PM Justin Trudeau said Canadian anti-vax misinfo was amplified by Russian propaganda.
CANADA – Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions – Day 35 – October 16. (The screenshot is from the hearing, at 6 hours 7 minutes and 59 seconds into the stream, it shows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and an image share that has many headlines from a paper on influence operations, and the picture caption says the headlines are all coverage of the truck convoy on RT.com, the website of the Russian state-backed media outlet RT. The caption says: “people who were sharing anti vax messages, it doesn’t mean that there were not people who weren’t legitimately anti vax but that was hugely amplified.”)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Google Translation to English): “Yes. We saw anti-vax messages during the convoy and during the pandemic that were amplified by Russian propaganda, particularly in right-wing media, continued by messages in the same… under the same people who were sharing anti-vax messages. Now, not to say that there weren’t legitimately and authentically anti-vax people in Canada, but it was amplified enormously by Russian propaganda.”
(Original French captioning: “Oui. On a vu des messages antivax pendant le convoi et pendant la pandémie qui ont été amplifiés par la propagande russe, particulièrement dans les médias de droite, a continué par des messages dans les mêmes… sous les mêmes gens qui partageaient des messages antivax. Maintenant, pas pour dire qu’il n’y avait pas des gens légitimement et authentiquement antivax au Canada, mais ça a été amplifié énormément par la propagande russe.”)
