Weekly Update 5 | Friday, April 25
The weekly update on the Canadian election provides information on trends and dynamics observed in the information ecosystem (Snapshot), identifies and shares insights on information-related incidents and emerging threats (Incidents), and shares educational content, research findings and other relevant outputs from our Coalition on Information Ecosystem Resilience (Update).
All facts and figures are taken from an original survey and social media data collection by the Media Ecosystem Observatory and the analysis reflects the period from April 18 to April 24. While this is the last week before the election, we will release one more next week to describe the ecosystem and incidents that exist and emerge in the final lead up to, during- and post-election day.
SNAPSHOT
Clicks and concerns: a snapshot of the Canadian conversation during the election
This week, as we approach Election Day on April 28 (remember to cast your ballot!), we’re taking a look back at the online conversation - highlighting the major themes that shaped the election period, what mattered to Canadians and what social media users encountered during this final week of the campaign.
At the start of the campaign, we highlighted how Canadians were deeply concerned about Trump and the Tariffs. We explore the concerns most top-of-mind for Canadians over the last week, and how those concerns have shifted over the course of the past month of the campaign. Figure 1 shows the percentage of Canadians that think about major political issues, at least daily, with the percent change from the first week provided in parentheses. Over the past four weeks there has been minimal drift, with 42% of Canadians reporting that they think daily about Trump and the tariffs (6% less than the first week of the election) and very little movement about other key issues like the environment, crime and safety, and foreign policy. Even with prominent American influencers and Trump being relatively quiet about Canada throughout the election campaign period, the issue remained top of mind for Canadians.
These broad concerns among Canadians are also reflected in the online conversation. In Figure 2, we visualize the key topics covered in the election in the approximately 500,000 posts from provincial politicians and federal candidates, prominent influencers, and media organizations. The Figure shows the clusters of topics we observed: at the center of the map, we see a dense, multi-colored core—representing the interconnectedness of mainstream discourse. These central clusters touch on everyday concerns like healthcare, housing, and law enforcement. These are issues that consistently affect Canadians and often overlap in online discussions.
Our analysis shows that:
At the centre of discussion (the core of the map):
Unsurprisingly during the election, politics was top of mind. Topics like the upcoming federal election, partisan conflicts, and community mobilization efforts form major nodes. Similarly, US politics, particularly related to Trump remains a hot topic for discussion.
China–Canada political tensions, particularly around foreign interference, also had a noticeable presence. Much of the discourse focuses on allegations of Carney’s ties to the Chinese government.
Moving outward (the periphery of the map):
We notice a more isolated cluster. Specifically, the Israel–Palestine crisis emerged as a highly engaged topic, forming a tightly knit and separate cluster. This indicates deep but isolated (from other topics) engagement which we find represents dedicated communities hoping to mobilize that issue more centrally.
On the fringes, we also see smaller discussions around energy prices, food security, and national identity, including regional expressions like Quebec’s cultural voice and nationalist slogans like CanadaFirst.
Figure 3 shows the topic focuses of the candidates from the three top parties as well as influencers and media outlets. The x-axis shows the relative focus on a particular topic, i.e. the proportion of posts for that group on a particular topic. For example the three political parties focused heavily on volunteer mobilization and sharing of campaign signs, while influencers and media outlets barely discussed them. Economic concerns—particularly Trade, Tariffs and Trump—emerged as central issues in the campaign, reflecting unease about economic stability and the potential impact of U.S. politics. However, it was the media that highlighted these issues more than candidates or influencers. Conservatives had the highest relative focus on crime and law enforcement, the NDP focused on issues of housing, and the Liberals generally focused the most on Trump (by a small margin) and Canadian identity. One additional issue got a lot of attention from Conservative candidates and influencers: discussion of foreign interference from China in the electoral process.
Online experience
Throughout the election period, we used 15 “avatar” accounts—new profiles specifically calibrated to appear as left-leaning, centrist, right-leaning, and non-political users—on Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, TikTok, and BlueSky to find out what Canadians were most likely to see on their social media feeds. We regularly run audits using these avatars - this week’s run was on April 22.
Avatars across the political spectrum saw significant volumes of content about the Conservative’s budget platform. Right-leaning users saw posts amplifying themes of affordability, crime, and “anti-wokeness”, while left-leaning and centrist users encountered posts criticizing the depth of Conservative proposals, mocking the document’s brevity and the Conservative’s frequent use of photos of leader Pierre Poilievre. The Liberals highlighted contradictions between Poilievre’s campaign and the platform. In addition, we note a general decline in content related to Trump - only 20% of our avatars saw any mention of him or his tariffs. Overall, having a significant portion of the online conversation dedicated to policy proposals and the federal budget plan demonstrates a positive sign that Canadians pay attention to important substantive campaign and policy issues.
INFORMATION INCIDENTS
During the election, we report on information incidents that could mislead the public and disrupt the democratic processes. Generally we are concerned with covert information manipulation and foreign interference efforts as opposed to instances of influence which are definitionally overt and public. This week, we highlight two moderate incidents (one ongoing and one escalated from last week) and close one minor incident from last week. Click here to learn more about our incident response thresholds.
Moderate ongoing incidents
AI-generated fake news
Our investigation into the surge of ads masquerading as legitimate news sources continues. It remains classified as a moderate incident due to its scale, the political nature of the content in the context of an election, and its impact on shaping the information ecosystem. The use of these fake ads has emerged as a major issue in the Canadian election, attracting significant attention from both domestic (in French and English) and international media, including The Guardian and The New York Times. A prominent influencer discussed this scam network in a widely viewed video, accusing the ads of violating election laws and of foreign election interference that could sway the election results. While it seems unlikely that these ads will have a meaningful impact on the election outcome, this type of reaction, when widely seen, can fuel public distrust in the election process. Meanwhile, Reset Tech, a global non-profit, published a report highlighting the global scale and reach of fraudulent advertising schemes on Facebook, suggesting that the patterns uncovered by our current investigation represent just the tip of a global iceberg.
In our second incident update (which will be published later today on this page), we will provide more details about how the situation has evolved since the beginning of the election, the characteristics of the pages and URLs involved, and how we have and should respond to this growing problem. Given social media platforms’ reactive and incomplete responsiveness to these ads, we continue to uncover new pages publishing these fraudulent and politically-charged ads every day (we have uncovered more than 80 Facebook pages, only about half of which have been taken down by Meta since the beginning of the election). Additionally, while ads containing AI-generated videos generally do get removed, we have found re-formatted versions (e.g. zoomed in or out, with or without coloured bars at the top/bottom) reposted by other Pages.
Surge in claims actively undermining election integrity
In previous weeks, we flagged a series of claims questioning election integrity ranging from election rigging and controversy around dominion voting machines (which are not used in Canada) in week 3 to the accuracy of the polls in week 4. This week there is a noticeable surge in claims online questioning the security and integrity of the election that appear to intentionally undermine a fair and equal election process and trust in Elections Canada. Given the level of engagement with these claims, influence on behaviour during the advanced voting process (including harassment of election workers), threat to the reputation of Elections Canada, and risk to the broader outcomes of the election itself, we have escalated this incident to moderate.
While a series of claims have continued to circulate this week, some are more concerning than others such as the “bring your own pen” conversation. This claim urges voters to bring a pen to the ballot box, arguing that it is “safer” than indicating your preferred candidate with the pencil provided by Elections Canada, i.e. it lowers the risk of election workers tampering with the ballots. Although this may be interpreted as a relatively harmless “better safe than sorry” advice, the claims are often linked with broader distrust in election workers and perceptions that Elections Canada is likely to attempt to change the outcome of the election.
These claims often present anecdotes of pens not being available at polling stations as evidence that Elections Canada systematically discourages voters from using writing instruments that are harder to erase. This has led to polling workers being harassed for providing pencils, which are the default writing instrument supplied to them.
The rapid dissemination of this claim around the advanced voting period is an exemplary flag of domestic interference risk as election day approaches. We have observed a sharp increase in social media posts discussing this topic in two waves: around April 14th when the first claims around the usage of pens surfaced and during April 18th-21st when advanced voting was happening. In X/Twitter, posts discussing “pen” and “election” increased 11-fold, while views of these posts increased by over 17-fold during the advanced voting period, amassing a total of over 467k views. In TikTok, we found that just 5 posts discussing this issue received 710k views during the same period. We expect social media activity on this topic to increase sharply again as election day approaches.
Beyond this case about bringing pens, other claims that are emerging include voters being disenfranchised by having their names crossed off the registry, people being allowed to vote without proving their identity, and Elections Canada being partisan.
As claims like these continue to emerge, attract attention, and influence attitudes and behaviours, we will continue to investigate and to provide insight on the nature and volume of claims on election day, how these messages are spreading and if they’re coordinated, and the impact of these claims.
It is worth noting that Canadian trust in the election results and confidence in Elections Canada to fairly administer the election is stable across time and has not been impacted by these online claims. We run monthly surveys that find consistent levels of trust (“A fair amount”) in the upcoming results and confidence in Elections Canada to run the election fairly (just shy of “Very confident”). We also see stable levels of confidence in our daily survey samples throughout the election campaign period.
Important note: we will be reporting on this moderate incident in the post-election period.
Close minor incidents
“Buttongate” - Divisive buttons planted by Liberals at the Canada Strong and Free Networking (CSFN) Conference
Last week, we reported on “buttongate” where two Liberal staffers (who have since been reassigned) planted buttons at a Conservative gathering in Ottawa that were intended to misrepresent the views of Conservative supporters. We continued our investigation into whether there was artificial amplification of the misrepresented views or whether the news triggered widespread skepticism about election integrity. We close this incident and note that we found no evidence of artificial amplification or linkages to claims of election fraud or overall election integrity. We reiterate that misrepresenting political opponents’ views, symbols, and actions are tactics frequently used in disinformation campaigns. We urge Canadians and especially campaigns to not use tactics of astro-turfing and information manipulation.
COALITION RESOURCES
Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI)
“Is the election being stolen?” It’s a question Chris Tenove, Assistant Director of the CSDI, worries will take hold after Canadians vote. With rumours of fraud already circulating, the stakes for public trust are high. Read his perspective in Maclean’s here.
Democratic Engagement Exchange
Join our partners at the Democratic Engagement Exchange for the Canadian Vote Summit—Canada’s largest non-partisan forum on electoral democracy—taking place in Montreal, May 20–21, 2025. With sessions on disinformation, AI, and the future of civic participation, it’s a must-attend for anyone working around elections.
Use code PROOBJLDMTQ at checkout for a special community discount. Bursaries are also available.
Explore the full program here.
Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab)
Read DFRLab’s most recent piece “Bot-like activity targets Canadian political parties and their leaders ahead of election” here.
Digital Public Square
As part of their COMET project—which explores how to understand and reduce vulnerability to violent extremism in Canada—the Digital Public Square has launched Canada Is Talking. This digital tool invites Canadians to share their views on social and political issues and encourages non-violent civic participation. Give it a try here.
DisinfoWatch
In this new election update, DisinfoWatch highlights how Russian state media has increasingly focused on Mark Carney since his election as leader of the Liberal Party. Their report, “RT Recycles Far-Right Canadian Election Videos and Targets Mark Carney,” is available here.
Collaboration with KoboToolBox
Throughout this election, we’ve collaborated with KoboToolbox to track information manipulation incidents. To learn more about how this collaboration allowed us to track and analyze hundreds of social media posts, read this blog post.
THIS WEEK FROM THE TIPLINE:
We have received a total of 213 submissions during the election period including 19 new submissions this week.
58% of the new submissions involve posts on Facebook, 21% from Youtube, 10.5% from Instagram, and the remainder of 21.5% News Outlet/Websites.
The submissions form this week focused on three dominant topics*:
Concern around posts on Facebook spreading political and financial misinformation targeting Mark Carney, Justin Trudeau, and the Liberal Party.
Coordinated sharing of health and election misinformation, especially black lung content across Facebook pages, involving Mark Carney.
Health misinformation about black lung and coal workers shared on Facebook, often denying treatments and linking to Mark Carney.
*Note: The topics submitted reflect common user concerns; while some may lead to potential incidents within the media ecosystem, not all necessarily indicate imminent threats or events.