“Democracy is millions and millions of little truths. All the time.” Here, Historian and author of On Freedom, Timothy Snyder, drove home the need for our collective pursuit of truth – a value that stood at the core of the sixth Democracy XChange summit, held from April 3 to 5 in Toronto.
Presented by OCAD University, the Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), and the Open Democracy Project, the summit welcomed over 800 guests and panelists from across the public, private and non-profit sectors to engage in conversations crucial for a time defined by political volatility, mistrust in public institutions and unparalleled polarization.
Centering the theme Challenge Assumptions, Spark Action, the summit organizers hoped that participants would work together to move past the anxiousness and cynicism that so often muddles conversations about the current state of democracy, evoking instead a sense of courage and pride. More so, it was about moving beyond just talking, but practicing change and mobilizing communities. As Ana Serrano, President of OCAD University, explained: “We started this to bring people together to question how to practice democracy. Democracy is an active thing, it’s a verb as opposed to a noun, and it happens beyond the ballot box, on a daily basis.”
To achieve this, the organizers made explicit their effort to ensure a broad representative of varied political perspectives at the conference. In line with ‘challenging assumptions’ the differences in opinion encouraged open dialogue, the depolarization of debates and a richer exchange of ideas.
The workshops and panels all tackled some of today’s most pressing civil issues. Recordings of the main stage talks are now available online, and below is a round-up of some salient takeaways.
On polarization:
The panel discussion ‘Elections and How Polling Can Bridge Divides’ focused on how, while within our interpersonal relationships and online opinions may seem more polarized than ever, we often overlook the middle of the political spectrum.
“We are not nearly as divided as we think we are… 60% of people occupy the space somewhere in the middle, and they can have thoughtful, sometimes conflicting views on where they land on a lot of issues. The challenge today is… that we have seen an unprecedented wildfire in the level of divisive narrative coming from our political leadership” argued Shachi Kuri, pollster and President of the Angus Reid Institute.
Kuri went on to use the example of the “Freedom Convoy” of 2022 to illustrate how Canadian political leaders are often responsible for stoking the flames of polarization.
“At the time there was about 45 per cent of Canadians who said that, even if they didn’t agree with the grievances [that motivated the Convoy], they understood it… But on one hand you had the then-putative leader of the Conservative party, Pierre Polivere, going out into the face of some really reprehensible behaviour on part of some of these Convoyers calling them ‘national heroes,’” said Kuri.
“On the other hand, you had the Prime Minister at the time making the insinuation that anyone who felt a level of understanding with the complaints of the Conyovers were people who, quote-on-quote ‘stood with swastikas’. So they managed to alienate anyone [in the middle]… and we see this everywhere,” Kuri continued.
The result of this is the silencing of public opinion in the centre.
“People don’t talk about it, they hold the middleness to themselves, because there is no mechanism to have the conversation that says well you know, my feelings and my views are way more complicated than Hell No or Hell Yes,” Kuri said.
At the current moment, this might not ring so true as a new sense of Canadian pride has unified the nation in response to Trump’s threats of annexation. Yet, having gone from what seemed like a Conservative stronghold to a Labour one in a matter of weeks, the panel spoke to the unpredictability of the see-saw upon which Canada’s political climate teeters.
On the need for more local news:
In an attempt to combat this polarization, speakers on The Fight for Local News: Who Pays for Journalism in Canada panel urged for more support for news coverage that gives a louder voice to local communities. Teresa Marques, CEO of the Rideau Hall Foundation, argued that philanthropy needs to play a larger role in this, whilst Gabrielle Brassard-Lecours, founder of Ricochet Media, warned of the consequences of a lack of certified local news sources and the rise of “newsfluencers”. In referring to her experience teaching journalism she worriedly explained how her students – Canada’s future journalists – would most often cite Instagram and Tiktok as their main sources of news.
On online interference with elections:
As a startling example of the prevalence of digital interference with democratic processes internationally, Madalina Botan of the European Digital Media Observatory outlined the findings that exposed Russian meddling in the December 2024 Romanian presidential election, resulting in its annulment.
“It was indicated that there were more than 25,000 fake accounts created within one month prior to the election in order to boost the digital profile of this far-right candidate [Călin Georgescu], and there have been 85,000 cybernetic attacks on the Romanian digital infrastructure related to the election by foreign interference, namely Russia,” Botan explained.
It is worth noting that, since then, Georgescu has not only been continually promoted by Russia, but by Elon Musk and the current President of the United States.
It is no secret that political candidates use social media to propel their outreach, especially towards younger voters, and especially by the far-right. In reference again to the Romanian example.
“Tiktok seemed to be the most instrumentalized platform to promote [Georgescu], also platforms like Telegram and Instagram… [where there was] coordinated campaign efforts of undisclosed payments to influencers, troll activities and fake accounts,” Botan said.
Evidently, there needs to be more public accountability for the Big Tech companies platforming this interference. To summarize, Baton praised regulations like the Digital Services Act, adopted by the EU in 2022, which acts as a “sort of constitution for the internet.”
Botan stressed that “the health of our online environment, our information ecosystem, has a huge impact on polarization, which in turn obviously has a huge impact on democracy. So hopefully progress will continue to be made, even though the trend these days – especially in the US – is towards deregulation.’’
On an indigenous approach to democracy:
“Canada is not yet a democracy for Indigenous peoples. It has not upheld the values it purports to be so proud of. Canada needs indigenous worldviews that centre kinship and relationality at this time more than ever,” Eden Fineday, Publisher of IndigiNews reminded the audience.
On the pursuit – and weaponization – of freedom:
In his new book On Freedom, Snyder implores us to move away from “negative freedom” – freedom from government, political opposition, communal interdependence, and towards “positive freedom,” freedom for collectivity, factuality and a more hopeful future.
This way of thinking, way of living, is all the more necessary at a time when the very concept of freedom is being perverted and deprived of meaning by the far-right. Think again of the “Freedom Convoy” or more recently, Trump’s “Liberation Day.” From this, it may be easy to become cynical of the notion of freedom as co-opted by neoliberal individualists. Yet, Snyder urges us to see the failure in the often quoted far-right conquest for “liberation from the truth:”
“You cannot be free just by clearing the way of concepts, of structures, of governments. That’s not freedom. That’s either total isolation or lunatic oligarchy, or both. The notion of being ‘liberated from the truth’ makes no sense. You cannot have freedom without truth,” Snyder said.
Inherent to the pursuit of truth is the generation of factuality, and crucially, this is a collective process. We cannot be sure of the truth without thousands of people working to collect data and verify facts. The truth, then, is incompatible with individualism and when this supply of truth is cut off it creates the space for Big Lies.
“Big Lies form in a vacuum, and a big lie tears the fabric of reality,” Snyder continued.
To avoid deepening this rupture, Ana Serrano appealed to Democracy XChange’s attendees: “Given what’s happening in the US, we need to urgently work together to shore up democratic practices and evolve them in order to remain a democracy. That means as Timothy Snyder says we need to lean into factuality, freedom as the value of values, and compassion.”
Each and every panel over the three-day summit did just this. Participants opened up conversation and sparked action towards hope for the future of democracy, and against hopelessness. Making for a poignant conclusion, Synder closed with the following remarks:
“The idea of freedom that I have is one in which we can see futures again, because we understand that futures aren’t based upon some kind of technical inevitability – the notion that we’ve figured it all out and it’s all just smooth sailing from here. That is deadening, and it’s wrong and it’s fundamentally authoritarian. Freedom has to involve imagination, it has to involve creating the conditions in which we can be more imaginative, morally. And once we realise this, and once we start organizing towards this it makes it a lot easier. I sincerely believe that the future cannot just be a little better than the present, the future can be a lot better.”
All main stage talks are available to watch and share, and follow Documentary XChange for updates on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Youtube.
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