What is BC’s Behavioural Insights group, and do they work with META?
By Sasha Izard
Dec 30, 2025
A couple years ago, I stumbled across BC’s Behavioural Insights group, which also refers to itself as BC BIG, with no sense of irony – it is BC’s Big Brother. At the time, I recall they mentioned that their partners include META, Impact Canada, and the UK Cabinet Office.
As BC Big and other nudge agencies involved in behavioural analytics, have a strong interest in AI and its vast potential for human manipulation, I asked Google AI, the following a question:
While there are many different acronyms for similar organizations, these organizations are a dime a dozen, and they work together.
Behavioural Insights Team – Wikipedia (They are a sponsor of BC’s Behavioural Insights Group).
You may recall my article on so-called deliberative polling/deliberative democracy:
Deliberative Polling: Part of the toolbox of democracy, or part of the ever growing toolbox against democracy? – CRD Watch Homepage
As seen above, so-called deliberative democracy is a key methodology used by nudge units.
The idea of nudging is quite simple. The government studies mass psychology (behavioural insights), and then can manipulate the mass public through the process of “nudging” them.
Does deliberative polling look familiar? It is from the same toolbox from the same suspects that came up with Citizens Assemblies, which can be used to nudge an idea into public acceptance. Yes, it is the same corporate state pushing amalgamation of Victoria and Saanich.
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Essentially nudging, and so-called deliberative democracy, turns actual democracy on its head through the use of an advanced technocracy. In actual democracy, the people rule by meaning of the word. With nudging, a technocratic elite manipulates the public with a hidden hand, and this can be used to advance corporate interests over the public interest.
We saw this with the Facebook Cambridge Analytica Scandal. The whistleblower who exposed it Christopher Wylie, was from Victoria BC incidentally. Of key note is that Wylie exposed how Facebook could throw elections based on its hidden operations.
Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal – Wikipedia
What often takes place in this is the merger between big tech, and ruling elites in manipulating the public, that no doubt gives big tech all the advantage, and the public/democracy is the loser, in that they lose democratic control.
In BC the link between government and business behavioural analytics is the Sauder School of Business with its Orwellian term “Thought Leadership”:
Business Insights & Thought Leadership | UBC Sauder
Archived version: Business Insights & Thought Leadership | UBC Sauder
“Research impact
With global thought leaders across every business discipline, UBC Sauder has an international reputation for challenging conventional wisdom and pushing business in new directions. As part of our drive for research excellence we host a number of specialized research centres on campus that enable faculty, students and business leaders to work together on new initiatives.”
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Here is some material on the web regarding BC’s Behavioural Insights group:
“The BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG) is a corporate research and evaluation unit in Connected Services BC that uses insights and methods from the behavioural sciences to understand and encourage behaviour change. BC BIG has three areas of focus: (1) Evidence-building including advisory and intervention projects, (2) Capacity-building including training and outreach activities, and (3) Community-building including partnerships and networks. Email: big@gov.bc.ca“
CRD Watch Homepage 
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