canadian democracy @ work - the dais at toronto metropolitan university

Media Literacy Education in the Workplace

What does it take to make a working adult genuinely interested in filter bubbles, deep fakes, misinformation, and the Canadian political system, all before lunch? That was, in essence, the challenge at the heart of Canadian Democracy @ Work, civic literacy training produced by The Dais, the public policy and leadership think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University.

The result is a three module digital video series that breaks down civic action to make it urgent, accessible, and worth paying attention to. 

The Dais came to us and the team at Paradigms with a problem that was both timely and deeply damaging to the public understanding of our media as it relates to civic engagement. Disinformation; false information that is deliberately spread to deceive, amplified by social media algorithms and increasingly sophisticated AI, is eroding the foundations of democratic participation. 

To tackle this issue upfront, the target audience wasn’t students. It was working-age Canadians: the people most likely to encounter and share misinformation, least likely to have structured time for civic education, and most in need of practical tools to navigate an overwhelmingly noisy information landscape. As a result, the training needed to live inside the workplace for broad exposure and engagement. This meant that the content had to be professional enough to earn institutional trust, yet engaging enough to hold the attention of someone who had a meeting in 20 minutes. Ensuring that no learner was left behind, we worked closely with subject matter and translation experts to offer the modules and embedded interactive quiz questions in French, paying close attention to translation content and context. 

On the creative side we decided to use a mixed media approach to help us communicate beyond visual imagery; collages can carry more emotional resonance and relatability by tapping into a viewer’s real-world, contextual references while holding engagement. Mixing clean 2D art with messy collage symbolizes the overwhelm of modern media. The 2D characters and backgrounds represent reality, while the collage elements represent the noisy and confusing digital communication environment.

Animation Reel

The Canadian Democracy @ Work project includes a suite of three autonomous and asynchronous video modules, anchored by journalist Lisa LaFlamme, each approximately 15 minutes long and paired with interactive quiz questions embedded directly into the experience. The modules build on topics deliberately: Module 1 tackles the mechanics of misinformation and algorithmic filter bubbles; Module 2 dives into generative AI and deepfakes; and Module 3 connects both to the Canadian political system, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the historical inequities that have shaped who gets to participate in democracy. Through embedded quiz questions, the modules built in moments of active recall to close the gap between watching and understanding through being asked to stop, think, and respond. 

The free Training Toolkit extends this further with discussion prompts and group activities that encourage participants to connect concepts to their own lives and workplaces, turning individual learning into shared meaningful dialogue. 

This project embodies our Thoughts That Matters ethos, because it dissects a critical idea at a poignant time in our political history by turning disinformation, resilience, AI literacy, and democratic participation into compelling, accessible and actionable animated content. The result is something more than workplace training: it’s a tool for self-education and critical awareness that helps build a healthier information ecosystem and stronger democratic resilience for all Canadians.