Healthy Democracy (CA0069)

Healthy democracy
Issue to be addressed
There is growing evidence that trust in public institutions is low and citizens are concerned
about campaigns of false information and ‘fake news.’
7 These factors can present a threat to
healthy democracy. It is critical for Canadians to have the tools and information to think
critically about public policy, so they can participate more effectively in democratic processes.
Commitment
The Government of Canada will build the resilience of Canadian democratic institutions in the
digital age, while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. We will:
• strengthen democratic institutions in Canada through modernized election laws
• strengthen international capacity to identify and respond to evolving threats to
democracy
• support a healthy and reliable news ecosystem in Canada
• champion diversity of content, and quality and transparency of information online
Lead department(s)
Canadian Heritage (PCH); Global Affairs Canada (GAC); Privy Council Office (PCO)
Milestones
What will we do? How we will know we succeeded? What is our
deadline?
6.1 Strengthen democracy and
democratic institutions in
Canada, both in advance of and
following the 2019 federal
election
(PCO)
Election laws are modernised to be more
secure, transparent and accessible,
including by:
• modernizing Elections Canada and
reinforcing the role of the
Commissioner of Canada Elections
• prohibiting foreign funding
• increasing transparency around
how Canadians are targeted by
traditional and online and
advertising
October 2019
7 See, for example, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer
32
What will we do? How we will know we succeeded? What is our
deadline?
Government of Canada delivers on
Budget 2018 commitment to support a
new process that would ensure that
federal leaders’ debates are organized in
the public interest and improve
Canadians’ knowledge of the parties,
their leaders and their policy positions
October 2019
6.2 Leverage the G7 Rapid
Response Mechanism (RRM)8
to strengthen international
capacity to identify and
respond to a diversity of
evolving threats to democracy,
including through sharing
information and analysis, and
identifying opportunities for
coordinated responses
(GAC)
The RRM is fully operationalized, and the
coordination unit at Global Affairs Canada
is established
November 2018
The RRM Focal Points convene on a
regular basis
Ongoing through
June 2020
The RRM will be tried and tested during
its first year of operation
January 2020
6.3 Leverage existing Canadian
Heritage programs, including
Youth Take Charge and Canada
History Fund, to support a
healthy democracy
(PCH)
Projects and initiatives are supported
with a focus on digital, news and civic
literacy for Canadians
June 2020
6.4 Support a healthy and
reliable news ecosystem
(PCH)
Government of Canada delivers on
Budget 2018 commitment to provide
$50 million to support local journalism in
underserved communities
June 2019
Work has been completed to better align
the Canada Periodical Fund with the
reading choices of Canadians and an
increasingly digital world
June 2019
8 The RRM was launched after the G7 Leaders’ Summit in June 2018. Government of Canada officials have already
begun to operationalize the mechanism, establish a Canada-based coordination unit, and leverage open source
analytical tools to monitor threats.
33
What will we do? How we will know we succeeded? What is our
deadline?
New models are explored that enable
private giving and philanthropic support
for trusted, professional, non-profit
journalism and local news
June 2019
Media organizations are consulted to
consider how the government can further
support the transition to digital media
June 2019
6.5 Champion international
norms to support diversity of
content, and quality and
transparency of information
online
(PCH)
The Government of Canada hosts a
working session for experts on diversity
of content in the digital age to advance
the national and international
conversation on principles that should
guide action in this space
June 2019

Design Report

6. Healthy Democracy

The Government of Canada will build the resilience of Canadian democratic institutions in the digital age, while respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. We will:

• strengthen democratic institutions in Canada through modernized election laws
• strengthen international capacity to identify and respond to evolving threats to democracy
• support a healthy and reliable news ecosystem in Canada
• champion diversity of content, and quality and transparency of information online

Milestones

6.1 Strengthen democracy and democratic institutions in Canada, both in advance of and following the 2019 federal election (Privy Council Office)

6.2 Leverage the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) to strengthen international capacity to identify and respond to a diversity of evolving threats to democracy, including through sharing information and analysis, and identifying opportunities for coordinated responses (Global Affairs Canada)

6.3 Leverage existing Canadian Heritage programs, including Youth Take Charge and Canada History Fund, to support a healthy democracy (Canadian Heritage)

6.4 Support a healthy and reliable news ecosystem (Canadian Heritage)

6.5 Champion international norms to support diversity of content, and quality and transparency of information online (Canadian Heritage)

For more details about the commitment text, milestones, self-identified success criteria, and estimated completion dates see, https://open.canada.ca/en/content/canadas-2018-2020-national-action-plan-open-government#toc3-4

Start Date: August 2019

End Date: Varies according to milestone

Context and Objectives

This commitment is anchored in ongoing domestic and international apprehensions about the decline of trust in public institutions and the implications thereof for the health of liberal-democracies. Of particular concern in this regard is the proliferation of disinformation and so-called fake news via social media platforms and its negative implications for the economic, political, and social well-being of nation-states. [37] To this end, the objective of Commitment 6 is twofold: (i) to ensure that “Canadians to have the tools and information to think critically about public policy, so they can participate more effectively in democratic processes;” and (ii) to “build the resilience of Canadian democratic institutions in the digital age.” A noteworthy feature of this objective is that information, here, pertains to information about government and public policy related matters circulating in the mediasphere; not government-held information. To this end, the focus of Commitment 6 is principally on matters of digital governance as opposed to open government per se. The proposed means for realizing the commitment’s aims is to minimize the opportunities for disinformation to threaten Canada’s democracy [38] by implementing a series of domestic and international measures that will contribute to shaping the contours of the Canadian mediascape. As written, the commitment is built around a series of broad scope activities and offers no information about the current state of affairs prior to its launch nor the targeted change that is meant to emerge from its implementation.

Seeking to foster greater trust in government and striving to strengthen democratic institutions are praiseworthy objectives. However, the efficacy of this commitment is blunted by a lack of precision about the impacts it seeks to achieve and the means by which these impacts are meant to be measured. Several comments expressing similar concerns were received when the draft version of this commitment was released for public comment in July and August 2017. [39] The ambiguous manner in which this commitment and its milestones are written make any substantive assessment of the extent to which they align with OGP values exceedingly difficult. This said, given that two of the eleven proposed indicators for success entail providing opportunities for a select group of stakeholders (i.e., media organizations and digital content and diversity experts) to engage with government in the implementation process, the IRM researcher is applying some interpretive flexibility to suggest that the commitment may be seen as very loosely aligning with the OGP value of civic participation.

Equally noteworthy, milestones 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5 are all late additions to the action plan. They were not included in the original draft commitment, and the civil society members of the MSF were not consulted about their late addition to the commitment. This said, it must be acknowledged that the ‘new’ milestone 6.1 is indicative of efforts to address critiques advanced about the commitment’s draft iteration.

The milestones are sufficiently specific so as to be easily verifiable insofar as either the proposed activities take place, or they do not. The validity of the success criteria on the other hand is questionable because they principally refer to activities to be completed rather than indicators for measuring whether these activities result in expected outcomes. Specifically, it is unclear how the extent to which the proposed initiatives reinvigorate Canadians’ trust in public institutions and/or substantively alter the diversity, quality, and transparency of information that they access online will be measured.

There is much to be applauded in the activities set out in this commitment insofar as they all mark positive steps in battling disinformation-based threats in Canada, and internationally. However, as written, Commitment 6 seemingly takes it as given that completing the milestones will necessarily correlate positively with reinvigorating Canadians’ trust in public institutions. This is dubious proposition on two fronts. First, there is no direct causal relationship between the proposed measures and citizens’ levels of trust in democratic institutions. Second, and despite being verifiable, the milestones do not specify how or why these actions would actually impact on Canadian citizens’ levels of trust in democratic institutions. Despite these limitations Commitment 6 can nonetheless be seen as potentially marking an incremental step forward in opening government in Canada.

Next steps

Ensuring the vitality and health of democracy is a priority concern for the GoC and is a cornerstone of the OGP’s Open Government Declaration. [40] The quality and veracity of government-held information to which citizens have access is one of many factors contributing to the levels of trust they accord to democratic institutions. Another contributing factor, and the main focus of this commitment, is the quality and veracity information circulating in the mediasphere about government and public policy related matters.

Commitment 6 is certainly illustrative of efforts to tackle domestic and international disinformation-based threats to Canada. However meritorious its objectives, in the absence of more narrow precision, the proposed line of action for building resilient democratic institutions in the digital age can just as well be enacted outside the auspices of Canada’s OGP action plan.

The IRM researcher suggests that a problem-centred approach toward tackling “campaigns of false information and "fake news",” that is more directly germane to the OGP and which builds on Canada’s status as a global leader in open data, might focus, for example, on working in tandem with civil society organizations and other stakeholders to pilot initiatives aimed at investigating the impact robust open government data initiatives and programs have on countering disinformation and so-called fake news.

Transitional Results Report

Commitment 6. Healthy Democracy

Completion: Complete

This commitment was anchored in ongoing domestic and international apprehensions about the decline of trust in public institutions and the implications thereof for the health of liberal democracies. Its objective was twofold: (i) to ensure that “Canadians [to] have the tools and information to think critically about public policy, so they can participate more effectively in democratic processes”; and (ii) to “build the resilience of Canadian democratic institutions in the digital age.”

As noted in the IRM’s Canada Design Report (2018–2020), the ambiguous way in which the commitment and its milestones were written, combined with its focus on information about government and public policy-related matters circulating in the mediasphere as opposed to government-held information rendered its connection to open government and OGP values tenuous. Likewise, many of the activities in this commitment reflected initiatives that likely would have been carried out regardless of their inclusion in the action plan (like catalyzing the building of resilient democratic institutions in the digital age). As such, it is not clear how these initiatives are strengthened or otherwise benefit as a consequence of their inclusion in the action plan.

As per the information reported at the National Action Plan Open Government Tracker, all five milestones comprising this commitment have been completed. [70]

Milestone 6.1 sought to strengthen democratic institutions in advance of the 2019 federal election. The Elections Modernization Act (Bill C‑76) received Royal Assent on 13 December 2018. [71] This Act seeks to make the electoral process transparent and accessible and to defend it against undue influence. It includes prohibitions on the use foreign funds by third parties to influence federal elections, (ii) requirements that social and digital media platforms create registries of all digital advertisements placed by political parties or third parties during the pre-writ and writ (election) periods, that must remain visible to the public for two years, and (iii) enhancements to the powers of the Commissioner of Canada Elections to initiate investigations and compel testimony. A Leaders’ Debate Commission, with a mandate to organize two leaders’ debates for the 2019 general election, was also established. [72]

Milestone 6.2 sought to leverage the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RMM) to strengthen international capacity to respond to threats to democracy. As the G7 president in 2018, the GoC developed the G7 RRM Coordination Unit to act as the focal point for all members. [73] The Unit shares reports and a monthly newsletter with G7 partners and regularly brings together focal points. [74] In 2019, Canada and the UK also launched the Global Community of Practice for Open Source Data Monitoring and Analysis to enable open source data analysts to share best practices in detecting and analyzing foreign threats to democracy in digital contexts. [75]

Under milestone 6.3, in 2019, Canadian Heritage funded 21 projects to foster digital media and civic awareness across Canada. [76] Eight projects aimed at strengthening “citizens’ critical thinking about disinformation and enhance their ability to get involved in democratic processes” [77] were funded through the Canada Periodical Fund. The funded projects sought to advance the development of knowledge, tools, and resources aimed at fostering digital media and civic awareness across the country. A new subcomponent was also added to the Canada Periodical Fund’s Aid to Publishers component to support publishers who distribute digital-only content.

Milestone 6.4 dealt with ongoing government initiatives to support a healthy news ecosystem. A Local Journalism Initiative which initially provided $50 million (which has since increased to $70 million [78]) over five years to support professional local journalism was also launched in 2019. [79] In addition, Canada’s Income Tax Act was amended to enable qualified news organizations to claim a labour tax credit based on expenditures incurred and qualified non-profit news organizations to issue tax receipts for charitable donations. [80]

Milestone 6.5 involved Canada Heritage and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO organizing the February 2019 international meeting on diversity of content in the digital age. This gathering brought together over 70 representatives of governments, online platforms, civil society organizations and academia, whose discussions were captured in a report. [81] The department subsequently published, in June 2021, Guiding principles on diversity of content online. [82]