They're Here...

TheEndJustifiesAllMeans
AllegedlyVille


The 'Ontario Proud' facebook page was started by a fine fellow named Jeff Ballingall in 2016.

Arguably, O Proud's 'finest' hours were in the run-up to the June 2018 provincial election when it helped stoke the anti-KWynn fires that swept the suitably sooty Doug Ford into power.

To do so, Mr. Ballingall and associates used a strategy that Canadaland described as 'shitposting'

Or, put another way, they perfected 'the delicate act of gently stoking the anger of Ontarians'.

Anyway.

Fast forward to the close of 2019 which is when I noticed the bilge from another J. Ballingall joint called 'BC Proud' linking its way onto my Twittmachine feed:

But here's the thing...

If you click through on the CBC piece cited you will see that the story is actually a whole different  orange-hued shade of grey.

Let's start with food shall we:

"...A report published in December said uncertainty around climate change would increase food bills for the average Canadian family by $487. Researchers say droughts and other extreme weather events being caused by climate change are behind the increase in the price of food..."


Gosh, that doesn't sound like it has anything whatsoever to do with John Horgan or the local Dipper combine.

And, yes, ferry fares will go up in 2020, but...

'...The good news is that costs to ride a ferry went down in December.

That's when BC Ferries eliminated its 1.5 per cent fuel surcharge from each ticket due to a recent decrease in the price of fuel...

{snip}

The bad news is that in April 2020 fares will increase on average by 2.3 per cent..."


Which means that ferry fares will, overall, increase a hardly 'skyrocketing' 0.8%.

And here's something else from the MoCo piece that is the opposite of skyrocketing - MSP premiums are gone, which will save individuals $900 and families $1,800 per year. Additionally, the CBC notes that ICBC rates have been frozen for 2020.

So.

What's this really all about Alfie?

In my opinion, it's a strate(r)gy of muddying all waters such that nothing of substance ever breaks through. As a result a very sizeable chunk of the citizenry becomes willingly cynical about everything and everyone that can be made fun of.

Which on its own is corrosive and hurts democracy. Even worse, however, is the fact that at the same time Mr. Ballingall and associates scrape these sites and assemble lists that contain said citizenry's microtargetable information as he explained awhile back to CITY News in Toronto:

...“We have 100,000 email subscribers; we know all their postal codes,” Ballingall said. “So during the election, during the get-out-the-vote aspect of it, we’re going to be able to tell them where to go to the polls and we’re getting lawn signs and bumper stickers.”

Ballingall readily acknowledges he is amassing data on people, using it to do surveys and find out what the key issues are...

Sheesh.



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