THE CIVIC WORKSHOP -When Government Propaganda Calls Itself Fact

Canadians pay for government with the expectation that it will serve them—not manage their perceptions.

That obligation becomes particularly important during war, when information is incomplete, intelligence is uncertain and every belligerent has an incentive to manipulate public opinion. Yet Global Affairs Canada operates a website called Countering Disinformation with Facts that presents Canada’s preferred account of the war in Ukraine as settled truth.

Russian statements are labelled “false claims.”

Canadian statements are labelled “the facts.”

No degrees of certainty. No competing evidence. No permanent record of failed predictions. No meaningful distinction between verified events, intelligence estimates, legal arguments, political opinions and forecasts about what might happen next.

That is not fact-checking.

It is government propaganda with a Canadian flag in the corner.

Russia conducts propaganda. That is neither surprising nor seriously disputed. It censors journalists, suppresses opposition and promotes narratives intended to justify its invasion of Ukraine.

But Russian dishonesty does not confer honesty upon Ottawa.

A Canadian government cannot establish the truth of its position merely by declaring the opposing position false. Nor does attaching links to NATO governments, allied intelligence agencies or Western policy institutes transform interpretation into fact. Governments participating in a conflict are interested parties, not neutral referees.

Some of the material published by Global Affairs is well supported. Russia invaded Ukraine. Its forces have caused enormous civilian suffering. There is substantial evidence of unlawful transfers of Ukrainian children, coercive passport policies, repression in occupied territories and attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Those facts should be reported plainly.

But they are mixed with propositions of an entirely different kind:

• NATO poses no threat to Russia.

• No promise concerning NATO’s eastward expansion was ever made.

• The conflict is not a proxy war.

• Russia has never negotiated in good faith.

• Sanctions are steadily destroying Russia’s industrial and military capacity.

• NATO is defensive because NATO describes itself as defensive.

• Canadian military forecasts are facts, even when subsequent events prove them wrong.

These are not all facts. Some are arguments. Some are legal positions. Some are intelligence assessments. Some are forecasts. Some are demonstrably misleading.

Ottawa puts them all into the same bucket marked FACT.

That is precisely how propaganda works: not necessarily by inventing everything, but by removing the labels that allow citizens to distinguish knowledge from persuasion.

Global Affairs states categorically that NATO never promised Russia it would not expand eastward.

The archival record says otherwise.

No binding treaty permanently prohibited NATO enlargement. That qualification matters. But senior Western officials gave Soviet leaders repeated political assurances during the negotiations over German reunification. James Baker’s now-famous assurance that NATO’s jurisdiction would move “not one inch eastward” appears in the declassified diplomatic record.

An honest government publication would explain the distinction:

Political assurances concerning NATO’s eastward reach were discussed and given, principally during negotiations over German reunification, but they were never incorporated into a binding treaty prohibiting future enlargement.

Instead, Ottawa says no promise was ever made.

That is not simplification. It is deletion.

Likewise, saying NATO is defensive does not establish that NATO poses no threat to Russia. A military alliance does not become non-threatening because its communications department awards it a certificate of peaceful intention.

Threat is assessed through capabilities, proximity, doctrine and conduct—not institutional self-description.

NATO intervened militarily outside its members’ territories in Yugoslavia and Libya. It continued expanding eastward after the Cold War and declared in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. After 2014, NATO countries substantially increased their training, arming and integration of Ukrainian forces.

None of that legally justifies Russia’s invasion.

But recognizing NATO’s contribution to the security crisis is not the same as excusing Moscow. Explanation is not exoneration. Mature citizens can hold both ideas at once, even if government communications departments apparently regard that as an unsafe level of cognitive independence.

Global Affairs rejects the description of Ukraine as a NATO–Russia proxy war by observing that Ukraine has a right to defend itself and receives assistance from NATO countries.

That does not answer the claim.

Ukraine is defending itself against a Russian invasion. At the same time, NATO governments provide weapons, money, training, intelligence, maintenance and targeting assistance used against Russian forces and increasingly against targets deep inside Russia.

Those facts describe a proxy conflict regardless of whether the term is politically uncomfortable.

Subsequent reporting makes the depth of that relationship even harder to dismiss. Ukraine receives Western satellite imagery, surveillance and intelligence capable of assisting long-range attacks inside Russia. American reconnaissance aircraft operate around the region, while Western systems, training and technical support are integrated into Ukrainian military operations.

NATO itself acknowledges tens of billions of euros in continuing equipment, assistance and training. At its 2026 Ankara summit, alliance members pledged approximately €70 billion for Ukraine during 2026 and committed themselves to comparable support in 2027.

This does not prove that NATO selects every Ukrainian target. It does not prove that formally declared NATO bases operate inside Ukraine. Western personnel, contractors or instructors being present at Ukrainian facilities would not automatically convert those installations into NATO bases.

Nor does it establish sensational claims that the United States helped Ukraine attack Vladimir Putin’s residence.

Russia alleged that Ukraine launched 91 drones against Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region in December 2025. Ukraine denied it. Reported American intelligence assessments subsequently concluded that Ukraine was pursuing a military target elsewhere in the region and had not targeted Putin or his residence.

The allegation therefore remains unsupported and is contradicted by the best publicly available evidence. Claims that American intelligence planned such an attack should not be presented as fact.

But rejecting that particular allegation does not erase the broader reality: Ukraine’s war-making capacity is deeply integrated with Western military and intelligence systems.

Calling that merely “bilateral assistance” is legally convenient and strategically incomplete.

The question of whether NATO governments have become legal co-belligerents is more complicated. Supplying weapons alone does not necessarily produce that result under international law. Direct participation in targeting particular attacks could.

But the strategic reality is unmistakable. Russia and NATO are engaged indirectly through Ukraine while trying to avoid a formal direct war.

Global Affairs avoids that description because Canadians might then ask an awkward question:

How far are we prepared to travel down this road, and who authorized the destination?

National Defence repeatedly published battlefield assessments under the heading “The facts.”

Many contained language such as:

• “likely”

• “very likely”

• “appears”

• “we expect”

• “will struggle”

• “unlikely to achieve”

Those are not facts. They are estimates.

Several aged badly.

Russia was described as incapable of meaningful regeneration, unable to sustain offensive operations and increasingly deprived of modern weapons. Sanctions were said to have nearly halted Russian ballistic-missile and military-aircraft production.

Russia subsequently expanded weapons production, continued large missile campaigns, mobilized additional forces and captured territory Canadian assessments had suggested it was unlikely to take.

In June 2022, Canada emphasized Russia’s failure to encircle Lysychansk. Russia captured the city shortly afterwards.

In December 2022, Canada dismissed the likelihood of a significant Russian breakthrough around Bakhmut. Russia captured Bakhmut in May 2023.

In February 2023, Canada declared that Ukraine retained the “overall strategic initiative.” Ukraine’s subsequent counteroffensive failed to achieve its principal objectives.

In October 2023, National Defence characterized Russia’s operation around Avdiivka as suffering significant losses for minimal progress. Russia captured Avdiivka four months later.

An intelligence estimate is not propaganda merely because it proves wrong. Intelligence necessarily deals in uncertainty.

The propaganda begins when government presents an estimate as fact, never revisits it after failure and continues using its institutional authority to sell the next estimate.

A government genuinely committed to countering disinformation would maintain a public scorecard:

• What was claimed?

• What evidence supported it?

• What degree of confidence was assigned?

• What subsequently happened?

• Was the assessment corrected?

Global Affairs provides no such accounting.

Apparently, accountability is essential when Moscow speaks and optional when Ottawa does.

Western sanctions have imposed real costs on Russia.

They have restricted access to finance and advanced technology, frozen reserves, disrupted civil aviation, increased transaction costs and made Russia more dependent upon China and alternative trading systems.

But imposing costs was not the advertised strategic objective.

Sanctions were supposed to cripple Russia’s ability to wage war.

They did not.

Russia adapted its trade routes, expanded domestic and imported substitutes, maintained government financing and increased military production. Inflation and high interest rates reveal genuine economic strain strain, but they do not prove collapse.

Global Affairs repeatedly presents every shortage, malfunction or industrial decline as evidence that sanctions are succeeding while ignoring evidence contradicting the promised outcome.

A 38% decline in automobile production over a selected period may be factual. It does not prove that Russia’s military-industrial base is collapsing.

A 21% central-bank interest rate indicates severe inflationary pressure. It does not prove that the economy is approaching bankruptcy.

“The real inflation rate may be much higher” is speculation—not fact.

Reports of component shortages demonstrate technological constraints. They do not establish that Russia is unable to produce effective weapons.

Most glaringly, Ottawa’s 2022 claim that sanctions had forced Russia to “nearly cease” producing ballistic missiles became indefensible as Russia continued launching them in large numbers.

Global Affairs advertises every shot on goal while refusing to display the score.

Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian cities, energy systems, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. Those attacks have killed and injured thousands and imposed extraordinary suffering upon ordinary Ukrainians.

Canada is justified in rejecting Russia’s categorical assertion that its forces do not attack civilian targets.

But even here, precision matters.

There is a legal and factual distinction between:

• deliberately selecting civilians as targets;

• deliberately attacking dual-use infrastructure;

• launching indiscriminate attacks;

• recklessly accepting civilian harm;

• striking a military objective and missing it;

• and causing incidental civilian casualties.

All may be morally appalling. They are not identical propositions under international law.

Global Affairs sometimes moves from evidence that a Russian weapon struck a civilian object to the conclusion that civilians were deliberately selected as the target, without publishing the evidence needed to establish intent.

Demanding proof of intent does not minimize civilian suffering. It preserves the distinction between evidence and accusation—the distinction Ottawa claims to defend.

The evidence concerning Ukrainian children is among the strongest parts of Canada’s case.

International investigators have documented unlawful deportations and forcible transfers, changes in citizenship and identity, placement with Russian families and serious obstacles to return. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova based upon alleged responsibility for unlawful deportation and transfer.

The UN Commission of Inquiry has since concluded that Russian authorities committed crimes against humanity through the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children.

These are serious findings and should not be dismissed as Western invention.

But Ottawa still compresses different cases into one political narrative.

Some children were moved without valid family consent. Others were initially sent to camps or facilities with parental consent but were not returned as agreed. Consent given under occupation may have been coerced or uninformed, but the circumstances must still be examined individually.

It is also misleading to say simply that “Ukraine must decide” what is in every Ukrainian child’s best interests. Parents, lawful guardians and courts ordinarily make individual decisions about children. National sovereignty does not turn children into state property.

The accurate conclusion remains damning enough:

Russia operated an organized system under which many Ukrainian children were unlawfully transferred, retained, assigned Russian identities or placed with Russian families, while return mechanisms remained inadequate and obstructed.

There is no need to inflate strong evidence into absolute rhetoric. Doing so only gives propagandists somewhere to hide.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that grenades and environmental samples recovered near Ukrainian positions contained CS, a riot-control agent whose use as a method of warfare is prohibited.

That is a verified finding.

But the OPCW’s technical investigation was not mandated to determine who deployed or used the devices. Canada’s own statement to the OPCW acknowledged that limitation.

Global Affairs nevertheless presents the finding within a narrative of confirmed Russian chemical-weapons use without clearly separating:

• identification of the chemical;

• recovery of the device;

• allegation of use;

• and attribution of responsibility.

Russia may well have been responsible. Other evidence may support that conclusion. But the OPCW result itself did not establish attribution.

A government supposedly teaching Canadians to detect disinformation should not omit the most important limitation in the underlying report.

The 2026 war against Iran provides a useful comparison.

The United States and Israel initiated the immediate military hostilities. The resulting disruption of the Strait of Hormuz sharply reduced petroleum traffic, increased energy and shipping costs, strained interceptor supplies and encouraged regional states to reconsider their dependence upon American security guarantees.

These are measurable consequences.

The US Energy Information Administration estimated that petroleum traffic through Hormuz fell from approximately 21.6 million barrels per day before the war to about 4.9 million during the second quarter of 2026. Millions of barrels of daily production were shut in, while shipping, insurance and rerouting costs increased.

Yet the same Western communications machinery describes military coercion as stability, blockade as freedom of navigation and strategic retreat as controlled de-escalation.

Independent commentators expose much of this, but they must also be tested.

Claims that the United States has exhausted every advanced weapon, Iran has already achieved complete victory, Saudi oil exports have fallen permanently to zero or Western power is about to collapse exceed the publicly available evidence.

Propaganda does not stop being propaganda when it says something we would prefer to believe.

The same standard must apply to Ottawa, Moscow, Washington, Tehran—and retired colonels appearing on YouTube.

Canadians are not children requiring an officially approved bedtime story.

We pay for Global Affairs Canada. We pay for National Defence. We pay for intelligence gathering, sanctions, weapons, foreign assistance and the consequences of policies pursued in our name.

Canada and its NATO allies are now financing and enabling military operations that can reach deep inside a nuclear-armed state. Whether those actions are justified or prudent is a question Canadians should be permitted to examine with the complete record before them.

We are therefore entitled to know the difference between:

• a verified fact;

• a credible but unconfirmed allegation;

• an intelligence assessment;

• a legal interpretation;

• a government position;

• a forecast;

• and a political objective.

Every public government claim concerning war should disclose its source, confidence level, evidentiary limitations and subsequent corrections.

Where intelligence cannot be revealed, the government should say so. It should not convert secrecy into certainty and expect citizens to salute the footnote.

The democratic injury is not confined to one misleading webpage.

A government that shapes information to manufacture consent prevents citizens from evaluating the policies they finance. It replaces informed consent with managed consent.

That is particularly dangerous during war. Policies presented as moral obligations acquire lives of their own. Temporary assistance becomes an open-ended commitment. Intelligence cooperation becomes operational participation. Escalation becomes deterrence. Every failed strategy becomes the reason more money, more weapons and more risk are required.

The public is never asked to approve the journey because the government never admits how far it has travelled.

Propaganda also destroys institutional trust. When governments label opinions as facts and failed predictions quietly disappear into the archive, citizens begin doubting everything—including genuine evidence of war crimes and human suffering.

That is the ultimate stupidity of propaganda.

It contaminates the truth along with the lie.

Canada claims to support Ukraine in defence of democracy. But democracy cannot be defended by withholding context from Canadians, erasing uncertainty and presenting government advocacy as objective truth.

A free society does not require citizens to believe Moscow.

It does not require them to believe Washington, NATO, Tehran or whichever retired intelligence officer owns a microphone that afternoon.

It requires their own government to trust them with the whole record.

The question is not whether Russia lies.

Russia lies.

The question is why the Government of Canada believes Russian lies give Ottawa permission to mislead Canadians.