Publications

Alberta is heading into a referendum on October 19, 2026, in a rapidly changing information environment. Year-over-year, online influencers have been accumulating relevance and engagement at the expense of news media and elected officials, and we now have a case study of what a democratic vote looks like squarely in the influencer era. The online conversation about Alberta's referendum is driven by a passionate community of 114 accounts, unencumbered by traditional forms of political accountability, that have captured roughly half of all engagement generated since January 1, 2025, across five platforms. Among these highly influential voices, pro-independence accounts outperform anti-independence ones by a ratio of roughly 8:1. Posts about Alberta separating from Canada, irrespective of position, receive more than double the engagement of comparable other-topic posts — an online Alberta Advantage. A second major transformation has recently occurred as voters turn towards AI search and chatbots to understand the political world around them. However, these tools are still maturing and provide changing responses to common and important political queries in the context of the referendum. We find that Google AI Overview and ChatGPT give inconsistent, sometimes directly contradictory answers to the same questions. At the same time, AI-generated imagery is quickly emerging as a campaign tool in the information environment, and we find that the share of AI images among pro-independence posts on X has grown 3.5-fold since January 2025. These new sources of information and campaign techniques are enormously consequential during this democratic moment. Most importantly, there is a striking difference between the online conversation and the general public of Alberta. While polling shows roughly two-thirds of Albertans would vote to remain in Canada, the online conversations runs the inverse with far more posts and online engagement from the highly energetic independence movement. A political movement without elected leadership, but with a dominant online presence that harnesses rapidly maturing AI technologies, is driving the public conversation on a referendum related to whether Alberta should remain a province in Canada. All of this is unfolding while confidence that Elections Alberta will run the vote fairly sits at just 59%. Our democratic institutions and understanding of the public square must keep up.

The first in a weekly series tracking the information ecosystem during Quebec's 2026 election campaign. This update looks at how the Canada–US trade war became the campaign's dominant issue — and how some online actors used it to question the election's integrity — plus a survey on Quebecers' trust in the negotiations, and a round-up of AI-generated leader videos, poll-neutrality debates, and Electoral Compass criticism.

A national study analyzing over 8.8 million social media posts and a nationally representative survey to assess whether Canada's digital media ecosystem is independent of U.S. influence, finding that ecosystem independence varies by topic and time — Canadians drive the conversation when domestic news breaks, but a subset of Canadian influencers are closely integrated with their U.S. counterparts.

As Quebec's general election of October 5, 2026 approaches, this report provides a baseline portrait of Quebec's information ecosystem. Several factors make this context particular: the Alberta secession referendum, the trade war and U.S. midterm elections, the blocking of news content on Facebook and Instagram, and the mainstreaming of generative AI, which makes it easier to fabricate deceptive content. This report aims to better understand the types of information voters will be exposed to during the campaign and the perceptions they already hold toward institutions and their information environment. It addresses, among other things, media consumption trends, trust in institutions and the information environment, and the activity of candidates, media, and commentators across the various social media platforms. It also includes a synthesis of threats and vulnerabilities.

The online response to the June 2026 shooting in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood of Montreal, which left three people dead, illustrates how information circulates during and after a crisis. As with many tragic events, footage, claims, and speculation began spreading across platforms within minutes. In this incident report, we examine how information moved through the online environment during the incident, in its immediate aftermath, and over the following days — and through that, how breaking news and public safety information reach and are interpreted by the Canadian public.

The Canadian news environment is being reshaped by platform decisions, shifting audience habits, and the rise of new voices in political information. This brief examines how Canadians consume news and define journalism, drawing on a national survey of 1,518 respondents and analysis of nearly 9 million social media posts from Canadian news organizations across multiple platforms during 2023-2025.

A technical audit of four widely-used AI chatbots (Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, Meta AI, and OpenAI ChatGPT), testing their responses to harmful requests. The audit found significant variation in safety measures across products, with roughly one in three tests across all four resulting in harmful content generation. Conducted in relation to Canada's Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34).

A policy memo accompanying the Online Harms AI Audit technical brief, outlining recommendations arising from testing four widely-used AI chatbots for safety against harmful requests, in the context of Canada's Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34).

A coordinated network of 340 Facebook pages, primarily operated from Vietnam, distributes AI-fabricated news stories targeting users in Canada, the US, the UK, and Europe. The network generates engagement through false narratives about politics, celebrities, and sports, driving traffic to fabricated-news websites monetized via advertising. Canadian public and private organizations inadvertently fund this operation through legitimate ad campaigns.

Scholars have suggested that we are experiencing a global crisis in trust in elections, with political polarization and misinformation often cited as reasons for distrust. However, empirical evaluations of perceptions of election integrity over time remain scarce. Using data from the Canadian Election Study from 2008 to 2021 and the Media Ecosystem Observatory from 2021, we show that trust in electoral management bodies, measured in terms of confidence, satisfaction, and fairness, has significantly declined since 2019 among Canadians with a right-wing ideology or who support right-wing parties. We find evidence that rising affective polarization, right-wing and social media consumption, and belief in US-based election fraud narratives are associated with significant trust declines in electoral integrity. The results identify key factors linked to the recent politicization of citizens’ perceptions of election fairness and have important implications for the health of our democracy.

A national survey of 1,306 Canadians found strong backing for platform accountability measures, including age-appropriate design requirements (84%), stronger legal accountability (82%), and an independent regulator with enforcement powers (72%). Canadians prefer design modifications over outright bans and support equivalent protections for AI chatbot services.

An examination of seven age verification methods recognized under the UK's Online Safety Act and their applicability to Canada. The analysis concludes that age verification is technically achievable and already deployed at scale, but that its effectiveness depends on broader governance structures rather than technology alone. Facial age estimation is found most viable for under-16 restrictions, though robust privacy protections and independent oversight remain essential.