Facts Matter: Canada isn’t banning older vehicles from its roadways
A video recently posted to social media appears to show Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announcing a new policy against older cars.
“Effective June the 1st, all vehicles manufactured before 2000 will be gradually phased off Canadian roads due to safety and emissions standards,” Carney purportedly states in the video. “Noncompliant window tints, including rear windows, are now prohibited. Drivers will have a 14-day grace period to install approved replacements.”
But this isn’t actually a policy from the newly elected prime minister, according to PolitiFact. The audio on this video is generated by artificial intelligence.
The post first showed up May 3 with the caption “Mark Carney announces some new Motor vehicle laws what’s everyone’s thoughts? Audio from @Fish Audio.” Fish Audio is a company that provides AI audio to video clips. A label, originally at the bottom of the post, identified the video as AI-generated, but that text was deleted in later versions.
The clip appears to be from a March 27 address when Carney talked about the U.S. tariffs. But the audio was changed. He didn’t mention banning older cars during that speech.
Canada has looked at a plan to ban gas-powered vehicles beginning in 2035, but that would affect only newly manufactured cars.
Pope criticism not from Mel Gibson
Social media users recently shared a post, supposedly from actor Mel Gibson, criticizing Pope Francis, who died on April 21.
The post, which included photos of Gibson and the pope, read, in part, “Pope Francis has gone to meet the Judge of all. I won’t pretend we walked the same road., his papacy brought confusion where there should have been clarity, compromise where there should have been courage.”
One X post shared the words with the caption, “Mel Gibson is not one to mince words is he?”
But this statement didn’t come from Gibson, according to Reuters. The post was from an account impersonating the actor.
Alan Nierob, a spokesperson for Gibson, told Reuters that Gibson didn’t write that about the pope. Previously, Nierob had told Reuters that Gibson doesn’t use any social media accounts.
Biden overstates claim
Last month, in his first speech since leaving office, President Joe Biden said Republicans wanted to raise the retirement age.
“(Republicans) threatened to raise the retirement age as well,” Biden said during the speech last month. “Now, that might not be a hardship for someone working in a comfortable job, but if you’re on your feet all day, you’re doing manual labor all day, you’re working with a disability, it’s a very different matter.”
But that’s not accurate, according to factcheck.org.
Biden was referring to a 2025 Republican Study Committee report that said it would “make modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.”
But there has been little support in Congress to make that happen. In December, an amendment to raise the retirement age, brought by Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky, received only three “yes” votes.
President Donald Trump had previously said during the campaign that he would “not raise the retirement age by one day.”
Mug shot not from vandalism
A social media post, with a photo of a man who appears to be crying when the picture was taken, includes the headline, “One of them arrested for vandalizing a Tesla dealership. Is anyone surprised?”
But this photo is miscaptioned, according to Reuters. This has nothing to do with recent vandalism at Tesla dealerships.
The image shows a man arrested in Wisconsin nearly 10 years ago, Sheboygan County Sheriff Matt Spence told Reuters.
A June 1, 2016 article in The Sheboygan Press, which included the mug shot, identifies the person as a Grafton, Wisconsin, man who had been charged with first-degree sexual assault.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.