Canadians need more informed, respectful, conversations, says journalist Carol Off 

Language is becoming distorted and weaponized in social and political conversations, veteran journalist Carol Off told an audience at the University of King’s College Thursday. 

“People weren’t just disagreeing with each other. They hated the people they were disagreeing with, and I realized they weren’t even using the same language.” 

Off, co-host of CBC’s As It Happens for 16 years, was in Halifax to talk about her latest book, At a Loss for Words.  

She said that, increasingly, political discussions aren’t happening — or aren’t happening respectfully —  in places like schools. She said people need to be able to have calm and rational discussions in order to truly talk to someone with different values or views, and to prevent the corrosion of common language — and that those conversations can start at home.  

“I think it begins at the dinner table,” Off said. “Have ideas. Speak out. [Kids] need to see us having conversations, working things out, testing ideas.” 

Off said being able to have these kinds of conversations, and sometimes confrontations, is important for people who don’t want to be represented by extremists who have yelled and muscled their way to center stage.

She said that these people need to “develop your arguments, keep it rational,” to get rid of what she called the “bullies” that have taken over much of the conversation.  

Off’s book is about how certain words have had their meanings changed and distorted by political groups and social movements in recent years, and how these changes can impact civil society and political conversations.

Off’s book focused on six words to explore this phenomenon: freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice, and taxes — familiar words to most people.  

The event, which was held in the form of a conversation between her and King’s professor Pauline Dakin, was arranged by the King’s Co-op Bookstore and the AfterWords Literary Festival, and drew in more than 150 people.  

In her talk, Off said that extreme Right and Left voices have been dominating the political sphere, making it difficult to meet people in the middle, so to speak. Having an aggressively charged political and social atmosphere polarizes not just extremists, but regular people too, and prevents honest and respectful conversations between different viewpoints, she said.  

Attendees Robert and Betty-Anne Power enjoyed the talk, and said it gave them a lot to think about.  

“I want to keep conversations going, but to stop taking it from zero to 60,” said Betty-Anne after the show.  

As a CBC regular for more than a decade and a half, Off is a household name — and voice — for many Canadians.  

“I don’t think we would have come if it wasn’t Carol Off,” said Robert, holding a freshly-signed copy of At a Loss for Words. “We listen to CBC, and we’ve heard Carol Off for so long.” 

Off briefly went over the words she chose — which also each have their own chapters in the book — and explained why she chose them.  

“I came to understand that they understood freedom to be, freedom from the obligations to others, freedom to do what you wanted to do, freedom from the government … I had grown up with this idea of freedom as being freedom from tyranny, freedom from oppression — Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela.” 

Off said that she was planning her book through the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, and the so-called freedom convoy that made its way through Canada in 2022. She said that these were some of the events that made her seriously consider what people meant when they talk about freedom. 

A significant part of the conversation on Thursday was about truth, and how misinformation is becoming so prevalent that the public is having a hard time knowing what to believe.

“We can’t even agree on the facts. Without facts we can’t hope to conclude what is true, and without truth we lose trust,” Off said.

She said that often the goals of misinformation campaigns and conspiracies aren’t to get people to believe in them, but for them to become so muddled with everything else that the public can’t find, or believe, the things that are true, a tactic that Off points out is classically used by totalitarian governments. Separate people from the truth, and they lose their ability to think critically, becoming easier to manipulate.  

Stephanie Domet, the co-founder and co-executive director of the AfterWords Literary Festival, described the event as “magical.” 

“We’re broadly interested in making places where writers and readers can meet … in this case, it feels very direct.”  

Domet said the engaged audience and timely discussion made the event a success in their books. 

“I thought the question period was really lively, and gave [Off] an opportunity to expand on her ideas and her call to action, which is, like, be good to each other, and remember that you can learn to think critically, and think critically about the information you’re receiving.” 

Just two weeks after acclaimed writer Zadie Smith visited King’s for the school’s annual Alex Fountain Memorial Lecture, King’s Co-op Bookstore was back in Alumni Hall, with stacks of books quickly disappearing as Off sat signing them after the event.

The lecture hall buzzed with conversations, with audience members having moments of self-reflection and sharing their thoughts with friends. 

For Betty-Anne Power, the event was a reminder that when she’s talking with someone, “I have to engage, and listen better.”