Information deficit

We live in the brave new world of fake news, double speak and historical revisionism. It’s hard to know what the heck is really going on. I rely on what is now called the “legacy media.” I read the Citizen, watch CKPG news at 5 p.m., Global National at 5:30 and Global BC at six.

I’m dismayed at the amount of gobble-de-goop I have to read or listen to before I can piece together the simplest matters of fact.

For example, the recent initiative to restrict commercial and recreational activities in our region to protect the mountain caribou. I read some stuff in The Citizen, watched the scenes of angry looking people in public meetings on TV, listened to the B.C. Liberals blame the NDP and vice-versa for several weeks. Only recently did I learn that the federal government was going to place restrictions on the entire province and the localized restriction was in response to this. In my opinion, this should have been made crystal clear at the outset and all the rhetoric, political posturing and sensationalism should’ve been left out.

Another current story is the supply, demand and price of gas in B.C. Again, we have the B.C. Liberals blaming the NDP and vice-versa. We have angry consumers griping at the pumps. We have Albertans blaming B.C. for resisting the TransMountain pipeline. We have suppliers blaming retailers and free marketeers blaming government taxes. Recently, Nathan Giede wrote that the federal Liberals were to blame for land locking Alberta oil.

As a devout left winger of the old school and by that I mean working class democratic socialist, I earnestly believe that in today’s world a gas price below $1.30/litre is not news. I’m pretty sure it was the federal Conservative party that land locked Alberta’s oil (I should say Canada’s oil) when Brian Mulroney signed the original free trade agreement with the U.S. and sold off the government’s majority share in Petro Canada. As for competition in the retail market of gas, I think the margins are so thin that a one or two cent drop in price would have to bring a large increase in sales to make a difference and most retailers rely on some kind of loyalty reward system instead of price competition.

For another example, I recently read a lengthy article in the Citizen about the current crisis in the forest industry. Using five words per line and seven lines per inch I estimated that the article was about 1,800 words. Most of it was the B.C. Liberals blaming the NDP and vice-versa plus the standard rhetoric and sensationalism but the bottom line is that we have known about this for at least ten years. Why is everyone shocked and dismayed?

The companies, the individuals and communities involved should’ve been preparing for this eventuality for a decade and not leaving it to the last minute, then demanding government and taxpayer assistance. All these folks who vote for free market governments and then demand the government (i.e., taxpayers) bail them out when the market fails them are hypocrites.

Democracy, the legacy of two world wars and the cold war, is under threat. One of the key ingredients for a strong democracy is a well informed electorate. The current obfuscated news undermines our democracy. We tend to associate free market capitalism with democracy but clearly as we see in Russia and China that is a false assumption. The question going forward into this brave new world is whether people by democratic means will control global social and economic development or whether oligarchs, global capitalists and social media magnates will control the people.

Roy Olsen, Prince George