Tangle - INTERVIEW: Political psychologist Steven Kull

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

On today's episode, we sit down with political psychologist Steven Kull and talk about developing new methods for giving us (the people) a greater voice in public policy. Kull is the director of the program for public consultation and part of the school of public policy at the University of Maryland. He is also the founder and president of Voice of the People (VOP), a nonpartisan organization seeking to give U.S. citizens a more direct line to members of Congress.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and I am thrilled today to have Stephen Cole on the show. Stephen is a political psychologist who is developing new methods for giving the public a greater voice in public policy. He is the director of the Program for Public Consultation and part of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and he is also the founder and president of Voice of the People, which is how I found him, a nonpartisan organization seeking to give U.S. citizens a more direct line to members of Congress

and how policy decisions are made. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. You know, I love giving my guests a chance at the top of shows like this to just tell us a little bit about how they got into this work. And I think in your case, it's sort of directly related to some of what we're going to talk about today. So I'd love to hear how Stephen Cole came to be, how you ended up at Voice of the People, and why you're so passionate about some of this work you're doing right now. A few decades ago, I was studying public opinion on public policy. And I found that no matter what I talked about, what people really wanted to talk about was how they felt about government and how dissatisfied they were with government, how much they didn't trust government and so on.

And as I probed deeper into that, I found they really perceived that the government had really kind of broken a social contract that goes back to the founders to serve the common good and to listen to the people. And their perception is, and was, that the government is not doing what the people would do. So we started exploring that more deeply. As we explored it, we found, yeah, there are a lot of discrepancies between what the people would do and what government is doing. Let's start with that big question. I mean, does public opinion matter? Does it actually impact legislation? Do we see it come out in legislation based on some of the work and research that you've done? It has a very minimal influence. You've got to get it really that members of Congress really have very poor means for getting

to know what their constituents think. They hear from a few, you know, vocal activists. The main people they interact with are people that they're trying to get to raise money from. They spend hours a day doing that. And they hear from them. They hear from special interests. They hear from lobbyists.

And, you know, they have some random contacts. And from all this, they sort of put together some impression. We've done some work on this. And it turns out that they have a lot of misperceptions about actual public opinion in their districts and in the country as a whole. You mean members of Congress from your work misunderstand what their constituents actually want? They don't really know very well. They have sometimes have impressions. Those impressions vary a lot. Sometimes they think that the public agrees with them when it doesn't.

Sometimes I think the public doesn't agree with them when it does. Their means for just getting to know what the people as a whole think, not just, you know, the squeaky wheels, but they just don't really have very good information. They often think they do. I should really underscore that. But the studies that we and others have done, asking members of Congress, asking staffers to predict what views will be in their district or state, they're wrong much of the time. What's an example of how you guys figure that out? You go to a member of Congress, you say, here's a policy proposal. We'd love to hear what you think your constituents would think about. And then you basically survey the constituents and find the discrepancy.

That's right. And we did that. Fascinating. Where is that disconnect happening? Because my impression would be members of Congress are looking at polling surveys for their state or their district to try and understand what kinds of things they could do to remain popular. So is it the polling that they're getting is wrong? Are they just not actually interested in what constituents are doing? Why does that divide exist? The way political polling is done, it's not that they do a poll of the whole district and, okay, what is the majority view? And okay, let's really engage that and think about that. The strategy is they break the public up into these little subgroups, whether it's soccer moms or frustrated dads, and they try to find out more about what might move them. Soccer moms might care about children

restraining seats. And so they'll say something, they try to find a message that really appeals to them. You add all this up, this is not a way to get to know what the people think, nor a way to necessarily respond to it. It's a way of finding some kind of hook issues to try to pull in particular subsets of voters. That's the way most political polling is done. So yeah, they're using polling to try to get elected, but they don't use polling to try to get a better understanding of what the public thinks about public policy. One of the things I've said before in my writing or one of my impressions that I have about this dynamic between members of Congress and their constituents is that it doesn't seem to me like there is this sort

of positive correlation of members do what their constituents want them to do in terms of legislation. But I do feel like there's a negative correlation where they try to avoid doing things that are going to really piss their constituents off. I'm curious if you think that's true or whether there's also a disconnect there, because I would assume most politicians are trying really hard not to step on any landmines. There are always subgroups that have particular concerns or interests, but these are all small subgroups and they don't want to

get in trouble with them. They don't want to antagonize them or mobilize them or something like that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that represents the majority view in their district or state. The people who they pay most attention to are people who have some kind of influence, particularly people who are donors. There's been quite a lot of research done, not just by us, but by Page and Gillens and so on, that find a very low correlation between public views and policy attitude or positions, rather rather in voting and so on, while there are substantial correlations with higher income groups. So tell me a little bit about what you guys are doing with your surveys and the ways that you talk to constituents that is different from the typical public polling and why you feel like

it's a better system for sort of capturing how people actually feel. For many issues, and this is one of the reasons why the public doesn't have a very clear voice on a lot of issues, is that people don't have enough information to give input that is really targeted at the choice points that members of Congress are engaged with. They're really just not even getting the information from the public. The public is not getting the information from Congress. So we have developed a method where we take people through a process we call a policymaking simulation. And the process is done online with a representative sample. And they get briefed on an issue that Congress is dealing with and the choices that they're

considering. And then they evaluate arguments pro and con, and then ultimately give their recommendations. And then this is all aggregated. We do this with large national samples. And we also do it in particular states and districts and so on and pass that information on to members of Congress and so on. We put these tools online so that anybody can use them. Your listeners can try them out. If you go to VOP.org and go to the policymaking simulations, you can try them. And at the end, you can formulate

your conclusions and transmit them to your members of Congress. So when trying to replicate what actual policy proposals are out there, I mean, I guess the first thing that comes to mind for me is like creating this survey seems like it would be an incredible challenge. Like if you were going to inform people about what is in an abortion bill, how do you do that in a really neutral way where there's just the basics of the details of the things that they really need to know are included, I guess? It is a lot of work. The whole old saying, I wrote you a long letter because I didn't have time to write you a short one. It's kind of like that. You really have to think about it to make it very simple and clear that gets to the really essential points. And then we have it reviewed by proponents

and opponents of the proposal to make sure that the briefing is accurate and balanced and that the arguments are in fact the strongest ones that are being made. accurate and balanced and that the arguments are, in fact, the strongest ones that are being made. Interesting. So my understanding is you guys are actually right now in the process of engaging members of Congress with some of this work. Can you tell us a little bit about maybe what members you guys have worked with, what kind of things you're doing together right now, and how that's going? I mean, it sounds like you are starting to build out some of these relationships a little bit. Well, this is something that we've been doing off and on for some years, going into particular states and districts and so on and doing these surveys and passing this

information on. So it's a wide range. We do Republican and Democratic districts and so on. We're gearing up to do more. Now, when we do a national sample, we do a very large sample so that we can get views from very red to very blue districts. So overall, right from the beginning, we have a pretty good feel of what the range of uses are in different kinds of districts. And then we go into a particular district and engage the congressional office and do surveys. And then in some cases, we have an event where we invite the member to come, and then we invite people who took the survey, the policymaking simulation survey, to come to the event as well. And at that event, we present the findings one at a time, and then we have discussions between the citizens who

took the survey and the member of Congress. And what's really interesting in those situations is that so often members of Congress, they want to do town halls meetings, but really people come in and they yell and they're highly opinionated and there's a lot of conflict and a lot of finger shaking and so on. We find that when people go through these processes and they evaluate the pros and the cons, they often find that both the pros and the cons are at least somewhat convincing. And so they have a kind of more nuanced view of the issue, and it makes it easier for them to have meaningful conversations.

That's really one of our goals, because so often people get their information through silos so that they only really hear one side of issues. And one of the whole points is to create context where people hear a wider range. They may come to different conclusions, but they understand the nuances. We also find that when people go through these processes, they come to conclusions way more bipartisan agreement than Congress comes to. It's not that we push them to. I mean, it's just a process they go through online, evaluating the arguments, and they come to their conclusions. But when a representative sample of citizens evaluates an issue, they actually converge across party lines a lot more

than Congress does. You know, at Tangle, in my newsletter, one of the things we do is we, you know, we tackle one big political debate every day and we summarize best we can arguments that the right's making about this issue and arguments that the left is making about the issue, I think, in similarly a very intentional way to open people's minds up at least and introduce some nuance. I poked around your website and I saw that you have identified these 185 policy positions on a wide range of ideas that are supported by both the majority of Republicans and Democrats. I'd love to hear you talk about the process of figuring that out a little bit. And then, you know, maybe if there were some things that came out of that that

surprised you or policy positions that you were sort of surprised to see had this kind of overwhelming majority support. Well, it's a long list, so it's kind of hard to pick from it. But here's an example of one that I think is kind of interesting about Social Security, because that's something that's being discussed much these days. And we, you know, are keeping told that if unless something is done, the Social Security trust will run out of funds, and then they'll have to reduce benefits by about 25%. And if you just sort of ask people in a standard poll, do you want to raise Social Security taxes? No, no, I'd rather not. Do you want to cut Social

Security benefits? I'd rather not. Do you think it's important to keep Social Security going? Well, yeah, I do. Do you want to cut benefits? No. And it sort of seems like the public's kind of really confused. Now, what we do is we go, okay, here is the issue. Here's the Social Security shortfall. Here's what will happen if nothing's done. We don't say it should happen or anything should happen. They might think it's fine to have benefits go down. And then we say, okay, here are steps that can be taken. And they evaluate each of them separately. Now, the more Republican view is raise the retirement age and cut benefits, while the Democratic view is increase taxes and increase revenues. So when people go through this process and they evaluate each one separately, in the end, all of the options get put on a great big spreadsheet.

And each option they see, next to each option is a scoring to tell them how much of the Social Security shortfall this will address. And then they can make whatever list they, you know, they can pick whatever package they want. In that context, majorities, clear large majorities of Republicans and Democrats converge on a whole series of steps that include raising the retirement age some, cutting certain benefits some, particularly for high incomes, and raising Social Security taxes, particularly on high incomes. And when they take all these steps that are supported by majorities, it covers almost all of the Social Security shortfall.

Wow. Yeah, that is fascinating. I mean, I was about to ask, well, why doesn't Congress just do that? But I think I know the answer to that question, which is sort of all the things that we talked about at the top that sort of prevent them from having the, I guess, the forces pushing them to do those kinds of things. I, on your website, immediately just went to abortion because I was curious about the most divisive issue there was. And I saw that you had these rankings, this sort of gold star, silver star, bronze star, these different issues.

The one that caught my eye was just that not making abortion a crime before fetal viability was supported by 84% of respondents, while also there was nearly 60% of respondents who supported doctors showing an ultrasound before an abortion to a patient, which I thought was really interesting. proportion to, you know, a patient, which I thought was really interesting. I mean, neither of those numbers were things I think, even as a political reporter, I would have guessed. You mentioned earlier that, you know, you're introducing some of this stuff to members of Congress. You have some of these town halls. What's their reaction like when they're presented with this data? I mean, is it like, are they surprised by some of the numbers that come out of this? Or are they, yeah, I guess, what do they say? I'd be curious to hear kind of how it lands

when you show them something like the social security thing or this abortion issue. Sometimes they're surprised. Or they say, gee, well, that's not what I've been hearing through other channels. And oh, well, there are a lot of other forces pulling in other directions. But wow, that's interesting. And you kind of see them thinking, wow, is there... Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older,

and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at fluselvax.ca. Might there really be a way to kind of build this kind of consensus? It's something I think that needs to happen in a more continuous way. People here need to hear about it more.

Just when they get just hit with it once, they go, oh, well, that's really interesting. But we need to find all kinds of ways to hear from the public more consistently. It needs to get into the media more. And more people need to find out about it and go through the processes that bring them to these kinds of conclusions. So it doesn't get fixed all at once, but I think over time, and now that we have the internet and these other technological tools for people to get informed and transmit their opinions, I think that gradually the public's voice will get stronger and we'll have more influence. It's also that when the public has this clear voice, it gives members of Congress some cover because they are getting pulled and pushed in tech on all kinds of angles, right?

There is no, you know, lobby for the people. And they tend to, when they think about the public, they just tend to think of all the valences, the pressures that are coming in all at once. But as they learn that this is actually, it's not necessarily coming at them, but it is out there, that helps give them some kind of cover, some other means to push up, to resist some of the special interests that they're getting, pressers from lobbyists and so on. Or the party leadership. Even the party leadership has said at times, well, if you can really show us that your public has a different view than the party leadership, well, okay, that's okay. You can be responsive to that. It's just something

that needs to be done more. It needs to be filled out more. And I think with time, it will gain more strength. Long-term, I guess, is the idea that you guys build this out in a way where that feedback loop is just happening more consistently? I mean, what's the voice of the people dream, the ideal outcome for you from some of this research and some of the things you guys are doing? Ah, my dream. Here it comes. Our ultimate dream is to have a National Institute for Public Consultation with a standing panel of large representative sample in every district and state across the country that will go through these processes and give input to members of Congress so every member of Congress will know the views of their constituents. And every time they vote on legislation, they have information about where their constituents are. And it appears in media more of the time. You know, it's like you could read all these stories about public policy issues

with not a peep about the question of where the public is on the issue, even when the data are sometimes available. And, you know, you have some vague questions about, are you concerned about health care? Are you concerned about inflation? But real input on the policy issues. There would be a sidebar in every article on where the public is on these issues. So the public would be a real force, a real voice at the table. We're working to build that up. Again, the methods are there to bring the public's voice right to the choice points

that members of Congress are dealing with. They can't any longer say, oh, the public doesn't understand these kinds of things. It turns out you can enable people to understand and they can give input. Let me express a little bit of skepticism, I guess, as somebody who's very much on your team here. I'm interested in the barriers you guys run into at simply getting people to say, read all the arguments from both sides and responding to a poll survey. I mean, when you go out and seek respondents, do you find that that's hard to do? I know we get 2,000 people to respond to a poll and that's considered nationally representative and there's a whole science behind it. But in a world where Voice of the People is really moving some of these discussions, I imagine it'd

be happening on a much larger scale than that. And I'm wondering what kind of challenges you run into when you want to get 100,000 people to answer a survey where they all have to read, you know, spend 20 minutes reading about an issue. That seems like, to me, like it might be a barrier. Yeah, it is a challenge. The reason there is a challenge, because if I ask people, you know, who we've invited to participate in something, and they eh, nah. And we say, well, how come? And they say, eh, they're not going to listen. They don't care what we think. So it's hard to get people involved and make the effort to really understand the issues and formulate their conclusions when they have this kind of pessimism that it's going to really make a difference. But they say, and I actually do believe them, that if members were

really going to listen, they would do it. Now, fortunately, there are still already enough people to get some large representative samples across the country, a few hundred in every congressional district. And I believe that as members step forward in saying, hey, they participate in events, they clarify that they're interested and they're engaged, more people will come forward, will get informed and go through these kinds of processes. Again, we have seen it happen. And people do participate.

People do come to events. Not as many as need to ultimately, but there's enough to get it started. Members of Congress respond accordingly and show that interest. What you're sort of fleshing out there, which is fascinating too, is just the cyclical nature of it where, you know, fewer people are interested in expressing their views when they believe that members of Congress aren't that interested in what they have to say. And then as a result, members of Congress are much less interested in what their voters actually feel or have to say. This is maybe a more personal, like sentimental question for you, but does doing this work make you feel like the country is less divided than maybe we believe it is? I mean, is that the impression you leave with when you

pour over a lot of the data that you guys bring in? Absolutely. You know, it's not just looking at the data. I'm a data guy, so I really like it and have a good time. And I look at the data and I go, wow, there is really a lot of common ground here. But I've also had the experience of being in the room with a sample of Americans with different points of view. And when they really engage the issue and they hear both sides of the issue, they have this discussion where they're thinking together.

And then the member comes. The member comes and they're afraid, oh God, they're going to yell at me. And then the member says, oh, these people are kind of, this is interesting. So suddenly everybody's going on one hand and they're seeing the nuances and they see it's complex, but something really needs to be done. There are hard decisions here and people show respect for

other points of view. And this all happens spontaneously. We don't get up there and say, you must be civil. It just happens when people get information in a kind of neutral frame and where they're hearing both sides of the issue and they're not being told, oh, it's so obvious how it is. And the fact that the other side isn't agreeing with you is because they're something terrible. And that happens. It's there, right there. I do focus groups. And it's just, again, with representative samples. And generally, when people get together, they expect they're going to find some agreement. And generally, they do. And so that is a whole foundation.

Now, why doesn't it happen? Why? Because, and this goes back to something the founder said, when you have people organized, they call them factions. When people are organized around an interest you know it's what we now call special interests all those interests come together you're going to have clashes some people say well you know if you as long as it's a level playing field you have all of them come together and clash and that the outcome will be the people the voice of the people that's not what

the people think that's not what the founder said you have to have people come forward who can think about the whole. Think about the people. Think about the country as a whole. Think about the common good, right? And from that, you then gradually find, okay, this is a good balance. This is a good trade-off. Maybe more of this, a little less of that. And then there's a kind of coming together and a problem-solving mentality. And what's so interesting, too, is like, I mean, going back to the Social Security one that I described, people go, that wasn't that hard. Why does Congress pull its hair out and act like, you know, this can't be solved, you know? And why do they say, oh, we can't get near this. There's a third rail, you know, because it's just so political, you know?

But, in fact, people can. But interests don't so easily. They're looking out for themselves and they're fighting, trying to get their best piece. But the public, the people can think about the whole. I'm curious if maybe we could do a really quick exercise before I let you go. I don't know if this is totally unrealistic, but I'd love to just maybe hit two or three big topics, broad topics, and you can tell me maybe one kind of consensus takeaway that you've learned from some of the polling that you've done. So like immigration, what are some things Americans agree on about immigration based

on some of the research that you guys have done? It may surprise you, but the majority of Republicans and Democrats basically say, OK, we've got 10, 11 million undocumented people in the country. We can't just get rid of them. We can't just drive them out of the country. And we've got to in some way find a way to integrate them. We got to get find a path to citizenship and we need to bring in some way find a way to integrate them. We've got to find a path to citizenship, and we need to bring them into the legal system. This whole situation where some of them are over here,

and they're not legal, and then they take less income, they take less pay, and that weakens the position of other workers, and so on, they don't like that. Now, but we also have to do something about people pouring over the border. Well, okay, what about a wall? They're divided about the wall. Some Republicans like it. Some Democrats don't like it.

Independents mostly don't like it. And you don't get a consensus on that. Well, what about going to the source where people are being hired? Because right now, now employers are hiring undocumented workers, and they don't have any obligation to check it. But there's a proposal, it's a Republican proposal, to require E-Verify, to require workers to make sure that the person's legal, right? Bipartisan consensus on that. So here you have a very democratic view. Basically, path to citizenship, Don't think

you're going to get rid of these people who have been here for years, right? You got to integrate in some way. But let's actually make a legal system, which is more of a Republican idea, and you get democratic support for that as well. So bipartisan support for guest visas, for guest workers to come in for for periods like and at harvest time and things like that or in in during vacation periods there's where there's more need for workers at resorts and things like that uh so big support for for uh very much expanding that uh those kinds of programs i love it all right let's do two more. So that's immigration. What about police reform? That's another pretty divisive issue, or law enforcement-related issues.

There's kind of some tension around some of the issues around qualified immunity and so on. Still, you do get majorities, and you do get support for stronger oversight for outside groups observing what's going on and intervening and giving. Right now, the police system basically tries to protect a lot and keep not have outside oversight. And there is support for more outside oversight. Interesting. All right. And last one, I guess anything international related, maybe military force or trade or something that has to do with the United States relationship with the outside world. Yeah. Okay. A few things we could say on that. But let me just tell you, because this is a really good example. One of the first series we got and did a long

time ago was about foreign aid. And there was a widespread perception that the public, it was negative about foreign aid, wanted us to spend the money here at home. And so we asked them, well, how much of the budget do you think goes to foreign aid? And the median estimate was 20% of the budget. And we said, how much do you think it should be? And the median response was, oh, how about 10? And then we said, how would you feel for 1%, which is what the actual number is? And hardly anybody thought that was too much, right? So when you give people the information about how it's actually distributed, overwhelming majorities feel fine about the level of foreign aid. There have been debates about whether the

U.S. should continue to be part of the collective security system with the alliances that we have around the world. And there's a widespread perception, oh, the public doesn't care about the rest of the world. And they don't understand things like maintaining alliances and things like that. That's not true. There's very strong support for the alliance system, for being part of the UN and being part of the collective security system. Trade is one where people have kind of some ambivalence because they realize that there are better prices that come with trade,

but then sometimes it hurts some American workers. Let's not go too fast, but let it grow. That's sort of the concept, let it grow, and try to impose labor standards in other countries so that they're not undercutting our workers by having lower labor standards and maintain international environmental standards, so that they're not, again, undercutting us by having low standards. It's this totality. When they see all the tools that are available and they see the complexity, there are different ways that they can intervene. And so when you put all this together, you've got a consensus here, robust consensus for that combination of steps to continue to grow the international trading system, but also spread norms in terms of how

workers and environments are treated abroad so that they don't get an unnecessary edge on us. I love it. So that's trade and foreign policy, police reform, immigration, social security, and abortion we all touched on with some pretty solid common ground out of the data. Stephen Cole, thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it. If people want to keep up with your work, check out Voice of the People, maybe participate in creating some of these surveys

or your interactions that you're having with members of Congress. What's the best way for them to do that? Go to vop.org for Voice of the People, and you can sign up and just get our newsletter and find out what's going on. But if you're looking for a way to give input, go to the policymaking simulations page

and there's a whole list of topics you can choose from. Go through the simulation process at the end. Your conclusions will be there and you can enter your address and your conclusions will be transmitted to your members of Congress. I love it. Stephen, thank you so much for the time.

I hope to keep in touch and good luck. I think this is a really important project, getting the voice of the people more directly to members of Congress. It's certainly one that has my support. So I appreciate you sitting down with us today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. We'll see you next time. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.

When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot.

Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.