Question Period Note: Russian Disinformation

Russian disinformation and steps Canada and its international partners are taking to monitor, and counter the situation.

• Canada strongly condemns Russia's use of disinformation to create a pretext for invasion and its continued manipulation of information to blur facts on the ground and try to build support for its illegal invasion.
• Canada is working with international partners, including through our leadership of the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, to identify and counter Russian disinformation about Ukraine.
• We are collaborating with academic and civil society partners in Canada, Ukraine and globally to support our monitoring efforts.
• We have funded capacity building to counter disinformation in Ukraine in the very recent past and are rapidly developing new initiatives to build the Government of Ukraine's strategic communication capacity and the resilience of Ukrainians to disinformation.

Canada has been monitoring the international information ecosystem and is aware of Russia's long-running disinformation campaigns. Canada condemns Russia's use of disinformation to create a pretext for its invasion and its continued manipulation of information to blur the facts and try to build support for its illegal invasion.

Canada is working with a range of partners across industry, civil society, and academia, to support on-going efforts to identify and counter Russian disinformation around the crisis and build societal resilience to disinformation in Ukraine and globally.

The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (G7 RRM), established in 2018 and led by Canada on an ongoing basis, is an important international forum for addressing foreign threats to democracy, including state-sponsored disinformation. We are collaborating with international partners through a host of other forums, including NATO, the Media Freedom Coalition, and the Freedom Online Coalition.

Through the Peace and Stabilization Operations Program (PSOPs), Canada supported over $4.2M in programming between 2019 - 2021 to build Ukrainian capacity to strategically communicate and enhance the resilience of Ukrainian communities to disinformation.

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