therefore probably found the measures more justified. Yes, previous epidemics were more deadly, but also easier to contain because: 1) cases were symptomatic 2) incubation period was lower So the effe…

>Honestly i think the French government's action was among the best possible

Is that because you were relatively unaffected by the downsides of the various restrictions? It can't be because the overall Covid fatality rate is better in France, becase it's about the same as the UK.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#115
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work like that here. Our PM is not the commander in chief.

If the head of the Executive and Legislature is not in charge of the government who is? The Governor-General may officially be the Executive but that's a rubber stamp, not an effective constraint on the power of the Prime Minister. Reality and legal forms are not the same thing.

In Canada, the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy is the rule. A written Constitution is a recent addition. In a minority parliament, the legislature can be a very effective check in reality. Executive (Crown powers) are also distributed by the Governor General to the entire cabinet. Depending on the relative strength of the politician, they are technically colleague — unlike the American system where they work for the president. The Canadian prime minister are usually in fact and in legal form “first among equals.”

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#116
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both sides did heavy pushing, albeit one included much more lies (where are the 350 million per week for the NHS, Boris?)

Weren't there a lot of fearmongering whoppers of budget black holes, economic collapse, shortages and famine, increased risk of war, etc., coming out of remain? How do you judge which side lied more?

They are literally running out of petrol right now. Grocery store shelves empty. Still year one.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#117
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were more local, more flexible, and were used to combat highly-deadly epidemics such as the plague or spanish flu. Such previous epidemics were more deadly, and were perceived as such by the local population, who therefore probably found the measures more justified. Yes, previous epidemics were more deadly, but also easier to contain because: 1) cases were symptomatic 2) incubation period was lower So the effe…

>Honestly i think the French government's action was among the best possible Is that because you were relatively unaffected by the downsides of the various restrictions? It can't be because the overall Covid fatality rate is better in France, becase it's about the same as the UK.

No, it's because i think they made the mostly right choices and did around as best as they could given the circumstances and resources they had. Restrictions were imposed only when necessary, and adapted ( e.g. during the third wave there was a curfew, but no lockdown to minimise the economic effects). Communication was good and transparent. Overall I'd say I'd give them a 7.5/10 ( they could have done better, most notably in realising the gravity of the situation earlier on).

And as i said, the approval rating of Macron and his PM during the initial waves, Édouard Philippe, are much higher then before the pandemic, and literally unprecedented for a French president since moving to the current system ( 5 year mandates, etc.). The last French president with a similar approval rating was Chirac, and he passed away last year.

Comparing fatality rates between countries is complicated for a number of reasons ( weather, organisation of cities and families, customs ( e.g. french people used to kiss each other on the cheek when meeting, even complete strangers), age distribution, hospital capacity, medical reserves, etc.)

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't there a lot of fearmongering whoppers of budget black holes, economic collapse, shortages and famine, increased risk of war, etc., coming out of remain? How do you judge which side lied more?

They are literally running out of petrol right now. Grocery store shelves empty. Still year one.

More like - Brexit has highlighted the state of our crumbling and badly-run domestic HGV industry, now that there isn't a pool of Eastern Europeans prepared to do the work for lower wages. Personally, I'm excited to see an industry given such a chance to redeem and re-structure itself for the better.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#119
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Honestly i think the French government's action was among the best possible Is that because you were relatively unaffected by the downsides of the various restrictions? It can't be because the overall Covid fatality rate is better in France, becase it's about the same as the UK.

No, it's because i think they made the mostly right choices and did around as best as they could given the circumstances and resources they had. Restrictions were imposed only when necessary, and adapted ( e.g. during the third wave there was a curfew, but no lockdown to minimise the economic effects). Communication was good and transparent. Overall I'd say I'd give them a 7.5/10 ( they could have done better, most n…

Yet France did no better in deaths per captia, than the "shambolic" UK, or Sweden, where life seemed pretty tolerable, nor most of the other EU countries, in fact. (Nor many developing countries that did very little to contain Covid, but I'm sure we will both agree we can't really rely on those figures).

It seems to me there is very little clear link between how a country responded, and the overall death count.

Re: Canadian military saw pandemic as opportunity to test propaganda techniques

#120

Does anyone have any good examples of these propaganda techniques used in Canada? Trying to find where the propaganda was used in a way that would be noticeable versus common public health communiques.

From the article:

  The Canadian Forces had to launch an investigation after a September 2020 incident when military information operations staff forged a letter from the Nova Scotia government warning about wolves on the loose in a particular region of the province. The letter was inadvertently distributed to residents, prompting panicked calls to Nova Scotia officials who were unaware the military was behind the deception. The investigation determined the reservists conducting the operation lacked formal training and policies governing the use of propaganda techniques were not well understood by the soldiers.
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