Remarks

To the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Finance
Ottawa, June 11, 2026

Right now, my four Ebola-related videos, on containment, prevention, stigma, and safe funerals, are being used in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. They exist in over twenty African languages.

That is not theory. That is using communication tools locally to do a critical job.

Today I want to make three concrete recommendations about communication and public money.

First, communication is not a soft expense. It is not an afterthought. It is infrastructure.
In health, we fund vaccines, doctors, nurses, medicines, hospitals, emergency supplies, protective gear, and logistics. All of those matter. But every one of those investments depends on one prior fact: people must know what to do.

They must know how a disease spreads. They must know what behaviour puts them at risk. They must know when to seek help. They must trust the information. They must act.

Since this is the Finance Committee, let me put it in budgetary terms: prevention communication is cost avoidance. It prevents the much larger costs that arrive after failure. It is far cheaper to prevent a disease than it is to treat people.

Ebola is the clearest current example.

A few days ago, the WHO and Africa CDC requested US$518 million to respond to the current Ebola outbreak. That does not include other organizations’ asks, like the Red Cross’s 29 million Swiss francs. Canada has already announced $8 million and may be asked to contribute more. Nearly all of that US$518 million and more will be spent on doctors, nurses, isolation, medicines, protective equipment, transport, supplies, and logistics.

All of those only become necessary after the virus has already entered a body. That is too late.
Ebola is spread through contact. A single person infected with Ebola can go on to infect hundreds, if not thousands, of infections. Therefore, clear public education is not peripheral. It is the main way to stop transmission.

Cost per case prevented is a few cents but costs per case after infection ranges from several thousand dollars to over a million dollars. Yet very, very little public money is spent to stop people from becoming infected in the first place.

Thousands may die unnecessarily. That is morally reprehensible and financially irrational.

It is much cheaper to prevent HIV than to treat it for a lifetime. It is much cheaper to prevent malaria than to hospitalize a child. It is vastly cheaper to have Ebola prevention adopted by at-risk people than to trace infections, isolate patients, transport and employ medical teams, treat the sick, and safely bury the dead.

We can be leaders in getting a prevention focus. My first concrete recommendation is this:

Canada should not fund any major disease response unless at least 25 percent of Canada’s contribution is dedicated to prevention, public education, and behaviour-change communications.

Second, communication is not only needed in public health. It is needed to defend and articulate Canada’s interests and values in the world.

Canada needs stronger diplomacy overseas and stronger public diplomacy at home. Not eventually. Now.

The world is becoming more dangerous, more fragmented, and more hostile to the values Canada has long defended: international law, human rights, democracy, pluralism, and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

This is exactly the wrong time to weaken diplomacy. Diplomats are not ceremonial figures. They are Canada’s negotiators, listeners, relationship-builders, and early-warning system overseas. And they are Canada’s communicators.
I have travelled to 146 countries. I have frequently interacted with Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and Canadian missions abroad. I have seen the value of Canada’s voice overseas. I have also seen what happens when that voice is too small, too thinly staffed, or totally absent.

Canada cannot project its values, defend its interests, build alliances, help citizens, respond to crises, or compete with authoritarian narratives if it fires the very people and weakens the very institution responsible for doing that work.

Cutting diplomatic capacity in this global environment is not prudent. It is self-defeating. It leaves fewer Canadian voices in the room. It leaves fewer Canadian eyes and ears on the ground. It leaves fewer people communicating who we are, what we stand for, and why Canada matters.

My second concrete recommendation is this:

This committee should stop the cutbacks to GAC and recommend an increase in GAC’s allocation in the next federal budget.

Third, Canada’s spending on creative industries and culture is not keeping up with reality.

We spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public money on feature films and television series. I support Canadian films. I support Canadian television. Canadian culture matters and should be protected.

But we must be honest: the audience has moved. Canadians are watching, learning, debating, organizing, sharing, and forming opinions online. That is where public attention now lives.

In the five minutes I am speaking to you, approximately 6,500 new videos will be uploaded to YouTube alone. That is the communications environment Canada is now in. However, almost all of our public spending still behaves as if the old media world is the main world. It is not.

If Canada wants to be seen, heard, understood, and believed, Canadian public money must follow audiences to where they actually are. It means funding creators who can explain, persuade, teach, and reach people at scale.
Right now, Canada is hugely underinvesting in the places where people actually consume media. That is not merely outdated, it is dangerous.

False information moves quickly. Rumours move quickly. Fake images and false videos move quickly. Hostile states, extremists, conspiracy networks, and professional disinformation campaigns already understand the power of online media. They use it every day.

If accurate, credible, Canadian voices are absent from those spaces, others will occupy them. They will tell their stories. They will shape our perceptions. They will define reality for us.
Canada needs a serious online content strategy. Not a small pilot project. Not a grant here and there. We need a serious national investment in Canadian creators producing high-quality online media that reaches Canadians and global audiences.

My third concrete recommendation is this:

Canada should initially redirect 25 percent of public money now spent on films and television series toward Canadian content created for online platforms, with a goal of increasing that share to 50 percent over time.

Budgets are values-based documents. They reveal what we choose to fund. They also reveal what we choose to neglect.

My message is direct: Canada must change the way it spends public money on communication. The most expensive message is often the one that was never sent.
Thank you.