Inside: Fact-checking the Liberal leader,
Trudeau most truthful of fairly evenly matched group of party leaders
My month-long fact-checking project is over.
When the 2021 election campaign kicked off, I set out to see just how honest Canada’s political leaders are, and whether a Donald Trump-style trend toward “post-truth politics” had made its way here. I started by checking every statement made by the leader defending the fewest seats, Green Leader Annamie Paul, and ended with a week focused on the incumbent prime minister, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Like the leaders that came before him, Trudeau had an honest week. He uttered five false claims, on par with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, two fewer than Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole and one more than Paul, and stretched the truth six times. When considering the leaders’ “dishonesty density” — their rate of false claims by speaking time — Trudeau was the most truthful of a fairly evenly matched bunch.
Because he’s the incumbent, Trudeau is arguably treated with more scrutiny than any other leader, and last week he repeatedly faced tough questions about his past six years in office.
When Trudeau got in trouble with the facts, it was often a product of him overstating his record, or searching to explain his government’s lack of success on past promises.
When questioned in the French debate on his failure to lift all boil water advisories in First Nations communities by 2021 — as he promised in 2015 — he blamed the pandemic for the delay, when in reality the Liberals were never on track to meet their deadline.
Another example came speaking with reporters in Montreal, when Trudeau said his government had “moved forward concretely on a national universal pharmacare deal with Prince Edward Island.”
National universal pharmacare was one of the Liberals’ central campaign promises last election, but the government has ultimately made little progress.
The P.E.I. deal, signed last month, is neither national (obviously) nor universal, since although it lowers drug costs for people already covered by the public plan, it doesn’t expand to people who aren’t covered. So it was misleading to describe the deal in these terms.
There were some defensive denials, including two “that’s not true!” interjections responding to rivals at the English debate.
In the first case, responding to Singh’s claim that the government is “taking Indigenous kids to court,” Trudeau was the one being misleading. The government is, in fact, challenging in federal court a decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that requires Ottawa to pay compensation to Indigenous children who ended up in foster care as a result of systemically underfunded health care.
In the second, in response to a charge by O’Toole that the Liberals are going to tax primary home sales, Trudeau was correct. The Liberals are proposing a tax on people profiting from flipping homes; very few primary residences are affected, so it’s wrong to frame the plan that way.
A big chunk of Trudeau’s speaking minutes this week took place in the two debates, which meant he was required to speak off-the-cuff more frequently than leaders I factchecked in previous weeks. At least one false claim — that Canada has evacuated “a lot” more people from Afghanistan than our European allies (the U.K. has evacuated more than 15,000; Canada 3,700) — seemed like an impromptu slipup.
In total, I found five false claims in 248 minutes of public appearances. I also deemed six separate claims to be a stretch, meaning the claim is broadly true, but was misleading in the specific context in which Trudeau said it.
That works out to a “dishonesty density” of about one false claim every 50 minutes, with every repeated falsehood counting once for each time it was said. For reference, O’Toole’s dishonesty density was one false claim every 30 minutes, Singh’s was one every 46 minutes, and Paul’s was one every 47 minutes.
How do those rates compare with “post-truth” politicians like Trump? Any way you slice it, they’re a lot less dishonest — in 2019, the Star’s Daniel Dale counted 60 false claims in two hours of a single Trump speech.
I’ll be back with more to sum up my experience fact-checking the election later this week.
A selection of Trudeau’s claims this week:
> “Erin O’Toole wouldn’t make sure everyone on a plane or train is vaccinated. In fact, he won’t even make sure his own candidates are vaccinated.” — Sept. 6, in Welland, Ont.
True: O’Toole is opposed to Trudeau’s vaccine mandate for air and rail travellers, and has said if he is elected he will require passengers get rapid COVID tests before boarding. Similarly, he’s left the choice to get vaccinated up to Conservative candidates, but requires daily rapid testing on the campaign trail.
> “The gun lobby continues to stand with (O’Toole) and support him, because they know what he intends to do because he made them a promise.” — Sept. 6, in Welland, Ont.
True: While I can’t say for sure if O’Toole will move forward with his promise to maintain the Liberals’ ban on “assault-style” weapons, Trudeau is correct that gun groups still support the Conservatives. The president of Canada’s National Firearms Association told the Star the organization still supports O’Toole this election, despite his changed stance on the ban.
> “This is why we’re now in this mess with regards to affordable housing. For 10 years, the Conservatives refused to accept that the federal government had anything to do with housing, and they completely withdrew.” —
Sept. 7, in Montreal (translated from French).
A stretch: While it’s true that the previous Conservative administration did not do much for housing, the federal government’s withdrawal from the housing sector transcends party lines and dates back before Stephen Harper, said Jeff Morrison, executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association.
Between the 1960s and 1990s, the non-profit housing sector in Canada grew in part because of operating agreements between the federal government and individual non-profit housing providers. In 1993, the year Liberal Jean Chrétien was elected prime minister, the government stopped creating new operating agreements, and the non-profit housing sector stopped growing. The effects weren’t immediately evident since many of the agreements were long term, but by 2010 they started to expire, leaving behind an affordable housing shortage, Morrison said.
While it’s fair to say the current state of affordable housing is, at least partially, a result of years of federal inaction, it’s misleading to pin this on the Conservatives.
> “We did act quickly from the very outset. We had an evacuation plan, we evacuated 3,700 people — a lot more than our European allies did.” — Sept. 8, at the French leaders debate (translated from French).
False: While Canada did evacuate more than 3,700 people from Afghanistan, it’s not true that’s “a lot more than our European allies.” For example: the United Kingdom evacuated more than 15,000 people, Germany evacuated 5,347, and Italy evacuated 5,011.
> “We eliminated 109 boil water advisories. There are still some left ... Yes, the pandemic got in the way a bit, but it’s not an excuse.” — Sept. 8, at the French debate (translated from
French).
A stretch: Trudeau promised in 2015 to lift all drinking-water advisories by March 2021, but has missed that deadline. Over 100 long-term drinking water advisories have been lifted since 2015, but there are still 38 First Nations communities where water isn’t safe to drink.
However, Trudeau’s comment that the “pandemic got in the way a bit” obscures the reality — confirmed in a recent auditor general’s report — that the Liberals were never on track to meet their target, even before pandemic-induced delays.
> “Mr. O’Toole can’t even convince his party that climate change is real because they voted against that.” — Sept. 9, at the English leaders’ debate.
True: At a party convention in March 2021, Conservative delegates voted 54 to 46 per cent against adding a line to their policy book acknowledging “climate change is real.”
> “We have actually signed with Prince Edward Island a national universal pharmacare first step.” — Sept. 9, at the debate.
A stretch: The government inked a $35-million deal with P.E.I. last month to expand access to prescription drugs, however that plan is not national (since it only applies to P.E.I.) nor is it universal, said Dr. Danyaal Raza, family doctor at Unity Health Toronto and assistant professor at University of Toronto. The agreement provides increased funding to lower co-pay costs for people already covered by the public plan, but does not expand to people who are not covered, Raza said, making Trudeau’s characterization misleadingly overstated.
Trudeau made another version of this claim — which we judged false — where he omitted the wording that the deal was a “first step” toward a plan.