The “Russian government” as alleged, interfered in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the goal of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States.
Were they successful?
Aye, Donald Trump was elected, U.S foreign relationship suffers day by day, open racism is growing, anti-Semitic assaults in the United States more than doubled in 2018 and anti-Semitic incidents overall remain near all-time highs, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League.
According to the NBC News Survey Monkey poll in 2017, 64 percent said racism remains a major problem in America. Though Thirty percent agreed that racism exists today, but it isn’t a major problem.
Election interference has always come with a price and its purpose is never in the best interest of the country’s citizens. There is a big chunk at the expense of the citizens in it for the interfering party.
Meanwhile, in Canada
Interfering in the US election was a long planned out process, which took years, the same set of tactics has been seen in motion in Canada. As Canada’s federal Election is around the Corner, these have happened:
Social media accounts without convincing profile pictures have increased massively to suppress voters’ enthusiasms by harassing the incumbent Prime Minister on social media
Hecklers have been on a rampage in Canada Lately. It was found that Americans were paid by foreign entities to set up protests in the US before the 2016 Election with the goal to suppress voters’ enthusiasms.
Propaganda is spread on social media daily, even by the opposition party, recently it was a doctored video created by the Conservative party. 3 months ago, a four-day-old website published a defamation article on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Within 3 hours, the article has been shared 3000 times on Facebook, with over 20k impressions and counts, other social media platforms were not accounted for. A day later, AFP published a fact check story debunking it to be false.
There have been a series of leaks of privileged information in the past months, which is unprecedented in Canada.
At that same time, there is a spike in Hate Crime in Canada. After steady but relatively small increases since 2014, hate crime in Canada rose sharply in 2017, up 47% over the previous year. This could also be accountable to opposition leader appearing with hate-breed organizations and persons. Hate crimes targeting the Black population accounted for 16% of all hate crimes in Canada and remained the most common type of race or ethnicity related to hate crime.
Interfering entities always pick a candidate that would favour its agenda in the country. The best way to weaken a country is to choose its leadership and expedite its growth of the division.
Canada has been undivided by a foreign influence, Canada stands up to tyrants and stand for human rights across the world, Canada stand against racism and bigotry and after this election Canada could as well be the only leading country that stood its ground with foreign influence and prevails.
Going forward, Canada needs informed-citizens that are keen on the facts in policy debate and not propaganda. If not, there are possibilities that you could be helping a foreign power conquered your country.
