Question Period Note: Disinformation and the Digital Citizen Initiative

In Budget 2019, the Government made a $19.4 million investment over four years, as of 2019-20, to fund the second phase of the Department of Canada Heritage’s Digital Citizen Initiative.

• Online disinformation is a complex, multi-faceted problem. When it falls on fertile ground in Canada because of social isolation, racism, and other reasons, it can impact our social cohesion and ultimately our democracy.
• We are investing $19.4 million through the Digital Citizen Initiative to help us understand and mitigate the impact of online disinformation on Canadian society.

Digital Citizen Initiative
• On January 30, 2019, the Minister of Democratic Institutions announced the Government of Canada’s approach to protecting Canada’s democracy. This includes a $7 million investment by the Department of Canadian Heritage in citizen-focused activities to strengthen citizens’ critical thinking about online disinformation, their ability to be more resilient against online harms, as well as their ability to get involved in democratic processes.
• In 2019-20, more than 20 projects in the form of civic, news, and digital media literacy offered through third-party activities and programming were funded, ranging from awareness sessions and workshops to development of learning materials to foster digital media and civic awareness.
• Budget 2019 earmarked and additional $19.4 million over four years for the Digital Citizen Initiative, including funding for: the creation of the Digital Citizen Contribution Program (DCCP), a joint research initiative with the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a contribution agreement to support the Public Policy Forum’s (PPF) Digital Democracy Project.
• In 2019-20, the focus for the DCCP will be on funding projects to better understand online disinformation and other online harms, how they evolve in a Canadian context and how they impact Canadians differently, as well as understand what success looks like in the building citizen resilience and digital media literacy space, and the impact of these types of activities in a Canadian context. From year to year, the DCI will reassess its focus and will adapt its guidelines accordingly.

Open Government Commitments
• On July 20, 2018, the Government announced its intention to bolster democracy in light of disinformation, in the context of Canada’s draft open government commitments. A commitment regarding healthy democracy specifically names PCH as one of the lead departments (along with Global Affairs Canada and Privy Council Office).

Disinformation
• Several individual countries have put forward, or plan to put forward, measures to address online disinformation, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom. PCH is following these developments closely, and has engaged in dialogues with most of them.

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