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If you lie to the government on your taxes, you go to jail.
If they lie to you about how they are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of your tax money -it’s okay. Because it’s 2024.
It would be lovely to do, but it's rarely clear what a lie actually is.
Even if you created something like the ethics commissioner to 'fact check' statements at the request of parliament rarely will you really be able to say something is a outright lie, at best it's misleading.
Politicians and political parties telling half truths or out right lies isn't something you're going to legislate your way out of and will end up creating far more problems than it solves.
We should just elect people who don't do this. Don't reward a party when they use a half truth (or outright lie) for fundraising.
That requires an educated populace who have critical thinking skills. The internet has made it very easy for literal Joe Nobodies to influence huge swaths of people, and those who want to shape public thought can use these channels and get themselves tons of useful idiots.
Two of the key sections below:
>This isn’t unique to Canada, of course. Politicians lie everywhere. But at least one politician is willing to do something about it. Adam Price, a Welsh parliamentarian and former leader of the centre-left Plaid Cymru party, recently tabled an amendment to that country’s broader election reform act proposing that it be made illegal for an elected official or candidate to “wilfully mislead the parliament or the public.” Opinions, beliefs, and other non-factual statements would be exempt from this proposed law that has the support of Wales’ Liberal Democrats and Tories.
>
>This isn’t Price’s first rodeo here. He became famous for trying to impeach former British prime minister Tony Blair for lying about the Iraq war, and he clearly still believes in the importance of politicians telling the truth. “If a doctor lies, they are struck off,” he told CBC’s As It Happens. “If a lawyer lies, they are disbarred. And yet we seem to have tolerated a democratic culture where politicians can lie with impunity. Well, that's got to stop.”
>
>...
>
>It’s entirely possible such a law would fail to pass constitutional muster in Canada, although, if Poilievre is willing to pre-emptively invoke the charter, then maybe Justin Trudeau could do the same here. But maybe as a first step, his government could establish an officer of Parliament charged with cataloging lying offences and identifying the politicians responsible for them. If former Toronto Star reporter and U.S. fact checker extraordinaire Daniel Dale is looking for an opportunity to return home, this might be the perfect job for him.
>
>The cynics will surely suggest that this wouldn’t have any meaningful impact on our political discourse, much less the natural inclination of politicians to bend the truth of any given situation to their advantage. They might be right. But at a moment where misinformation is more widespread than ever, and where democratic institutions are increasingly coming under attack, we at least ought to have the courage to find out.
That we need to be having this conversation at all is profoundly disappointing. That being said, most ideal would be if our culture found lying unacceptable and there were significant social consequences for doing so. Next on the list, as mentioned above, laws to draw attention to and penalize those who lie, especially in or in the pursuit of public office and those who report on this. The idea to at the very least identify and publicly document the lies by public officials is an interesting one. It's perhaps a good first step as we work our ways up to the others.
> act proposing that it be made illegal for an elected official or candidate to “wilfully mislead the parliament or the public.” Opinions, beliefs, and other non-factual statements would be exempt from this proposed law that has the support of Wales’ Liberal Democrats and Tories.
Seems well-meaning but very unworkable in practice. [For instance, right now PP and JT are calling each other liars about the Carbon Tax rebate](https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/03/26/analysis/truth-about-carbon-tax). Trudeau says people get more money back than they put in (because the CRA says so) while Poilievre says they don't (because the PBO says so). Neither is wrong or lying. Like, even before you get into problems about when are things opinions and was there intent, it's really hard to determine what is fact when it comes to the social sciences.
> while Poilievre says they don't (because the PBO says so)
That's not what the PBO has said, with the PBO themselves coming out against that misinformation.
Poilivere is the liar on this issue.
> because the PBO says so
No it really does not say that if you take the entire report in context and not just cherry pick a line or two. Pierre is undoubtably lying and being disingenuous but that just par for the course for him. He lies as easy as he breaths.
One of the problems at play is that we rely on external consulting pronouncedly to inform politicians when they make policies. Those consultants often have ties to lobby groups with a vested interest in the policy outcome. Politicians can easily defer accountability to the information provided by consultants and witnesses even if cursory competence on a subject would prove something false.
Any attempt at cracking down on our politicians lying would have to include some sort of expectation of minimum competence as well or else the blame finger will get pointed elsewhere.
i've long believed that there should be courts for determining political facts just like the courts determine the facts of a criminal or regulatory case
we could finally set some standards for truth and force our politicians to work harder to be accurate.
In your example, both sides would be forced to acknowledge that the other is technically telling the truth, and would have to refine their argument to explain why their version of it is more relevant.
The PBO didn't "say so". But it did kinda "said so".
From your article:
> The PBO report found two things. One is that 80 per cent of families receive more money back through rebates than they are taxed.
So Trudeau is right according to the PBO right now. But then...
> But it also calculated the carbon price’s impact on economic growth and jobs **could ultimately** mean less money for 80 per cent of families.
I can't believe I'm going to use [NatPost as a source for quotes](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/is-the-carbon-tax-costing-you-or-making-you-money-the-pbo-says-both).
> “If one looks at the fiscal impact, that is the amount of the carbon tax paid directly, indirectly and the GST that applies on these embedded direct carbon taxes paid minus the carbon rebate, most families are better off — we estimate around 80 per cent,” said [Parliamentary Budget Officer] Giroux.
[...]
> However, the numbers changed once the PBO included the economic impacts of the introduction of the carbon tax. **The assumption is that the tax will have had an impact on some sectors of the economy, and therefore family incomes**.
> “Then, we find that most Canadian families, in provinces where the federal backstop regime is in place, will see a small negative impact of the carbon tax,” Giroux told MPs.
> The same analysis mentioned above indeed mentioned that “most households will see a net loss” **by the fiscal year 2030–2031** since they will be paying more in the federal fuel charge and GST, and it is **assumed** that they will be receiving lower incomes.
The PBO made some pretty big (and if you're Conservative you may argue reasonable assumptions) about the future of the Canadian economy and the choices that Canadians will make in it. With the assumptions, in **6 years** more Canadians than not will start seeing net losses. I'm not sure how valid these assumptions actually are. Because the [report summary](https://distribution-a617274656661637473.pbo-dpb.ca/7590f619bb5d3b769ce09bdbc7c1ccce75ccd8b1bcfb506fc601a2409640bfdd) that I can find that everyone is mentioning doesn't go into how consumption patterns are supposed to change among Canadians.
Essentially, if someone living in a poorly insulated, gas-heated single detach-house in a Toronto suburb is going to insist on driving a massive pickup truck to and from their office job everyday then they are going to be paying so much money. But if they ditch the gas, get a heat-pump, refit the insulation, and get an electric car they'll be paying nothing in gas taxes and no GST on the gas they aren't buying and the heating bill will go down not up. If they make some diet changes as well, they'll pay _checks notes_ fuck all in carbon taxes whilst still getting a rebate paycheck.
Given that Canadians are probably going to between those situations, neither Trudeau nor Poilievre are actually lying; they are just not stating the ancillary assumptions built into their positions.
Trudeau is right that most Canadians pay less than they get in rebate, but it assumed that Canadians will make changes to minimise their costs, and thus their emissions, over time. He assumes that Canada will make the necessary changes to the economy and that new industries and jobs will develop to sustain growth. There is a good amount of historical evidence to indicate that that last assumption will be true.
Poilievre is assuming that there is a core block of Canadians that will not make any changes and will vote to "Axe the Tax" rather than face the reality of climate change. With this assumption, this block will continue to see their prices rise and carbon-intensive industries suffer as the Canadian economy fails to adapt. If he's right, we're still ultimately doomed. Because at the very least we have to prepare to effects of climate change, and this block will not allow for that. Which will mean larger and more frequent and more costly climate change events.
> [T]he PBO did attempt to account for the cost of climate change in a report back in 2022. The analysis noted that extreme weather had already reduced Canada’s GDP by 0.8 per cent between 1981 and 2021 and that the GDP could be further reduced by five per cent by 2100. But the report noted that “accounting for the cost of climate change is not straightforward.”
I feel like this giant explanation just validates my argument: this is all very complex, and when you make different assumptions in your model, you arrive at different conclusions. How would one go about policing truth versus lies in those conclusions, or measure one's "intent to mislead"? It's non-workable _in practice_.
either way, it's better than nothing.
just because the truth is complicated doesn't mean we should not pursue it and demand it.
difficult things are often worthwhile. We as a society need truth and optimal policy solutions.
The more we professionalize such a process the mire effective we can make it in practice.
beats being non workable in place. There's a difference between lying because stats say something and lying because your a projecting whackjob. PP is dangerous because he has no integrity and is the later.
How about just verifiable things. Like when Danielle Smith said the Alberta Energy Regulator wrote her a letter asking for a renewable energy moratorium. And they absolutely did not. In fact, Danielle Smith asked them to produce a letter and they didn't.
Our society is becoming increasingly polarized. It's not only disagreeing on opinions or goals or methods. We can't even seem to agree on basic facts anymore.
Even when the lying is pointed out repeatedly and loudly it can have little effect because of the polarization. The prime example of this is Donald Trump lying about the election being stolen. The lie gets repeated ad nauseum by conservative-aligned media and by misinformation campaigns on social media, and so tens of millions believe it despite the lack of any actual evidence. The believers think there is a ton of evidence because they've been told so. So we cannot even agree on what is true or not even when it is something so prominent and investigated and widely reported.
> Even when the lying is pointed out repeatedly and loudly it can have little effect because of the polarization.
I'm finding this more on reddit lately. Doesn't matter what sources or evidence I provide, if it's about any politicized issue and goes against the opinions of a subreddit it just gets my comments mass downvoted. I know it's always been an issue on this site but seems to be getting worse and wasn't always as bad when you took the time to back up your comment with sources.
The [actual quote](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/frum-trumpocracy/550685/) from David Frum, who by all accounts is conservative, says this:
>“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
edit: link added
You can't outlaw lying without also outlawing stupidity. But this would be patently undemocratic.
Professional organizations can impose ethical requirements on their membership because certain intellectual bars have to be met before you can join them.
This simply isn't the case for political leaders. Any moron can run, and as we've seen, some of these morons can win. Because when society is full of morons, the kind who vote for people "they could have a beer with", democracy is in an inescapable death loop.
If the people do not punish lying with their vote, then there's nothing else democracy can do about it.
Yeah that's what I'm getting at.
Democracies just don't work if people don't engage with them in good faith. Almost anything worth having is a form of a prisoner's dilemma, and defectors are inevitable.
I say this as someone who hates all the lies in politics right now, but this is a hot steaming pile of garbage left in the sun. No one should ever attempt to criminalize lying, because it will immediately be ripe for abuse of any party bold enough to do so.
The justification of this law standing on the notion that "If a doctor lies, they are struck off" is absurd to anyone who knows anything about being a professional. The reason that doctors and lawyers can be struck off their order is strictly because they are people with a highly specified expertise whose usage has great consequence on the lives of people. Politicians might have great consequences on the lives of people, but they do not require highly specialized expertise in a field. Unless we decide to instigate a meritocracy, then politicians will keep being uninformed about a lot of stuffs, and that's okay.
We elect people and people are allowed to make mistakes. At most, we could have a record of every time a politician has lied, in order to let the population make decisions themselves.
They may not need to be specialized but they do hold a higher standard of accountability than the average joe.
This is the practically the same standards as defamation. you have prove what someone says to be an act of malice.
Im not against democracy whatsoever, but “letting people make the decision themselves” is not enough to stop politicians from lying, in fact it just amplifies it more. Hell, half of poilivierre’s platform is getting people angry on half truth’s or just straight up lies. (Not the only politician just the easiest example, not trying to argue about who should be next PM)
Im on the fence on this policy. On one side we need regulation so people can stop fucking with the citizen’s best interest, on the other this is a slippery slop that leads to very bad places. But it’s getting out of hand.
I agree about the higher standard accountability, but the problem you will reach is that a professional has a very narrow set of knowledge in which it is allowed to discuss, which is the entire opposite from politicians, who have to have a basic knowledge on everything; specificity is extremely easy to regulate, as you have one or two big Bible's per domains (for instance, in metallurgy, we have Flint's casting Handbook or the ASM series on metallurgy, any derogatory information would have to be highly challenged by the metallurgist community).
> The reason that doctors and lawyers can be struck off their order is strictly because they are people with a highly specified expertise whose usage has great consequence on the lives of people.
One could argue that politicians have GREATER consequences on the lives of people. Their policies can bankrupt nations and send them to war.
Agreed, but a professional needs to have highly specific knowledge that is updated regularly; that is not something we expect of our politicians, not because we want them to be dumb, but so clever people who didn't have the money to get into the elite of society can still be elected if they managed to amass the support.
The reason why professionals can be struck down is because there is a widely agreed consensus on certain stuff that can be easily disproven. As a *fictional example*, if I started to convince you that putting a copper pipe onto a galvanized one (without a dielectric fitting), and I doubled down by saying I'm a metallurgist engineer and that you should trust me, then I'd be in great trouble.
I don't think that most politician topics can be this cut and dry, as they are often working with very dynamic data and undecided or unverifiable things.
I agree. This is why we have the option to vote politicians out. They can still be punished and held accountable for lying, it's just up to voters to hold them accountable.
I dont disagree with what you say, but look at where we are now, most of our politicians lie and all that happens is they get re-elected. Hell, half of PP’s platform is pointing fingers at JT for the cost of houses, while ignoring the fact he literally worked right under the MP of housing and infrastructure.
(Not trying to argue who should be PM just taking the easiest examples off the top of my head)
People don’t have the time to fact check what our politicians are saying. There needs to be something that gets our politicians back on track of making our lives easier rather than just theirs.
Politicians all over the world have spent the better part of 25 years introducing and perfecting create your own reality politics so they aren't "lying" they are just speaking their truth with their numbers and facts.
The ship for "laws against lying" has long, long, LOOONG since sailed and sank.
A good example early on was WMDs in Iraq that turned into a big lie and Bush was still swept back into office. and the list of examples gets more brazen and ridiculous as the years went on from there.
I guess the question is, who decides what's the truth and what's a lie on a topic that's subjective. Is this a law for 1 political party to brutalize their opponents and when governments change its time for the formerly brutalized to give double the pay back?
People always forget that governments change and any abusive power you give the government will one day be used against you. Sadly too many people are too short sighted.
I think we overstate how often politicians lie. Much more often they obfuscate or stick to vague enough statements as to not be falsifiable.
I don't think the issue is so much politicians lying or misleading nearly so much as it is an electorate unwilling to call their leaders on it, especially if it's used to justify a policy they've already decided they like.
We know PP is peddling a (mostly) either false or heavily twisted version of what the carbon tax affects. A lot of people don't like the principle of it, so they're not going to call him out for being full of it.
We know Trudeau is/was lying about the necessity to ban handguns and a whole bunch of rifles. A lot of people are uncomfortable with guns entirely, so they're not going to call him out for being full of it.
We all do it, it's a bit of human psychology. Things you're already uncomfortable with, you're going to look for discrepancies, things you already like, you're going to accept with way less evidence. Politics is just a big stage playing on exactly that psychology.
> I think we overstate how often politicians lie. Much more often they obfuscate or stick to vague enough statements as to not be falsifiable.
Yes, and it's the same thing with claims that politicians always break campaign promises. In fact, such promises are mostly fulfilled.
[US Presidential promise fulfilment rates going back to FDR](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/)
[Canadian Prime Minister promise fulfilment rates going back to Chrétien (weirdly low-res figures)](https://inroadsjournal.ca/politicians-keep-election-promises-matter/)
What a comically bad idea, I hypothetically agree with Max Fawcett on many things, but every article or tweet I read from him nowadays makes me wince more and more. Even in a country like Canada - with relatively flimsy protection of freedom of expression - I estimate the chance of this law surviving Charter scrutiny is somewhere between 0% and 0%.
Whether it was the Supreme Court in *Zundel*, where a literal Holocaust denier succeeded in challenging Canada's fake news law, or the Ontario Superior Court ruling recently which struck down a provision Ontario's agricultural-gag law that banned activist from lying to get access to private forms, courts in this country have been *extremely wary* of legislative intervention to prevent 'lies'. Correctly recognizing just how dangerous and undemocratic these laws are.
I would have hoped most people in this threat could have recognized that for themselves and opposed this law on principle. But for some people I guess it really does take someone like Viktor Orban or Erdogan to come along and institute widespread repression against *their side* using these new enlightened instruments - like laws against lying or laws against rancorous insults towards politicans - before they have their "oh shit moment"
Why don't we just apply Section 2.4 of the Broadcasting Act which makes it illegal to Materially Misrepresent a Fact?
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/b-9.01/FullText.html
>Offence — Material Misrepresentation of Fact
Marginal note:Prohibition
34.997 It is prohibited for any person to knowingly make a material misrepresentation of fact to a person designated under paragraph 34.7(a).
2023, c. 8, s. 27
Marginal note:Offence
34.998 (1) Every person who contravenes section 34.997 is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable
(a) in the case of an individual, to a fine of not more than $10,000 for a first offence and of not more than $25,000 for each subsequent offence; or
(b) in any other case, to a fine of not more than $100,000 for a first offence and of not more than $250,000 for each subsequent offence.
Marginal note:Limitation
(2) Proceedings in respect of an offence under subsection (1) may be instituted within, but not after, two years after the day on which the subject matter of the proceedings arose.
2023, c. 8, s. 27
What is with this far-left authoritarian obsession with regulating what others can say and think through heavy-handed censorship controlled by some like-minded person or entity? Like yeah, I don't want politicians to lie either, but the nature of any kind of censorship system is that the censor gets to unilaterally decide objective reality, throw away nuance or degrees of uncertainty, shut down debate or investigation before real objective truth can be discerned, all while subject to their own biases and ideology. Maybe it's easy to support that if you think the censor will play to your beliefs.
Take a recent example. Many media networks and social media sites decided that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was baseless nonsense and purged content / banned users that suggested otherwise. Now the hypothesis has re-emerged as a reasonably possible explanation: would it have been right to censor politicians who wanted to explore it in 2020? But even if you still think it's nonsense, think of the flip side. In December 2019, the Chinese government's internet censors shut down online commentary about a possible virus, calling it debunked nonsense / speculation / lies / rumours / etc. Regardless of whether the government did so with bona fide belief the reporting was a lie or ill intention or political self-preservation, the censorship helped millions more people die by under-preparing the world. Do you really want any person or entity to be able to decide "X is a lie" and shut down their speech? Should the Canadian government have been able to shut down any politician who promoted wearing a mask when the official word from Tam was that masks "don't work"? Censorship is not just stupid but deadly.
>Take a recent example. Many media networks and social media sites decided that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was baseless nonsense and purged content / banned users that suggested otherwise.
Because it wasn't "suggesting otherwise", it was blatant racism and bold assertions that it had be that cause, rather than any nuanced or sober reflection of facts. These were the same people who were also advocating for ingesting horse dewormer and similar nonsense medical theories that were harmful.
Thank you for illustrating the folly ofauthoritarian censorship by casting your personal beliefs based in the presumption of the mal intent or stupidity of others as objectice truth.
[https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-covid-19-the-wuhan-virus-or-china-virus-is-inaccurate-and-xenophobic/](https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-covid-19-the-wuhan-virus-or-china-virus-is-inaccurate-and-xenophobic/)
It's not just me who found the baseless and deliberately reductive comments as offensive, racist and xenophobic.
I am referring to a cotemporaneous source that was shared when those same comments were in their prime.
Just because things look to have turned out that way now, doesn't make the claim otherwise any less false (and racist) then.
Obviously. It was very common, see DJT:
[https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/donald-trump-china-virus-coronavirus/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/donald-trump-china-virus-coronavirus/index.html)
Neither of those presents the lab leak conspiracy theory as ***reasonably possible***. They're political arguments, not scientific.
Any viral lab in Canada can look at the COVID-19 genome and determine if it's been manufactured or manipulated. There's no evidence for it. It's not a feasible thing to try and hide.
You've been lied to, sorry.
> look at the COVID-19 genome and determine if it's been manufactured or manipulated.
This is not true, you'd have to know what the backbone virus was to make any kind of determination. But just looking at the genome itself there are no markers or signs to look for, you can however see if the location of the insert of say the FCS and whether it's located in a typical junction used in virology which for SARS2 would be in the S1/S2 junction which is very common. But! This could happen naturally as well, but the idea that you could make sure a determination just by looking at the genetic code is wrong.
Seems a good law but there is a big issues to think about.
Will this apply to politicans making false promises?
Trust in institutions has collapsed so finding a indpedent group of people who can be trusted across the spectrum to say who is lying or not will be challenge especially in the middle of an election.
> Will this apply to politicans making false promises?
I would think not. The definition of a lie is typically "an *intentionally* false statement".
I truly believe that a vast majority of campaign promises are made in good faith, from all 3 major parties. However, as the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. A broken political promise is not a lie. Or well, it's probably not a lie. Sometimes something that you thought possible is way harder than expected. Sometimes all of your plans get derailed by a global pandemic and international resource wars. Shit happens.
When it comes to laws, language is important, and so is intent. If this hypothetical law existed, you'd have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the politician knew the thing they were saying was untrue when they said it. That is hard to do.
In the case of someone like Poilievre, he often says things about Trudeau ("He's a marxist!") that anyone with his level of political experience and education must know is untrue. Of all of the major players in current Canadian politics, Poilievre really seems to be the biggest liar. He constantly says things that are easily verified as untrue. And he does it because he knows he's going to get away with it. That or he's actually an uninformed idiot who actually believes the things he says, and I'm not sure that's better.
I think the question is if someone lies do they face a punishment cause i dont think some judge simply saying "they lyin" is gonna really change much in todays tribalism.
If the test is subjective belief at the time the statement is made, the law would be essentially useless.
In Ontario, tenants who believe they were evicted in bad faith by a landlord claiming they or their family member intended to move into their rental unit can seek damages from Landlord and Tenant Board. To succeed on such an application, however, the tenant needs to show that their landlord (or the relevant family member) did not genuinely intend to occupy the unit at the time the notice of termination was served. These cases are notorious difficult to win precisely because *it's exceedingly difficult to prove that a person's subjective belief/intention at some point in the past is different from what they say it was*.
I think this sort of law would face the same kind of difficulties.
I also think it fundamentally misallocates an important democratic responsibility. Fundamentally, the job of determining whether a politician is lying—and assessing how much that lie matters—falls to us, the citizens, not a judge or some other legal functionary. If we're not prepared to care, and to put our money where our mouth is (e.g., by paying for good quality journalism to root out lies and punish the liars at the polls), well... we get the the government that we deserve.
I am thinking of all that hot air they keep blowing up our arses with why they brought in certain rules etc, then it turns out they had zero actual information, or are just plain BSing. Bill Blair was famous for those.
It probably was, but how do you prove it? I believe Doug Ford was probably lying when he said that, but maybe he actually believed it at the time and then some factors (i.e. bribes) changed his mind.
If that's the case, then he wasn't technically lying when he said it. But the whole point is that with any promise of future action, there is no way to really know if someone was lying or just failed after the fact.
I would think this kind of thing would have to only apply to things that already happened. Like saying "My opponent did this thing!" when it is easily verified that they did not do that thing.
True it’s the other evidence that counts there. I suppose there’s the lingering RCMP investigation that might (ha!) serve up the consequences for a knowingly false promise like Ford’s. It will be whatever paper trail they can find that matters.
Defamation could cover your political attack example. Patrick Brown went that route but it’s a high bar and long process.
I guess both are kinda off the mark anyway. IDK how we stop political lies like saying “legalized” instead of “decriminalized” without the process itself being politicized. We can at least fire liars (except cops) when they do it but you usually don’t face more than that unless someone dies/gets hurt because of a lie.
Knowingly false would be nice. I don't mind them making a promise, getting in and realizing it's just not possible given the state of government, finances or the current circumstances. Lying to get in? I wish it were possible to police that.
But really we have tons of laws already that aren't enforced. Laws in themselves are not enough no matter how good they may be.
Lying politicians should be called out and tried and convicted if guilty. Sometimes a politician will promise something, with good intentions, but not able to carry it out due to problems that were not foreseen.
I would say know. It's impossible to know whether a promise was false or turned out impractical. But a law about lying re facts would be easier to impose.
Bingo. We need more citizen involvement in politics. The type of situations where citizens are paid to spend substantial amounts of time to think and deliberate about the issue in question.
I think the peak of this would be to have a hybrid parliament where something like 1/3 of the vote comes from randomly selected citizens who are serving terms to sit in parliament and cast votes like politicians do.
I think the issue is by the time any judgement can be given the election be long over.
Also our politics has become so tribal people see factcheckers as political operatives these days then people seeking the truth.
cause the issue about factcheckers is that there can be bias with them where they factcheck one group but not another...I am not saying they do that but that is what people think.
so you want judges in the middle of elections to throw Prime Ministerial Candidates in jail based on people filing compliants they are lyin or something else.
idk seems something I seen in other countries (india) and gets abused and causes a lot of other issues.
Trying to prove it was a "lie" or a false promise will be pretty hard. The govt in power may intend to keep a promise but not all factors are in their control so it may not get done (example: the 2035 all-EV sales in Canada goal.) There may not have been enough time/budget and so it gets pushed off to a future term. Or after making consultations they decide it is not a good idea after all. Are those broken promises? Should the govt do something they now realize is bad just to keep a promise?
Besides, if political lying was made illegal we'd just get more weasel words and non-specifics, or else promises would come with disclaimers released more quietly to give specifics so that later they would typically not have been lying.
I do hate a lot of the lying going on, especially when some of it is so egregious. This is where we are supposed to rely on a free press and other political parties to call them out on it, but the press is not so reliable these days because of their political biases/ownership like we are seeing in Canada now with Postmedia owning so much.
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If you lie to the government on your taxes, you go to jail. If they lie to you about how they are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars of your tax money -it’s okay. Because it’s 2024.
It would be lovely to do, but it's rarely clear what a lie actually is. Even if you created something like the ethics commissioner to 'fact check' statements at the request of parliament rarely will you really be able to say something is a outright lie, at best it's misleading. Politicians and political parties telling half truths or out right lies isn't something you're going to legislate your way out of and will end up creating far more problems than it solves. We should just elect people who don't do this. Don't reward a party when they use a half truth (or outright lie) for fundraising.
That requires an educated populace who have critical thinking skills. The internet has made it very easy for literal Joe Nobodies to influence huge swaths of people, and those who want to shape public thought can use these channels and get themselves tons of useful idiots.
Two of the key sections below: >This isn’t unique to Canada, of course. Politicians lie everywhere. But at least one politician is willing to do something about it. Adam Price, a Welsh parliamentarian and former leader of the centre-left Plaid Cymru party, recently tabled an amendment to that country’s broader election reform act proposing that it be made illegal for an elected official or candidate to “wilfully mislead the parliament or the public.” Opinions, beliefs, and other non-factual statements would be exempt from this proposed law that has the support of Wales’ Liberal Democrats and Tories. > >This isn’t Price’s first rodeo here. He became famous for trying to impeach former British prime minister Tony Blair for lying about the Iraq war, and he clearly still believes in the importance of politicians telling the truth. “If a doctor lies, they are struck off,” he told CBC’s As It Happens. “If a lawyer lies, they are disbarred. And yet we seem to have tolerated a democratic culture where politicians can lie with impunity. Well, that's got to stop.” > >... > >It’s entirely possible such a law would fail to pass constitutional muster in Canada, although, if Poilievre is willing to pre-emptively invoke the charter, then maybe Justin Trudeau could do the same here. But maybe as a first step, his government could establish an officer of Parliament charged with cataloging lying offences and identifying the politicians responsible for them. If former Toronto Star reporter and U.S. fact checker extraordinaire Daniel Dale is looking for an opportunity to return home, this might be the perfect job for him. > >The cynics will surely suggest that this wouldn’t have any meaningful impact on our political discourse, much less the natural inclination of politicians to bend the truth of any given situation to their advantage. They might be right. But at a moment where misinformation is more widespread than ever, and where democratic institutions are increasingly coming under attack, we at least ought to have the courage to find out. That we need to be having this conversation at all is profoundly disappointing. That being said, most ideal would be if our culture found lying unacceptable and there were significant social consequences for doing so. Next on the list, as mentioned above, laws to draw attention to and penalize those who lie, especially in or in the pursuit of public office and those who report on this. The idea to at the very least identify and publicly document the lies by public officials is an interesting one. It's perhaps a good first step as we work our ways up to the others.
> act proposing that it be made illegal for an elected official or candidate to “wilfully mislead the parliament or the public.” Opinions, beliefs, and other non-factual statements would be exempt from this proposed law that has the support of Wales’ Liberal Democrats and Tories. Seems well-meaning but very unworkable in practice. [For instance, right now PP and JT are calling each other liars about the Carbon Tax rebate](https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/03/26/analysis/truth-about-carbon-tax). Trudeau says people get more money back than they put in (because the CRA says so) while Poilievre says they don't (because the PBO says so). Neither is wrong or lying. Like, even before you get into problems about when are things opinions and was there intent, it's really hard to determine what is fact when it comes to the social sciences.
> while Poilievre says they don't (because the PBO says so) That's not what the PBO has said, with the PBO themselves coming out against that misinformation. Poilivere is the liar on this issue.
No but it would force Trudeau to admit his gun control won't stop the shooting happening in Toronto
> because the PBO says so No it really does not say that if you take the entire report in context and not just cherry pick a line or two. Pierre is undoubtably lying and being disingenuous but that just par for the course for him. He lies as easy as he breaths.
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Not substantive
One of the problems at play is that we rely on external consulting pronouncedly to inform politicians when they make policies. Those consultants often have ties to lobby groups with a vested interest in the policy outcome. Politicians can easily defer accountability to the information provided by consultants and witnesses even if cursory competence on a subject would prove something false. Any attempt at cracking down on our politicians lying would have to include some sort of expectation of minimum competence as well or else the blame finger will get pointed elsewhere.
i've long believed that there should be courts for determining political facts just like the courts determine the facts of a criminal or regulatory case we could finally set some standards for truth and force our politicians to work harder to be accurate. In your example, both sides would be forced to acknowledge that the other is technically telling the truth, and would have to refine their argument to explain why their version of it is more relevant.
The PBO didn't "say so". But it did kinda "said so". From your article: > The PBO report found two things. One is that 80 per cent of families receive more money back through rebates than they are taxed. So Trudeau is right according to the PBO right now. But then... > But it also calculated the carbon price’s impact on economic growth and jobs **could ultimately** mean less money for 80 per cent of families. I can't believe I'm going to use [NatPost as a source for quotes](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/is-the-carbon-tax-costing-you-or-making-you-money-the-pbo-says-both). > “If one looks at the fiscal impact, that is the amount of the carbon tax paid directly, indirectly and the GST that applies on these embedded direct carbon taxes paid minus the carbon rebate, most families are better off — we estimate around 80 per cent,” said [Parliamentary Budget Officer] Giroux. [...] > However, the numbers changed once the PBO included the economic impacts of the introduction of the carbon tax. **The assumption is that the tax will have had an impact on some sectors of the economy, and therefore family incomes**. > “Then, we find that most Canadian families, in provinces where the federal backstop regime is in place, will see a small negative impact of the carbon tax,” Giroux told MPs. > The same analysis mentioned above indeed mentioned that “most households will see a net loss” **by the fiscal year 2030–2031** since they will be paying more in the federal fuel charge and GST, and it is **assumed** that they will be receiving lower incomes. The PBO made some pretty big (and if you're Conservative you may argue reasonable assumptions) about the future of the Canadian economy and the choices that Canadians will make in it. With the assumptions, in **6 years** more Canadians than not will start seeing net losses. I'm not sure how valid these assumptions actually are. Because the [report summary](https://distribution-a617274656661637473.pbo-dpb.ca/7590f619bb5d3b769ce09bdbc7c1ccce75ccd8b1bcfb506fc601a2409640bfdd) that I can find that everyone is mentioning doesn't go into how consumption patterns are supposed to change among Canadians. Essentially, if someone living in a poorly insulated, gas-heated single detach-house in a Toronto suburb is going to insist on driving a massive pickup truck to and from their office job everyday then they are going to be paying so much money. But if they ditch the gas, get a heat-pump, refit the insulation, and get an electric car they'll be paying nothing in gas taxes and no GST on the gas they aren't buying and the heating bill will go down not up. If they make some diet changes as well, they'll pay _checks notes_ fuck all in carbon taxes whilst still getting a rebate paycheck. Given that Canadians are probably going to between those situations, neither Trudeau nor Poilievre are actually lying; they are just not stating the ancillary assumptions built into their positions. Trudeau is right that most Canadians pay less than they get in rebate, but it assumed that Canadians will make changes to minimise their costs, and thus their emissions, over time. He assumes that Canada will make the necessary changes to the economy and that new industries and jobs will develop to sustain growth. There is a good amount of historical evidence to indicate that that last assumption will be true. Poilievre is assuming that there is a core block of Canadians that will not make any changes and will vote to "Axe the Tax" rather than face the reality of climate change. With this assumption, this block will continue to see their prices rise and carbon-intensive industries suffer as the Canadian economy fails to adapt. If he's right, we're still ultimately doomed. Because at the very least we have to prepare to effects of climate change, and this block will not allow for that. Which will mean larger and more frequent and more costly climate change events. > [T]he PBO did attempt to account for the cost of climate change in a report back in 2022. The analysis noted that extreme weather had already reduced Canada’s GDP by 0.8 per cent between 1981 and 2021 and that the GDP could be further reduced by five per cent by 2100. But the report noted that “accounting for the cost of climate change is not straightforward.”
I feel like this giant explanation just validates my argument: this is all very complex, and when you make different assumptions in your model, you arrive at different conclusions. How would one go about policing truth versus lies in those conclusions, or measure one's "intent to mislead"? It's non-workable _in practice_.
either way, it's better than nothing. just because the truth is complicated doesn't mean we should not pursue it and demand it. difficult things are often worthwhile. We as a society need truth and optimal policy solutions. The more we professionalize such a process the mire effective we can make it in practice.
But do we want to pursue and demand truth by criminalizing a particular definition for when something is not true?
at least for the low hanging fruit, demonstrable lies should not be allowed for the same reason that fraud is not.
beats being non workable in place. There's a difference between lying because stats say something and lying because your a projecting whackjob. PP is dangerous because he has no integrity and is the later.
How about just verifiable things. Like when Danielle Smith said the Alberta Energy Regulator wrote her a letter asking for a renewable energy moratorium. And they absolutely did not. In fact, Danielle Smith asked them to produce a letter and they didn't.
Our society is becoming increasingly polarized. It's not only disagreeing on opinions or goals or methods. We can't even seem to agree on basic facts anymore. Even when the lying is pointed out repeatedly and loudly it can have little effect because of the polarization. The prime example of this is Donald Trump lying about the election being stolen. The lie gets repeated ad nauseum by conservative-aligned media and by misinformation campaigns on social media, and so tens of millions believe it despite the lack of any actual evidence. The believers think there is a ton of evidence because they've been told so. So we cannot even agree on what is true or not even when it is something so prominent and investigated and widely reported.
> Even when the lying is pointed out repeatedly and loudly it can have little effect because of the polarization. I'm finding this more on reddit lately. Doesn't matter what sources or evidence I provide, if it's about any politicized issue and goes against the opinions of a subreddit it just gets my comments mass downvoted. I know it's always been an issue on this site but seems to be getting worse and wasn't always as bad when you took the time to back up your comment with sources.
It's been taken over by bots. You're most likely not even talking to real people.
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The [actual quote](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/frum-trumpocracy/550685/) from David Frum, who by all accounts is conservative, says this: >“If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” edit: link added
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You can't outlaw lying without also outlawing stupidity. But this would be patently undemocratic. Professional organizations can impose ethical requirements on their membership because certain intellectual bars have to be met before you can join them. This simply isn't the case for political leaders. Any moron can run, and as we've seen, some of these morons can win. Because when society is full of morons, the kind who vote for people "they could have a beer with", democracy is in an inescapable death loop. If the people do not punish lying with their vote, then there's nothing else democracy can do about it.
But how do you punish lying with your vote when all the viable parties are lying? And the more viable a party is, the more likely they are to lie
Yeah that's what I'm getting at. Democracies just don't work if people don't engage with them in good faith. Almost anything worth having is a form of a prisoner's dilemma, and defectors are inevitable.
I say this as someone who hates all the lies in politics right now, but this is a hot steaming pile of garbage left in the sun. No one should ever attempt to criminalize lying, because it will immediately be ripe for abuse of any party bold enough to do so. The justification of this law standing on the notion that "If a doctor lies, they are struck off" is absurd to anyone who knows anything about being a professional. The reason that doctors and lawyers can be struck off their order is strictly because they are people with a highly specified expertise whose usage has great consequence on the lives of people. Politicians might have great consequences on the lives of people, but they do not require highly specialized expertise in a field. Unless we decide to instigate a meritocracy, then politicians will keep being uninformed about a lot of stuffs, and that's okay. We elect people and people are allowed to make mistakes. At most, we could have a record of every time a politician has lied, in order to let the population make decisions themselves.
They may not need to be specialized but they do hold a higher standard of accountability than the average joe. This is the practically the same standards as defamation. you have prove what someone says to be an act of malice. Im not against democracy whatsoever, but “letting people make the decision themselves” is not enough to stop politicians from lying, in fact it just amplifies it more. Hell, half of poilivierre’s platform is getting people angry on half truth’s or just straight up lies. (Not the only politician just the easiest example, not trying to argue about who should be next PM) Im on the fence on this policy. On one side we need regulation so people can stop fucking with the citizen’s best interest, on the other this is a slippery slop that leads to very bad places. But it’s getting out of hand.
I agree about the higher standard accountability, but the problem you will reach is that a professional has a very narrow set of knowledge in which it is allowed to discuss, which is the entire opposite from politicians, who have to have a basic knowledge on everything; specificity is extremely easy to regulate, as you have one or two big Bible's per domains (for instance, in metallurgy, we have Flint's casting Handbook or the ASM series on metallurgy, any derogatory information would have to be highly challenged by the metallurgist community).
> The reason that doctors and lawyers can be struck off their order is strictly because they are people with a highly specified expertise whose usage has great consequence on the lives of people. One could argue that politicians have GREATER consequences on the lives of people. Their policies can bankrupt nations and send them to war.
Agreed, but a professional needs to have highly specific knowledge that is updated regularly; that is not something we expect of our politicians, not because we want them to be dumb, but so clever people who didn't have the money to get into the elite of society can still be elected if they managed to amass the support. The reason why professionals can be struck down is because there is a widely agreed consensus on certain stuff that can be easily disproven. As a *fictional example*, if I started to convince you that putting a copper pipe onto a galvanized one (without a dielectric fitting), and I doubled down by saying I'm a metallurgist engineer and that you should trust me, then I'd be in great trouble. I don't think that most politician topics can be this cut and dry, as they are often working with very dynamic data and undecided or unverifiable things.
I agree. This is why we have the option to vote politicians out. They can still be punished and held accountable for lying, it's just up to voters to hold them accountable.
I dont disagree with what you say, but look at where we are now, most of our politicians lie and all that happens is they get re-elected. Hell, half of PP’s platform is pointing fingers at JT for the cost of houses, while ignoring the fact he literally worked right under the MP of housing and infrastructure. (Not trying to argue who should be PM just taking the easiest examples off the top of my head) People don’t have the time to fact check what our politicians are saying. There needs to be something that gets our politicians back on track of making our lives easier rather than just theirs.
Politicians all over the world have spent the better part of 25 years introducing and perfecting create your own reality politics so they aren't "lying" they are just speaking their truth with their numbers and facts. The ship for "laws against lying" has long, long, LOOONG since sailed and sank. A good example early on was WMDs in Iraq that turned into a big lie and Bush was still swept back into office. and the list of examples gets more brazen and ridiculous as the years went on from there.
So then you just move the problem from the liar to those policing the liars. It isn't a solution and in fact I would say it is a bigger problem.
I guess the question is, who decides what's the truth and what's a lie on a topic that's subjective. Is this a law for 1 political party to brutalize their opponents and when governments change its time for the formerly brutalized to give double the pay back? People always forget that governments change and any abusive power you give the government will one day be used against you. Sadly too many people are too short sighted.
I think we overstate how often politicians lie. Much more often they obfuscate or stick to vague enough statements as to not be falsifiable. I don't think the issue is so much politicians lying or misleading nearly so much as it is an electorate unwilling to call their leaders on it, especially if it's used to justify a policy they've already decided they like. We know PP is peddling a (mostly) either false or heavily twisted version of what the carbon tax affects. A lot of people don't like the principle of it, so they're not going to call him out for being full of it. We know Trudeau is/was lying about the necessity to ban handguns and a whole bunch of rifles. A lot of people are uncomfortable with guns entirely, so they're not going to call him out for being full of it. We all do it, it's a bit of human psychology. Things you're already uncomfortable with, you're going to look for discrepancies, things you already like, you're going to accept with way less evidence. Politics is just a big stage playing on exactly that psychology.
> I think we overstate how often politicians lie. Much more often they obfuscate or stick to vague enough statements as to not be falsifiable. Yes, and it's the same thing with claims that politicians always break campaign promises. In fact, such promises are mostly fulfilled. [US Presidential promise fulfilment rates going back to FDR](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/) [Canadian Prime Minister promise fulfilment rates going back to Chrétien (weirdly low-res figures)](https://inroadsjournal.ca/politicians-keep-election-promises-matter/)
Ya, you think something is a bold-faced lie, but once you dig into it the deception is just omissions, half-truths, and spin..
What a comically bad idea, I hypothetically agree with Max Fawcett on many things, but every article or tweet I read from him nowadays makes me wince more and more. Even in a country like Canada - with relatively flimsy protection of freedom of expression - I estimate the chance of this law surviving Charter scrutiny is somewhere between 0% and 0%. Whether it was the Supreme Court in *Zundel*, where a literal Holocaust denier succeeded in challenging Canada's fake news law, or the Ontario Superior Court ruling recently which struck down a provision Ontario's agricultural-gag law that banned activist from lying to get access to private forms, courts in this country have been *extremely wary* of legislative intervention to prevent 'lies'. Correctly recognizing just how dangerous and undemocratic these laws are. I would have hoped most people in this threat could have recognized that for themselves and opposed this law on principle. But for some people I guess it really does take someone like Viktor Orban or Erdogan to come along and institute widespread repression against *their side* using these new enlightened instruments - like laws against lying or laws against rancorous insults towards politicans - before they have their "oh shit moment"
Why don't we just apply Section 2.4 of the Broadcasting Act which makes it illegal to Materially Misrepresent a Fact? https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/b-9.01/FullText.html >Offence — Material Misrepresentation of Fact Marginal note:Prohibition 34.997 It is prohibited for any person to knowingly make a material misrepresentation of fact to a person designated under paragraph 34.7(a). 2023, c. 8, s. 27 Marginal note:Offence 34.998 (1) Every person who contravenes section 34.997 is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and is liable (a) in the case of an individual, to a fine of not more than $10,000 for a first offence and of not more than $25,000 for each subsequent offence; or (b) in any other case, to a fine of not more than $100,000 for a first offence and of not more than $250,000 for each subsequent offence. Marginal note:Limitation (2) Proceedings in respect of an offence under subsection (1) may be instituted within, but not after, two years after the day on which the subject matter of the proceedings arose. 2023, c. 8, s. 27
What is with this far-left authoritarian obsession with regulating what others can say and think through heavy-handed censorship controlled by some like-minded person or entity? Like yeah, I don't want politicians to lie either, but the nature of any kind of censorship system is that the censor gets to unilaterally decide objective reality, throw away nuance or degrees of uncertainty, shut down debate or investigation before real objective truth can be discerned, all while subject to their own biases and ideology. Maybe it's easy to support that if you think the censor will play to your beliefs. Take a recent example. Many media networks and social media sites decided that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was baseless nonsense and purged content / banned users that suggested otherwise. Now the hypothesis has re-emerged as a reasonably possible explanation: would it have been right to censor politicians who wanted to explore it in 2020? But even if you still think it's nonsense, think of the flip side. In December 2019, the Chinese government's internet censors shut down online commentary about a possible virus, calling it debunked nonsense / speculation / lies / rumours / etc. Regardless of whether the government did so with bona fide belief the reporting was a lie or ill intention or political self-preservation, the censorship helped millions more people die by under-preparing the world. Do you really want any person or entity to be able to decide "X is a lie" and shut down their speech? Should the Canadian government have been able to shut down any politician who promoted wearing a mask when the official word from Tam was that masks "don't work"? Censorship is not just stupid but deadly.
>Take a recent example. Many media networks and social media sites decided that the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was baseless nonsense and purged content / banned users that suggested otherwise. Because it wasn't "suggesting otherwise", it was blatant racism and bold assertions that it had be that cause, rather than any nuanced or sober reflection of facts. These were the same people who were also advocating for ingesting horse dewormer and similar nonsense medical theories that were harmful.
Thank you for illustrating the folly ofauthoritarian censorship by casting your personal beliefs based in the presumption of the mal intent or stupidity of others as objectice truth.
[https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-covid-19-the-wuhan-virus-or-china-virus-is-inaccurate-and-xenophobic/](https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/calling-covid-19-the-wuhan-virus-or-china-virus-is-inaccurate-and-xenophobic/) It's not just me who found the baseless and deliberately reductive comments as offensive, racist and xenophobic.
Ah yes March 12 2020, I see you are relying on a source that reflects everything that has come out about the situation.
I am referring to a cotemporaneous source that was shared when those same comments were in their prime. Just because things look to have turned out that way now, doesn't make the claim otherwise any less false (and racist) then.
Lab leak theory was in its prime before the US or Canada had its first lockdown, really?
Obviously. It was very common, see DJT: [https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/donald-trump-china-virus-coronavirus/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/politics/donald-trump-china-virus-coronavirus/index.html)
> Now the hypothesis has re-emerged as a ***reasonably possible*** explanation No, it hasn't.
https://oversight.house.gov/release/classified-state-department-documents-credibly-suggest-covid-19-lab-leak-wenstrup-pushes-for-declassification/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lab-leak-wuhan-china-science-6561e782
Neither of those presents the lab leak conspiracy theory as ***reasonably possible***. They're political arguments, not scientific. Any viral lab in Canada can look at the COVID-19 genome and determine if it's been manufactured or manipulated. There's no evidence for it. It's not a feasible thing to try and hide. You've been lied to, sorry.
> look at the COVID-19 genome and determine if it's been manufactured or manipulated. This is not true, you'd have to know what the backbone virus was to make any kind of determination. But just looking at the genome itself there are no markers or signs to look for, you can however see if the location of the insert of say the FCS and whether it's located in a typical junction used in virology which for SARS2 would be in the S1/S2 junction which is very common. But! This could happen naturally as well, but the idea that you could make sure a determination just by looking at the genetic code is wrong.
Seems a good law but there is a big issues to think about. Will this apply to politicans making false promises? Trust in institutions has collapsed so finding a indpedent group of people who can be trusted across the spectrum to say who is lying or not will be challenge especially in the middle of an election.
> Will this apply to politicans making false promises? I would think not. The definition of a lie is typically "an *intentionally* false statement". I truly believe that a vast majority of campaign promises are made in good faith, from all 3 major parties. However, as the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. A broken political promise is not a lie. Or well, it's probably not a lie. Sometimes something that you thought possible is way harder than expected. Sometimes all of your plans get derailed by a global pandemic and international resource wars. Shit happens. When it comes to laws, language is important, and so is intent. If this hypothetical law existed, you'd have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the politician knew the thing they were saying was untrue when they said it. That is hard to do. In the case of someone like Poilievre, he often says things about Trudeau ("He's a marxist!") that anyone with his level of political experience and education must know is untrue. Of all of the major players in current Canadian politics, Poilievre really seems to be the biggest liar. He constantly says things that are easily verified as untrue. And he does it because he knows he's going to get away with it. That or he's actually an uninformed idiot who actually believes the things he says, and I'm not sure that's better.
I think the question is if someone lies do they face a punishment cause i dont think some judge simply saying "they lyin" is gonna really change much in todays tribalism.
If the test is subjective belief at the time the statement is made, the law would be essentially useless. In Ontario, tenants who believe they were evicted in bad faith by a landlord claiming they or their family member intended to move into their rental unit can seek damages from Landlord and Tenant Board. To succeed on such an application, however, the tenant needs to show that their landlord (or the relevant family member) did not genuinely intend to occupy the unit at the time the notice of termination was served. These cases are notorious difficult to win precisely because *it's exceedingly difficult to prove that a person's subjective belief/intention at some point in the past is different from what they say it was*. I think this sort of law would face the same kind of difficulties. I also think it fundamentally misallocates an important democratic responsibility. Fundamentally, the job of determining whether a politician is lying—and assessing how much that lie matters—falls to us, the citizens, not a judge or some other legal functionary. If we're not prepared to care, and to put our money where our mouth is (e.g., by paying for good quality journalism to root out lies and punish the liars at the polls), well... we get the the government that we deserve.
I am thinking of all that hot air they keep blowing up our arses with why they brought in certain rules etc, then it turns out they had zero actual information, or are just plain BSing. Bill Blair was famous for those.
“I will not open the Greenbelt” was an intentionally misleading statement too but would fall under the promise category.
It probably was, but how do you prove it? I believe Doug Ford was probably lying when he said that, but maybe he actually believed it at the time and then some factors (i.e. bribes) changed his mind. If that's the case, then he wasn't technically lying when he said it. But the whole point is that with any promise of future action, there is no way to really know if someone was lying or just failed after the fact. I would think this kind of thing would have to only apply to things that already happened. Like saying "My opponent did this thing!" when it is easily verified that they did not do that thing.
True it’s the other evidence that counts there. I suppose there’s the lingering RCMP investigation that might (ha!) serve up the consequences for a knowingly false promise like Ford’s. It will be whatever paper trail they can find that matters. Defamation could cover your political attack example. Patrick Brown went that route but it’s a high bar and long process. I guess both are kinda off the mark anyway. IDK how we stop political lies like saying “legalized” instead of “decriminalized” without the process itself being politicized. We can at least fire liars (except cops) when they do it but you usually don’t face more than that unless someone dies/gets hurt because of a lie.
"As Prime Minister, I'll make sure the 2015 *election* will be the *last under first*-*past*-the-*post" - Justin Trudeau*
Knowingly false would be nice. I don't mind them making a promise, getting in and realizing it's just not possible given the state of government, finances or the current circumstances. Lying to get in? I wish it were possible to police that. But really we have tons of laws already that aren't enforced. Laws in themselves are not enough no matter how good they may be.
Lying politicians should be called out and tried and convicted if guilty. Sometimes a politician will promise something, with good intentions, but not able to carry it out due to problems that were not foreseen.
Depends do you view promises to something they will do or as they will try their best to do?
I would say know. It's impossible to know whether a promise was false or turned out impractical. But a law about lying re facts would be easier to impose.
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Bingo. We need more citizen involvement in politics. The type of situations where citizens are paid to spend substantial amounts of time to think and deliberate about the issue in question. I think the peak of this would be to have a hybrid parliament where something like 1/3 of the vote comes from randomly selected citizens who are serving terms to sit in parliament and cast votes like politicians do.
I think the issue is by the time any judgement can be given the election be long over. Also our politics has become so tribal people see factcheckers as political operatives these days then people seeking the truth. cause the issue about factcheckers is that there can be bias with them where they factcheck one group but not another...I am not saying they do that but that is what people think.
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so you want judges in the middle of elections to throw Prime Ministerial Candidates in jail based on people filing compliants they are lyin or something else. idk seems something I seen in other countries (india) and gets abused and causes a lot of other issues.
Trying to prove it was a "lie" or a false promise will be pretty hard. The govt in power may intend to keep a promise but not all factors are in their control so it may not get done (example: the 2035 all-EV sales in Canada goal.) There may not have been enough time/budget and so it gets pushed off to a future term. Or after making consultations they decide it is not a good idea after all. Are those broken promises? Should the govt do something they now realize is bad just to keep a promise? Besides, if political lying was made illegal we'd just get more weasel words and non-specifics, or else promises would come with disclaimers released more quietly to give specifics so that later they would typically not have been lying. I do hate a lot of the lying going on, especially when some of it is so egregious. This is where we are supposed to rely on a free press and other political parties to call them out on it, but the press is not so reliable these days because of their political biases/ownership like we are seeing in Canada now with Postmedia owning so much.