Roundup: Legitimizing lunatic narratives about inflation

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We are now around day fifty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Russia is shifting more units to attacking cities in Eastern Ukraine, and what could be a battle to control the country’s industrial heartland. We also have satellite images that show Russians digging mass graves around Mariupol to try and hide evidence of their war crimes and atrocities against civilians in that city. In Russia, the regime is cracking down harder on its critics, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is being charged under the new law that criminalises spreading “false information,” and could be imprisoned for up to 15 years as a result.

Closer to home, I have about lost all patience with the way that the inflation numbers are being reported on, particularly because it’s primarily a lot of both-sidesing without actually reading the gods damned Consumer Price Index from Statistics Canada, even though it’s right there, and spells out what the drivers are. But because our media outlets—and both the CBC and The Canadian Press are especially bad about this—are more invested in the appearance of fairness for political messages than actually calling out falsehoods, simply give equal time to all of the messages. This particular piece on the CBC’s site yesterday, that goes and very gently debunks the messages that different political parties are spreading, is a lot more both-sidesing because it’s still giving equal weight to all of these messages, even if it’s getting experts to push back a little bit (but in some cases, still framing it as though some of these messages are still “a little bit right,” which is the cute trick that they’ve been relying on to not look like they’re biased against any party). And how much room is given to explaining the actual drivers? A single, small paragraph that lists a few of them in general terms, rather than laying out the issues of energy production and fuel shortages in certain countries, or the global supply shortage of semiconductor chips, or most importantly, the fact that we’ve had a lot of droughts in food-producing regions, including in Canada, and that is having a huge impact on food prices because the supply simply isn’t there.

Why this becomes even more important is because you have Pierre Poilievre saying flat out that the Bank of Canada’s economists are “financially illiterate,” because he learned better from the crypto bros on YouTube. It’s alarming, and if the mass media can’t push back against this utter lunacy, but instead soft-pedals it and frames it like “everyone is a little bit right” when they don’t actually bother to go to the gods damned statistical data, it lets this utterly bogus narrative gain traction and legitimacy. This is a problem for our democracy and our society in general, because they’re afraid that Poilievre’s bot army will be mad at them. They’re going to call you biased whatever you do, so why not show a bit of fortitude and call the lies what they are?

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau was in Winnipeg as the Hudson’s Bay Company turned over their flagship store building to local First Nations as an act of reconciliation.
  • Canada has sent M777 howitzers and ammunition to Ukraine, which was out of the Canadian Forces’ inventory and will be replenished.
  • Chrystia Freeland is making a push to kick Russia out of the G20.
  • Sean Fraser announced that recent international graduates can extend their stays in Canada for another 18 months, qualifying many for permanent residency.
  • The federal government is maintaining most mask and vaccine mandates, especially on planes and trains, even while they eased some other testing requirements.
  • The government is expanding its electric vehicle rebate parameters so that it can now include some trucks, vans, and SUVs.
  • Service Canada is warning of delay for passport processing after a surge in applications now that people are treating the pandemic as though it is over.
  • We got a look at the pushback against the first version of the proposed online harms bill, which the government is in the process of completely reworking.
  • Mary May Simon spoke at an event to launch the UN decade of Indigenous languages, speaking about her hopes for the growth of Inuktitut.
  • Conservative leadership candidates have one more week to get their $300,000 in donations and 500 signatures lined up.
  • Jagmeet Singh says that his party refers to the supply and confidence agreement as the “Anhad Accord” after his daughter, whose name means “limitless.”
  • More intraparty warfare and social media drama among the UCP while the mail-in ballots for the leadership review are now out in the wild.
  • Kevin Carmichael pays attention to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem’s latest comments and what they will likely mean for the next round of rate hikes.
  • Carmichael also explores Macklem’s comments about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have caused a breach in the international order that is beyond repair.
  • Andrew Coyne calls out Poilievre’s populism as feckless abdication of responsibility dressed up as “freedom,” which is only exciting the fringes.
  • My weekend column points out the procedural warfare holding up Bill C-8, the real-world consequences of it for teachers and farmers, and why this may test the NDP.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Legitimizing lunatic narratives about inflation”

  2. Bothsiderism is the last refuge of scoundrels. I doubt this can be explained away as being rooted in stereotypical Canadian “politeness” or even old-style British deference to authority, because the same disease of false equivalency has infected the notoriously aggressive Yanks as well. Journalism should be approached like weather reporting, as noted in this famous quote attributed to the late British journalism professor Jonathan Foster: “If someone says it’s raining and another says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the f—ing window and find out which one is true.”

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