We've got a surplus of talk and a deficit of action here in Canada.

This week, columnist and cartoonist J.J. McCullough found himself the subject of an actual motion in the House of Commons over a column he wrote for the Washington Post asking why so much gun violence takes place in the province of Quebec.

CPC leadership candidate Kellie Leitch and campaign manager Nick Kouvalis recently parted ways in no small part due to a backlash arising from Kouvalis calling a critic a "cuck".

And just to show that it isn't only conservatives who face widespread public condemnation for their words, Justin Trudeau's credibility amongst First Nations suffered badly when he told a crowd that young FN adults needed "a place to store their canoes and paddles."

You can call these people out for the words they use, and they can defend themselves against those call-outs.  That's freedom of speech.

But for some reason we never move past the talking to deal with the underlying issues.

How does a motion condemning J.J. McCullough, or insisting that coverage of the tragedy specifically mentions the killer's white skin and that it was a terrorist attack, stop gun violence or address any contributing factors?

Similarly, endless poring over every word our politicians have said in search of a quote that can be shoehorned into an attack ad too often distracts from the business our MP's should be tending to.

But then again, those same MP's who have been part of governments that have reannounced the same funding for the same project over and over again without any progress to show for it, who have blamed other levels of government for inaction, and who feign outrage- poorly-before the cameras during Question Period are just as guilty of letting words substitute for action.

Our media is just as much to blame for this sad state of affairs.

Thanks to them, we have now have been thoroughly educated about the origin of the word "cuck" and its various meanings, but if anyone has come up with a way to prevent the spread of this demonic phrase, I have yet to see it reported in the pages of a Canadian newspaper.

Whatever the word's power to do harm, the media has only increased that power by giving it a dark and terrifying quality.

I haven't quite figured out why Canadians settle for the same old excuses and empty words time and time again.

I do know that some Canadians have an overstated sense of their own reputation "on the world stage", which is why shaming can be so effective at reigning them in.

If you've checked the international scene lately, however, you know that naming and shaming has become somewhat less than effective at keeping established politicians in power.

And if you know anything about the alt-right, you know that shamelessness is one of their most powerful weapons.

I'm willing to bet that dealing with the concerns these people have and taking them seriously instead of making false shows of empathy or shaming them would do a lot more to stop the rise of the alt-right.

But that would require establishment politicians to move outside their comfort zones.  It would require them to do something about a problem, rather than just talking about it.

And here in Canada, those with the power to effect change seem too ashamed to do so.

Written by Josh Lieblein

The slaughter of six innocent men at Quebec City's Islamic Cultural Centre was a Canadian tragedy now forever engraved in this country's dark history of public violence.  Yet whatever emotions of sobriety it may have inspired in the moment were quickly eclipsed by a scramble to politicize the crime for the benefit of a certain faction.  Much as Marc Lépine's 1989 killing spree at the Polytechnique de Montréal has been largely reduced to an ideological talking-point for a certain kind of feminist, progressives from the Prime Minister on down have been keen to turn the Quebec City killings into a helpful tool to silence critics of multiculturalism.

When massacres occur in the social media age, the trickle of confused and contradictory details prompt predictable scoldings about the dangers of "jumping to conclusions" before all facts are known.  This advice was quite explicitly not heeded on the evening of January 29.

Though there has been no greater killer of Muslims than Islamist radicals, initial reports of a mosque shooting immediately prompted leading voices in Canadian media and politics to conclude that a white-on-Muslim hate crime was the only conceivable explanation.  Progressives have long assumed Islamophobia to be the true horror of our times, and journalistic standards are routinely shed in the search for anecdotal confirmation.  Even as early reports described the killer as a man of "Moroccan descent" shouting "Allah Akbar," reporters were appending their stories with special features about how "people who practice Islam haven't always been made to feel so welcome in the province," and an oft-repeated anecdote about a pig's head left on the mosque's doorstep.

That the killer did, ultimately, prove to be a white guy matters little.  That conclusion was reached long before there were facts to support it, and bodies were turned into political props before they had cooled.

Mere hours after the attack, Prime Minister Trudeau released a statement declaring "diversity is our strength," while Thomas Mulcair vowed to battle "those who peddle the politics of fear and division."  Michael Chong, who is running for the leadership of the Conservative Party on a platform of unbridled hate for conservatives, tweeted that the attack was "no accident" but the "direct result of demagogues and wannabe demagogues playing to fears and prejudices" including "politicians talking division, not unity."  (Gee, you think he had anyone in mind?)

Alexandre Bissonnette's massacre could not have come at a more convenient time for many on the left, given President Trump's much-loathed temporary travel ban on seven terror-sponsoring nations had been announced the previous morning.  Eager to link one story to the other, reporters cherry-picked to turn Bissonnette into an alt-right stereotype.  It was noted he'd "liked" Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen on Facebook, though few mentioned he'd liked Jack Layton as well.  Sources were found claiming he'd posted "trollish" comments about refugees, but nothing hard was produced.  The creator of a pro-refugee page Bissonnette had supposedly terrorized conceded to the Toronto Star that "he did not recall particular attacks that targeted the Muslim community."

I'm perfectly self-aware.  If Sunday had been an Islamist massacre I'd be writing a very different column today.  But I'd also be writing in response to a terrorist ideology that explicitly, loudly, and endlessly advocates the murder of unbelievers.  Regardless of what you think of those carrying deep skepticism, even hatred, of Islam, there is simply no mainstream faction of our culture demanding the mass execution of Muslims.  Whatever evil motivated Bissonnette was a product of his own twisted mind, and those who have expressed measured, rational skepticism of radical Islam have nothing to atone for.

My own suspicion is that in the weeks to come, Bissonnette's political opinions will prove to be incoherent paranoia.  He'll likely resemble Jared Lee Loughner, the would-be assassin of Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords and a gibbering madman who was initially portrayed as an evil conservative because that was more politically useful.

There is nothing morally wrong with reacting to a massacre of Muslims by attending public rallies and giving speeches about how Islam poses no threat to anything and no one should question the country's refugee policy.  That is a conclusion drawn from perceived evidence, in the same way those who witness an Islamist massacre may call for immigration restrictions or a more aggressive foreign policy.  It is the public's job to decide which conclusion seems like an appropriate response to the challenges of our time and which is a shallow exercise in demagoguery.

Written by J.J. McCullough

Shortly after the US election, BuzzFeed Canada media editor Craig Silverman's coverage of fake news sites that were widely shared and engaged with on Facebook during the election began an outbreak of the buzzword being reported ad infinitum by mainstream media around the globe.  Pundits, pollsters and journalists claimed this supposedly new phenomenon of fake news had a major impact on the American zeitgeist, and potentiallygasp!on the election's outcome.  The peddlers of fake news were convenient scapegoats for why the mainstream media's predictions were so spectacularly wrong; too many were duped by these faux news scoundrels into voting for Trump.

However, when scrutinized, fake news sites' influence was minimal and the overblown moral panic over it was unjustified.  On the contrary, far more insidious than phoney fringe news sites is the fake news knowingly or unwittingly reported as truth by the mainstream media itself.  The public is much more susceptible to being duped by this type of fake news.  News outlets tend to echo each other's false narratives, resulting in ubiquitous reporting of fiction as fact, which then leads to a major swaying of public opinion, sometimes with violent consequences.

After the election, the press presumed there was a sudden spike in hate crimes due to Trump normalizing racial hatred.  But upon further inspection, many of these supposed hate crimes  turned out to be threadbare yarns.  A Reason article revealed that many of the supposed acts of hateful vandalism proliferating after Nov. 8 were perpetrated by left-wing activists or juvenile delinquents carrying out false flags or pranks.  Just one of countless examples was the supposed outbreak of hate crimes in Ottawa that turned out to be a lone teenager (perhaps inspired by media reports of fake hate crimes) spray-painting swastikas and racial slurs on mosques, churches and synagogues.  Of course these acts of vandalism were repulsive, but they were a far cry from a gang of adult white nationalists crawling out of the woodwork, emboldened by a Trump presidency as the media wrongly suggested.

Another story widely reported by the mainstream media was the accosting of a Muslim woman by two white men wearing Trump hats.  This turned out to have never happened, yet news outlets ran with it.  This was just one of many stories that circulated on social mediawidely and unquestioningly reported by the mainstream mediaabout Muslims, blacks and gays being attacked by Trump supporters, which were debunked as hoaxes.  Journalists were so convinced Trump's victory was the catalyst for unleashing a wave of hate crimes across America that they began actively seeking out hate crimes to feed their confirmation bias, which only further encouraged hoaxers and stoked anger.

The above is not meant to minimize the importance of real and despicable hate crimes, but rather to point out that the media giving voice to bunk stories sparks fires.  Some of the attacks on Trump supporters and minorities were brought about by the mainstream media's witless reporting on a spike in hate crimes.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy when the media energetically reports a phoney spate of attacks and hatred levelled against minority groups that inevitably some mercurial individuals become enraged enough to retaliate to the ruses.  That is what happened when a hostile group dragged a Trump supporter from his car and beat him.  That is what happened when four impressionable teens, citing their hatred of Trump supporters, kidnapped and tortured a young man with special needs.  And these were just two of the most extreme examples of people being targeted for verbal and physical assault for being Trump supporters.  As much as the mainstream media blamed fake news for a gunman holding up a pizzeria, the real press is far more effective in stoking violence and hatred within the public with its own fake news.

But reporting of ruses as real events, which smeared Trump supporters as violent racists, didn't just begin after the election.  Controversial right wing activist and mudraker James O'Keefedismissed by many journalists because of his organization's funding from the Trump Foundation and former arresthad undercover reporters infiltrate and catch Democratic National Committee-contracted political operatives admitting to plotting protests and inciting violence at Trump rallies.  Even the New York Times reported on this bombshell.  The revelation revealed that violence at Trump rallies, like the riot in Chicago, were (at least partly) funded and orchestrated by Democrat groups.  The mainstream media for over a year had been reporting these protests as organic and that Trump supporters seemed prone to violence.  But now it appears to be manufactured by political operatives.  And now in another video released by O'Keefe the Monday before inauguration, it appears organizations were planning to use illegal and violent tactics to disrupt celebrations.

When the media makes broad generalizations about Trump supporters being by-and-large racist and violent by reporting fake news about them as fact, other people, misinformed and misled, become hateful and resentful of their fellow citizens, leading to more confrontation.

If the press wants to combat this new "post-truth" world swirling in rumours, hoaxes and innuendo, where Trump lies routinely with his "alternative facts", the mainstream media must resist the increasing urge in a 24/7 hyper-ephemeral news cycle to report first, ask questions later.  Reporting false stories that Trump supporters are racist and violent, committing hate crimes across America, only further erodes the press's record low credibility.  The media must do a better job of discerning fact from fiction.  Otherwise Trump's crack"You're fake news!"will stick.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon

Tracking the PCPO's screw-ups and their attempts to cover up those screw-ups is getting a little boring, so I think I'll shift my focus to the more technical aspects of Ontario politics until something more interesting happens.

Because the quality of Queen's Park journalism is disgustingly low, worse than even your average Canadian Journalism, you could be forgiven for not understanding exactly how the Ontario Liberals cling to power beyond "The Opposition just sucks that badly", and while that is certainly true it doesn't tell the whole story.

Thus it falls to me to explain the ways that the Ontario Liberals manage to clear the very low bar that has been set for them the specific manipulative tricks they play that escape most people's notice, beyond blaming everything on Mike Harris.

Keep It Boring!

Here's the biggest problem with Justin Trudeau's recent highly partisan, data mining, self promotional barnstorming tour from an Ontario Liberal perspective: It shines a light in inconvenient places.

What, an Ontario Liberal would say, is gained by lancing the boils?  Who benefits from having Kathy Katula's emotional plea for hydro relief broadcast all over the province for the people to see?

From an Ontario Liberal perspective there is no choice but to go forward and not backward.  Yes it's very sad that people's hydro bills are as high as their mortgage payments in some cases, but these orders come from the Very Top.

And so they will cite other jurisdictions who have made similar adjustments and where the world didn't end, and talk about how times are tough all around, but in truth the better course of action is to just not talk about the problem at all.

It's A Conservative Media Conspiracy!

Like most political people in this country, Ontario Liberals consume far, far more American news than Canadian news.  They also get their tactics drip-fed to them by the Democrats, to the point where they just blindly do whatever they're told without stopping to consider whether it makes sense.

In an unguarded moment, an Ontario Liberal may let fly with a comment about how corporate friendly, conservative-leaning Canadian news is responsible for whatever bad press the party is getting.  This tactic works quite well because most people aren't quick enough to reply that these conservative papers draw the least money a fact that the same Ontario Liberal knows and likely often uses to make fun of those same papers.

We're The Government Your Facts Are Wrong

When you are the government, you have all the facts and data at your disposal.  When you're not the government, you don't.  Therefore (goes the faulty logic) when the government says you're wrong, you are.  Every time.

No, Ontario's hydro bills are not the highest in North America.  No, the debt is not as bad as (insert whatever jurisdiction the PCPO is comparing it to this week).  No, Ontario's Liberal government has done absolutely nothing corrupt or wrong or in the least bit suspect, and they have FACTS that prove this.

This of course presupposes that the government is comprised of metahumans who make mistakes with less regularity than the rest of us, and, further, that the government has no reason to distort or twist the facts in any way.

If you've ever actually sat down and watched Question Period at Queen's Park, you'll know that the government defends itself not only with FACTS but also with a high-handed tone that shames the questioner for daring to question those FACTS.

No Nitpick Too Small

Perhaps you made a typo in your tweet, or got a date wrong in your question, or addressed your inquiry to the wrong Liberal MPP.  It doesn't matter.  An error or oversight, no matter how small, means you have "lost all credibility."

Rather than the government being held to a higher standard than those it serves, it's everyone else who gets called out for falling short.  On the rare occasion that a Journalist asks an inconvenient question of the government, they get their "objectivity" called into question.  It's always fair game to ask whether the critic is in the pockets of Big Whatever or Whoever, or if they are just "astroturfing" when they claim to speak on behalf of citizens or taxpayers.

I've seen this government send out flyers claiming the PCPO has no business criticizing the handling of public finances because one of their members once expensed a coffee and a donut at Tim Horton's.  If a quasi-governmental organization goes off the rails, they find evidence of involvement in that organization by a PC-affiliated person and the scandal deflates like a popped balloon.  Release a picture showing the PCPO tour bus idling, claiming that it shows the opposition's disregard for climate change?  Sure, why not.

I really hope I'm not making the OLP look like political geniuses here.  These lame tricks really do only work because the opposition allows themselves to be steamrolled by them.  Tune in next time when I go over why the PCPO allows themselves to repeatedly be made fools of by their Liberal counterparts.

Written by Josh Lieblein