I was looking at the Hansard records for that exact committee exchange between Rachel Thomas and Marc Miller. It is wild how quickly a standard term gets twisted. Social cohesion (basically the government's way of saying we can disagree without the country breaking) is not a secret plot. StatsCan actually measures this. Their recent data shows trust in Parliament dropped by 10% over the last decade. That drop in trust is exactly why these political games matter. When MPs play word games with basic definitions, they actively make that deficit worse.
There was a time when “talking points” were genuinely just notes — reminders of key policy issues meant to keep complex material accurate and consistent.
What’s changed is their function. Today, talking points are far more often crafted as marketing tools: designed for branding, repetition, and clip-ability rather than explanation. Over time, that kind of language doesn’t just persuade less — it desensitizes and exhausts people.
My worry is that we’re now deep into the law of diminishing returns. The more politics sounds like messaging rather than meaning, the more people disengage altogether. And that has real consequences for civic life.
Thank you for focusing on this issue. Marc Miller’s response struck me as sensible and reassuring, delivered without hyperbole.
I’m sure you already know but a Canadian social media platform is in development, GanderSocial. The beta testing is underway and it looks very promising. I am in the process of shutting down all my Meta accounts and have thrown my support behind GanderSocial.
Thanks, Anu — I agree. Miller’s response struck me as measured. He spoke slowly, with clear attention to his word choices, seemingly aware that his remarks would be parsed and clipped for social media.
I haven’t checked on Gander recently myself, but I’m genuinely hopeful. A Canadian platform coming online — even gradually — would be a meaningful development. If you see updates as it progresses, I’d love to hear them.
Trust erodes when the government and "police" lie out rightly and say things like " female shooter", "gunperson", and run the effin "pride" flag up a flagpole!!! Lying about dead bodies buried but it's really sewer tanks!!! Attacking, physically, normal people trying to be factual!!!! WTF!!!!!
That's an interesting lesson on how to dig a rabbit hole! lol! Her implication rallies without evidence, destroying the case for real debate on media independence or anything else for that matter.
As someone who only recently started to deep-dive past the marketing material of the Dominion of Canada, I don't believe Canada is the example you wanted to suggest it is.
As an ongoing settler-colonial project that was built through empire (French/British, and then its own) and colonial expansion, Canadian institutions have required strong mythology and propaganda to keep itself intact.
I find it interesting that loyalists to USA and Canadian institutions always want to point elsewhere, regularly to Germany, Russia or China, rather than being honest about the institutions of the USA and Canada.
The origin story Canadians are primarily told relates to the fallout of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), the Treaty of Paris 1763, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and the Treaty of Niagara Treaty of Niagara 1764. While this, the Quebec Act of 1774, and some other related policies lead to the 1775 civil war where separatists who wanted to disobey British law in order to expand empire faster, this is also the primary origin story for Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Upper and Lower Canada were joined in a union, and were put into “confederation” by the British in 1867 as the British province of Canada along with the British provinces of Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
That is where the “two founding peoples” mythology, British Empire loyalists and French Empire loyalists, came from. While bi-colonialism was rebranded as bi-culturalism and then multiculturalism, even Canada’s alleged “ Charter of Rights and Freedoms" grants privileges and dominance to ongoing loyalists of those empires and their worldviews.
These specific events really only apply to the most southern parts of what people now think of as Ontario and Quebec as well as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. While PEI’s White Male population asked to join on their own, and the British also used economic and other manipulation to force Newfoundland to join later, everything else was colonial expansion by the Dominion of Canada.
When Steven Harper infamously claimed that Canada had "no history of colonialism", it was only correct in that the colonialism project is ongoing and thus not yet able to be placed into only being thought of as the past.
There has never been a Truth and Reconciliation process about the northward or westward expansion of the Dominion of Canada, either from an Indigenous perspective or even a settler perspective. While over 70% of Canada’s population is south of the 49th parallel in the original 1867 Dominion of Canada, the vast majority of the geography is northward and westward. It is perfectly reasonable for those living in the majority of the land claimed to be Canada’s jurisdiction to think of being in subordinate peripheries being dictated to via the dominant center of an empire.
While I have always lived in the southern part of Ontario that would have been part of 1867 Ontario, I have also believed most of my life that the CBC is the mouthpiece of the Empire and not an entity that tries to speak to the reality of Canada and the legitimate interests of the various regions. While I’m told my politics falls to the “left” in Canada’s narrow political spectrum, I am someone who calls for the defunding of both the CBC and the police.
For Canada to have a future at all, there needs to be a Truth and Reconciliation process, and the CBC has been one of the largest government propaganda tools to delay that process.
I recommend people read the following article, and remember to substitute Canada for where he is discussing the USA as the institutions are far more similar than loyalists to the Dominion of Canada wish to admit.
“The mechanism is simple, and it’s everywhere. Americans aren’t taught their actual history. They’re told a story designed to make them feel good about being Americans under this version of the American state. The people intent on running history through classrooms and curricula aren’t interested in building critical understanding — they’re building national identity. It’s mythology dressed up as education. And it works beautifully — right up until it doesn’t.”
My longer piece on “What does being a Canadian mean to me?” is also related, and gives my take on some of the history as I moved outside of Canada’s mythology.
To follow with the theme of this article. Your’s is a conversation we could have. If there’s an appetite. Ideally, again based on the principles discussed here, it would not start with certainty on anyone’s part but with information sharing and testing for interest and inquiry.
I was looking at the Hansard records for that exact committee exchange between Rachel Thomas and Marc Miller. It is wild how quickly a standard term gets twisted. Social cohesion (basically the government's way of saying we can disagree without the country breaking) is not a secret plot. StatsCan actually measures this. Their recent data shows trust in Parliament dropped by 10% over the last decade. That drop in trust is exactly why these political games matter. When MPs play word games with basic definitions, they actively make that deficit worse.
I don’t want to spend my emotional energy fighting a shadow war based on made-up “talking points”!
That’s a fair point, Glen.
There was a time when “talking points” were genuinely just notes — reminders of key policy issues meant to keep complex material accurate and consistent.
What’s changed is their function. Today, talking points are far more often crafted as marketing tools: designed for branding, repetition, and clip-ability rather than explanation. Over time, that kind of language doesn’t just persuade less — it desensitizes and exhausts people.
My worry is that we’re now deep into the law of diminishing returns. The more politics sounds like messaging rather than meaning, the more people disengage altogether. And that has real consequences for civic life.
Doublespeak
Thank you for focusing on this issue. Marc Miller’s response struck me as sensible and reassuring, delivered without hyperbole.
I’m sure you already know but a Canadian social media platform is in development, GanderSocial. The beta testing is underway and it looks very promising. I am in the process of shutting down all my Meta accounts and have thrown my support behind GanderSocial.
Thanks, Anu — I agree. Miller’s response struck me as measured. He spoke slowly, with clear attention to his word choices, seemingly aware that his remarks would be parsed and clipped for social media.
I haven’t checked on Gander recently myself, but I’m genuinely hopeful. A Canadian platform coming online — even gradually — would be a meaningful development. If you see updates as it progresses, I’d love to hear them.
Appreciate the thoughtful engagement.
Trust erodes when the government and "police" lie out rightly and say things like " female shooter", "gunperson", and run the effin "pride" flag up a flagpole!!! Lying about dead bodies buried but it's really sewer tanks!!! Attacking, physically, normal people trying to be factual!!!! WTF!!!!!
That's an interesting lesson on how to dig a rabbit hole! lol! Her implication rallies without evidence, destroying the case for real debate on media independence or anything else for that matter.
Including photographers’ income by using AI illustrations instead of going to Shutterstock or getting an image from a human being…. GRRR
As someone who only recently started to deep-dive past the marketing material of the Dominion of Canada, I don't believe Canada is the example you wanted to suggest it is.
As an ongoing settler-colonial project that was built through empire (French/British, and then its own) and colonial expansion, Canadian institutions have required strong mythology and propaganda to keep itself intact.
I find it interesting that loyalists to USA and Canadian institutions always want to point elsewhere, regularly to Germany, Russia or China, rather than being honest about the institutions of the USA and Canada.
The origin story Canadians are primarily told relates to the fallout of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), the Treaty of Paris 1763, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and the Treaty of Niagara Treaty of Niagara 1764. While this, the Quebec Act of 1774, and some other related policies lead to the 1775 civil war where separatists who wanted to disobey British law in order to expand empire faster, this is also the primary origin story for Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Upper and Lower Canada were joined in a union, and were put into “confederation” by the British in 1867 as the British province of Canada along with the British provinces of Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
That is where the “two founding peoples” mythology, British Empire loyalists and French Empire loyalists, came from. While bi-colonialism was rebranded as bi-culturalism and then multiculturalism, even Canada’s alleged “ Charter of Rights and Freedoms" grants privileges and dominance to ongoing loyalists of those empires and their worldviews.
These specific events really only apply to the most southern parts of what people now think of as Ontario and Quebec as well as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. While PEI’s White Male population asked to join on their own, and the British also used economic and other manipulation to force Newfoundland to join later, everything else was colonial expansion by the Dominion of Canada.
When Steven Harper infamously claimed that Canada had "no history of colonialism", it was only correct in that the colonialism project is ongoing and thus not yet able to be placed into only being thought of as the past.
There has never been a Truth and Reconciliation process about the northward or westward expansion of the Dominion of Canada, either from an Indigenous perspective or even a settler perspective. While over 70% of Canada’s population is south of the 49th parallel in the original 1867 Dominion of Canada, the vast majority of the geography is northward and westward. It is perfectly reasonable for those living in the majority of the land claimed to be Canada’s jurisdiction to think of being in subordinate peripheries being dictated to via the dominant center of an empire.
While I have always lived in the southern part of Ontario that would have been part of 1867 Ontario, I have also believed most of my life that the CBC is the mouthpiece of the Empire and not an entity that tries to speak to the reality of Canada and the legitimate interests of the various regions. While I’m told my politics falls to the “left” in Canada’s narrow political spectrum, I am someone who calls for the defunding of both the CBC and the police.
For Canada to have a future at all, there needs to be a Truth and Reconciliation process, and the CBC has been one of the largest government propaganda tools to delay that process.
I recommend people read the following article, and remember to substitute Canada for where he is discussing the USA as the institutions are far more similar than loyalists to the Dominion of Canada wish to admit.
“The mechanism is simple, and it’s everywhere. Americans aren’t taught their actual history. They’re told a story designed to make them feel good about being Americans under this version of the American state. The people intent on running history through classrooms and curricula aren’t interested in building critical understanding — they’re building national identity. It’s mythology dressed up as education. And it works beautifully — right up until it doesn’t.”
https://tadstoermer.substack.com/p/breaking-the-wheel
My longer piece on “What does being a Canadian mean to me?” is also related, and gives my take on some of the history as I moved outside of Canada’s mythology.
https://r.flora.ca/p/canadian
On the police: Should you be upset at individual police officers who support the "Thin Blue Line" concept?
https://r.flora.ca/p/should-you-be-upset-at-individual
To follow with the theme of this article. Your’s is a conversation we could have. If there’s an appetite. Ideally, again based on the principles discussed here, it would not start with certainty on anyone’s part but with information sharing and testing for interest and inquiry.