Most of us teach our children that lying is offensive and wrong. Certainly there is a need for innocent white lies (I’m sure that at my funeral, my family will be told that I was a wonderful and flawless person), but lying to get your way is abhorrent. If it’s wrong for our children then why should we tolerate this type of behaviour from adults?

The results of the Brexit vote have been tallied and those public voices rallying the populace to “Leave” are in an all-out sprint to run away from statements made before the vote. As noted recently on CNN, the “Brexiteers” promised three major results from a “Leave” vote: that the dues paid to the European Union, £350 million per week, would be kept in full by the United Kingdom and would be enough to build a fully staffed hospital every week, that the UK would be able to control its own borders without influence from other European countries, and that the economy would be stronger if the UK left the European Union. All lies.

South of our border, Donald Trump is set to claim the nomination from the Republican party in a couple of weeks. PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize winning organization dedicated to fact checking, recently fact-checked 77 statements made by the presumptive nominee and found that he lies 76 per cent of the time. Maybe it’s time for Burger King to sell the rights to the phrase “Home of the Whopper”. Hillary Clinton has been found by the same non-partisan organization to lie 27 per cent of the time.

When making decisions, like how to vote or what initiatives to support, we owe it to ourselves and our communities to check the facts. When we hear a “fact” stated during a conversation, ask for the source. Pull up a search engine and do some quick research. It’s easy to do.

We owe it to ourselves to make decisions with the best and most accurate information available.