Elections BC tells students not to call Emergencies Act “unprecedented” in disinfo guide
https://tnc.news/2024/06/07/elections-bc-emergencies-act-disinfo-guide/
Elections BC denies its new media and disinformation literacy guide for future voters in grades 9 to 12 violates the office’s nonpartisan mandate.
The provincial election office recently published a 51-page lesson plan authored by MediaSmarts, a non-profit charity that has received a significant amount of funding from the federal Liberals.
“Media Literacy for the 2024 Provincial General Election in British Columbia” has six different modules that touch on a variety of media literacy areas. Among them are identifying sources of information, election disinformation, digital political advertising and polarizing content.
Of concern was the guide’s reference to polarizing issues such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act to clamp down on Freedom Convoy protesters in Feb. 2022.
In the “Methods of Polarization” module, students are asked to analyze the Politico headline “Canada invokes unprecedented emergency measures – and triggers a political firestorm” for polarization.
The Elections BC lesson plan instructs educators to explain to students “that it offends the value of freedom by describing the emergency measures as ‘unprecedented’” and to label the term as an example of hyperbole or extreme exaggeration.
Trudeau was the first prime minister to invoke the Emergencies Act since it was passed in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act, making its use literally unprecedented. Continue…