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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, friends, but that’s what columnists do. The bad news must be borne. That’s why it has a bearer, if you get my drift.

So I’ll break it to you straight up. This mega-political year of 2019 will swamp us with rhetoric, propaganda, fake news and outright lies for many months to come.

We are facing a painful period and political pain is not easily relieved. Drugs hardly help. The pain will go on like a root canal for the mind for a year and beyond. Short of cave dwelling, there’s no dodging it.

To review: provincial elections are scheduled in Alberta in May, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island in early October and of course, we’ll have a federal election on Oct. 21.

There could be more. Governments in British Columbia and New Brunswick are both ruling with minorities. They could manage through a year without calling elections, but also might not.

New Brunswick’s situation is particularly shaky, with the governing Progressive Conservatives holding 22 seats, Liberals 21 and the Greens and People’s Alliance three each.

And it’s not just our own elections banging us over the head. We’ll also witness the depressing spectacle of the U.S. presidential campaign, which surely will dominate headlines throughout the year and until the vote in November, 2020.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is trying to keep himself in office and out of prison using his favoured weapons: lawsuits, juvenile insults and grandiose lies. Energized Democrats in Congress are starting investigations that could undermine his corrupt and incompetent presidency.

But there will be name-calling along the way, and not just from the foul-mouthed Trump. Canadians aren’t immune. The spring sitting of Parliament will set the tone for the year and partisan taunts are already flying.

Commons Speaker Geoff Regan signalled the other day that he won’t tolerate personal and partisan attacks, such as those from Conservatives suggesting that Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are too rich to understand Canadians.

And that was before allegations arose that Trudeau’s people had tried to pressure the former Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybold, into soft-pedalling corruption charges against the engineering firm, SNC-Lavalin. You’re going to hear much more about that.

The attacks have become especially pointed because polls suggest support for the Liberals and Conservatives is very close. The temptation to go dirty becomes even stronger when that’s the case. The Liberals say they won’t indulge in negative messaging, but they will. The Conservatives barely pretend otherwise.

But those are just the biggest parties with the most at stake. Vicious mud-slinging has already started in Alberta, where the opposition leader, Jason Kenney, portrays NDP Premier Rachel Notley as hopelessly incompetent and the federal Liberals as anti-Albertan.

Amid all this, other more troubling voices are forcing their way into the debate: the crazed meme makers of Facebook, for instance, casting parties they oppose as traitors and thieves or the odious Yellow Vest Canada group that so gladly tolerates the racists and bigots in its midst.

Elections Canada has already warned it can’t fight every lie on social media, a frank admission that will give courage to the fake news purveyors. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault admitted to a Commons committee his office can only limit some forms of disinformation, particularly impersonation of candidates and parties. When it comes to social media, its powers are limited.

It is significant that Ottawa is worried enough that it has named a high-level commission to safeguard the election process from foreign interference, à la Russia’s 2016 meddling in the U.S. But it will have few powers internally.

Canadians seem to be tolerating lies and defamation in ways we never did before. We have to change that, or we will get the bad government we will so richly deserve.

Dan Leger is a freelance journalist in Halifax.