ATIP OPC: Impressive work from PHAC behavioural scientists on developing "Winning communication strategies" ahead of launching the vaccines

Show-casing 'Open By Default' database of the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF)

In addition to https://freedomofinformationlibrary.com, and https://www.secretcanada.com/search-foi-requests, I just found another great Portal that has been created recently in support of Transparency and Democracy - check it out: https://theijf.org. This is how they present themselves:

The Investigative Journalism Foundation is a nonprofit newsroom focused on public interest journalism. We are a new kind of media outlet, built around databases on who donates to politicians across Canada, who lobbies them, and how the government spends your money.

We're proud to be members of the National News Media Council of Canada and the Institute for Nonprofit News. Details on our team can be found below. You can send story tips here.

One of the great tools they offer is the Open By Default database where Search our real-time database of records released under the access to information system in Canada: https://theijf.org/open-by-default. It is really impressive - I just tested it. It has already ~30K documents, with more added almost daily, and provides very powerful tools to search for specific keywords in documents from specific departments.

How to use this portal to find recommendations on “winning communication strategies” to report severe side effects from covid vaccines.

I searched this portal for the ATIP that made headlines last year (e.g. reported in https://torontosun.com/news/national/privy-council-advocated-downplaying-covid-vaccine-injuries-or-deaths), which revealed that PCO was recommending to use “winning communication strategies” as to not “shake public confidence,” and apply skewing stats to minimize the impact of vaccine-related deaths or injuries.

I searched the portal using I keyword “blood clots” and I found it - at this link:
https://theijf.org/open-by-default/search?sort=-title&q=%22blood+clots%22&orgs=Privy+Council+Office&startYear=2023&endYear=2023

The one we are interested it is the second one: A-2022-00115.

Click on it and the portal will deliver it to you at this link:
https://theijf.org/open-by-default/24395011

A-2022-00115

Privy Council Office Released May 2023 • 2,540 pages

Request: IIU insight reports, briefing notes, memos and media lines related to vaccination and misinformation from May 2, 2021 to June 6, 2022.

Now, let’s look closer into this document. You can download it to your computer directly from the link provided there (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24395011-2023-05-a-2022-00115-privy-council-office), or you can view it and search it for keywords online.

Next step: Search for word “ winning”. You will be impressed with the wealth of new knowledge on how communications were crafted during the pandemic.

Specifically, you will find there a full list of PCO-recommended responses to some common questions that are being asked to the government. Here are a couple “pressing” questions:

Q1. Why should people in Canada geta booster dose? Why is the primary series not providing enough protection against emerging variants?

Q2. Why are people still getting infected with COVID-19 if they have a booster?

And here’s how PCO recommends responding to these two questions (PHAC Approved).

You will also find out what the “Winning Communication Messages” are and how they should be used ‘not to shake the confidence of Canadians’ (in particular, for question such as mentioned above). There’s a comprehensive hundred-page long tutorial on this topic.

Stay tuned! - Once I’ll finish reading this informative 2540-page document, I will share with you a few more of its highlights.