When I spoke with MP Michael Chong earlier this week, I posed this question to him and asked: are our neighbourhoods being targeted by The Epoch Times because they're already Conservative?  

The question is an interesting one because of the media type: it's a newspaper.  I mean, who really reads the newspaper anymore?  Yes, you know it, a particular demographic is being targeted because they are more likely to read the newspaper, to see it as valid news, and to adopt opinions because of what they've read.  This is the crux of the strategy of The Epoch Times and I feel strongly that it is fuelling attitudes of hate and polarized politics. Another of their media strategies is to be widely diverse in the topics that it covers....this makes the hate speech harder to pin down and asks the reader to question what is or isn't valid. 

I leave you with this reading from The Atlantic, which talks about how The Epoch Times has used its Shen Yun human circus performances to target poor communities and bring its politics to the theatre.  The more I read, the deeper this insidious messaging goes.  Please pass it on.