Elections Canada has been in touch with social media platforms about election misinformation

The head of Elections Canada says he has been in touch with social media platforms in an effort to address concerns about misinformation as Canada wades into an election campaign.

Chief Electoral Officer Stephane Perrault told reporters on Monday that he has reached out to social media sites such as X and TikTok to "seek their support to making this election a secure election." He said he has been satisfied with the response so far.

"We'll see what action actually takes place during the election. Hopefully they won't have to intervene, but if there are issues, hopefully they will be true to their word," he said.

Perrault said he would make his communication and the response from the platforms public.

TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese-owned, said in a news release on Sunday that it is "shoring up our efforts to safeguard the TikTok platform during Canada's federal election season."

"[There are] several ways we do this — including that we protect the integrity of elections by removing harmful misinformation about civic and electoral processes, partnering with fact-checkers to assess the accuracy of content, and labeling claims that can't be verified," the statement said.

WATCH | AI 'deepfake' election content 'a serious concern,' says Elections Canada: 

AI 'deepfake' election content 'a serious concern,' says Elections Canada

25 days ago

Duration 3:13

Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault says people tend to overestimate how good they are at spotting fake and misleading election content. He says he's contacted major social media companies about the issue to ensure a 'secure election.'

Perrault cautioned Canadians to be on the lookout for bad information about the voting process in general.

"I encourage Canadians to use Elections Canada as the authoritative source of information about the federal electoral process," he told reporters in French on Monday.

"I also encourage Canadians not to let their social media feed dictate what they read."

The agency is launching a new online tool — dubbed "ElectoFacts" — that lists and debunks inaccurate information that is swirling online.

Foreign interference in Canadian democracy has been top of mind in recent years, culminating in a 16-month public inquiry into the matter.

Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue issued a report in January that stated foreign interference hasn't determined the outcome of previous elections. But Hogue wrote that the biggest threat to Canadian democracy is the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the media and on social networks.

"In my view it is no exaggeration to say that at this juncture, information manipulation (whether foreign or not) poses the single biggest risk to our democracy," she wrote. "It is an existential threat."

Perrault said voters can report misinformation to Elections Canada.

"If something looks like it's from Elections Canada but is a bit fishy, someone can verify on our website whether this is content that is coming from Elections Canada," he said.

Perrault also urged Canadians to check with Elections Canada about potential changes to their ridings, as the electoral boundaries have shifted. 

Officials monitoring for foreign interference

The government has set up two panels to monitor for foreign interference during federal elections. The Critical Election Incident Public Protocol Panel is made up of five senior civil servants tasked with publicly flagging foreign interference threats. That panel receives intelligence briefings from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) task force, which is composed of security officials from agencies including CSIS and the RCMP.

Concerns have been raised in the past that the panel of five hasn't been proactive enough in sounding the alarm when a potential issue arises. Much of those concerns have centred around the panel primarily being concerned with interference on the national level rather than at the riding level.

During the public inquiry, the commission heard that foreign meddling could have impacted the result in one B.C. riding in 2021.

But during a news conference on Monday, representatives from the panel insisted that they had been sensitive to possible meddling at riding-specific levels.

"I don't know that that's an actual change. Previous panelists have said that had a single riding been deeply impacted, that would have been enough to trigger the protocol," said Allen Sutherland, assistant secretary to the cabinet in the Privy Council Office.

But Sutherland acknowledged concerns that the panels haven't been proactive in flagging incidents.

"What is impacting what you'll see this time in the 2025 election is the need to perhaps be a little more proactive in calling out smaller instances, less impactful instances of mis- and disinformation. And the idea is that transparency is the best sunlight," he said.

Neither the panel of five nor the SITE task force flagged any concerns during the last two federal elections. But SITE did raise the alarm during the recent Liberal leadership campaign, flagging misinformation being spread on WeChat that targeted one of the candidates, Chrystia Freeland.