Update: Twitter has officially slapped the label of "Manipulated Media" on Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland's video. Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party campaigned all Sunday on this talking point, including Freeland sending out a mass mailer and Trudeau speaking in public, spreading the disinformation.
The Liberal Party campaign is in hot water after it was revealed Sunday that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted out a manipulated video of Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole.
The video in question is from an interview O'Toole did during the 2020 leadership, in which he describes his position on healthcare.
In the manipulated video, Freeland makes it looks as though the Conservative leader is promoting for-profit private healthcare.
Canada's public, universal health care system is one of our greatest strengths. It's part of what makes us who we are as a country. Last year, as COVID-19 raged, Erin O'Toole was asked if he would bring private, "for-profit" healthcare to Canada. He responded unequivocally: yes. pic.twitter.com/dISRKrIjr0
— Chrystia Freeland (@cafreeland) August 22, 2021
Soon after the tweet went live, Twitter users found the original video and exposed the fact that the Liberal campaign misled voters.
The host of the edited video herself, Kate Harrison, said: "As the person who asked the question, I'm disappointed to see the video was manipulated to exclude important context." She then posted the full video for context.
?- there's a video circulating online of Erin O'Toole responding to a question on healthcare. As the person who asked the question, I'm disappointed to see the video was manipulated to exclude important context. Here's the full video ?? https://t.co/JRKMpBP6Ip #cdnpoli #Elxn44
— Kate Harrison (@KatlynHarrison) August 22, 2021
The Conservative Party itself also corrected the record on Twitter, regarding the altered video. In the original interview, then-leadership candidate O'Toole states that he is fully in support of the Universal Healthcare system in Canada. "We need to ensure universal access remains paramount," O'Toole said in the original interview. This portion was, however, selectively edited out of the Liberal Party version of the video.
One Twitter user went as far as to point out exactly how the Liberal campaign doctored the video, using small portions of sentences from the original transcript.
I always thought @cafreeland was better than the rest of the @liberal_party. A statesman.
— Laryssa Waler (@LWaler) August 22, 2021
But today, she tweeted a video that spliced the highlighted parts from this transcript ?? in an effort to mislead Canadians about @erinotoole’s position on universal healthcare.#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/FI5XoxDueB
At the time of publication, the original video remains up and active on Twitter.
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