ANALYSIS: Why Hogue thinks disinformation is democracy’s greatest threat – National

The rise of generative artificial intelligence, a decline of traditional professional media and the persistent threat of foreign meddling have combined to make disinformation the greatest threat to Canadian democracy, the federal inquiry into foreign interference suggests.

That was one of the ominous warnings from Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s year-long probe into how hostile governments are targeting Canada’s democratic processes, including the last two federal elections.

Nowhere in Hogue’s sprawling 860-page final report is it spelled out exactly how disinformation is a greater threat than more traditional forms of foreign interference, such as covertly funnelling money, attempting to influence politicians, messing around in nomination races or intimidating diaspora groups.

Disinformation was discussed during commission testimony, but “the extent to which it was given prominence” in Hogue’s final report was surprising, said Stephanie Carvin, a professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

“The prominence of it in the report is striking, just because while there was some discussion about disinformation in public … it doesn’t really necessarily reflect (Hogue’s) mandate, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of public testimony on it,” Carvin said in an interview.

The few specific instances of disinformation discussed in the report led Hogue to find that it had little, if any, effect on the outcomes of the 2019 and 2021 general elections.

Taken together, however, Hogue’s digressions on disinformation suggest the danger is not just tipping the scales in a particular riding or even a general election, but to Canadians’ shared understanding of politics itself.

“A healthy democracy is characterized by a vibrant and diverse range of voices and groups, engaged in a constant process of deliberation, discussion, negotiation and compromise … By fostering distrust, creating division and preventing compromise, disinformation threatens this fundamental feature of democracy,” Hogue wrote.

“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. It is an existential threat.”

Hogue does reference three specific alleged instances of disinformation in recent elections: an apparently coordinated campaign targeting former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, allegations of a misinformation campaign targeting Erin O’Toole’s Conservative campaign in 2021, and a disinformation campaign targeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he alleged Indian officials played a role in the 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

No state has been definitively connected to those three campaigns, although testimony suggested links to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the first two instances and the Indian government in the last.

But in terms of the overall impact of disinformation on the last two general elections, testimony before Hogue’s commission suggested it’s had little to no effect on the outcome.

The Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO), a collaboration between researchers at McGill University and the University of Toronto, studied misinformation and disinformation circulating during both elections.

While the MEO noted a “large amount” of misinformation circulating during the 2021 election — particularly regarding COVID-19 measures and claims of voter fraud — the researchers noted it had a “limited impact on the election, due to the fact that it prompted little discussion and Canadians were able to detect false stories.”

There’s good reason to believe that the next federal election, which could come in a matter of months, will be different according to Aengus Bridgman, MEO’s director and a professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill.

The big three social media platforms Canadian political leaders, journalists and activists use — X, Facebook, and Instagram — are now controlled by two men, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And they have very different views about content moderation and trust and safety policies in 2025, Bridgman noted.

“I’d say we’re in a very different landscape today than we were in 2021,” Bridgman said in an interview Tuesday.

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“These are the main platforms where Canadians consume information, and where Canadian politicians and journalists and influencers spread their message around. And they’re now governed in a totally different way than they were in 2021, and I would say in addition with the advent of generative AI are now much, much more vulnerable to disinformation campaigns at scale then they were back then.”

Bridgman added that AI disinformation is cheap, easy to do at scale, and that democracies’ communications infrastructure is “very susceptible” to these kinds of attacks.

“And we are seeing it around the world. We are seeing disinformation campaigns, we are seeing attempts to influence mass public opinion by state and non-state actors, and that’s enormously concerning,” Bridgman said.

Hogue’s report emphasized the scale of the disinformation problem and noted Canada cannot easily fix it – especially not alone.

But the commission did make some recommendations, including establishing a government body to monitor “open source” information, such as social media activity, in attempts to identify and mitigate misinformation and disinformation.

That would obviously face challenges, from privacy concerns to the government’s authority to determine what is and what is not, in fact, correct or authentic information.

Hogue also suggested traditional professional media, which have journalistic codes and practices, is an important component to making sure Canadians have accurate information both in an election context and more generally.

Fewer and fewer Canadians agree. According to a Reuters Institute survey, Canadians overall trust in media declined from 55 per cent in 2016 to just 39 per cent in 2024. And Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is likely to form government after the next election, has vowed to scrap what federal supports exist for legacy media institutions, including “defunding” the CBC.

But Bridgman said he sees the Hogue commission report as a jumping-off point for a broader discussion about how governments and civil society can approach the problem.

“This is actually in some ways a really important moment where we can say this is clearly a threat, let’s rally around and make sure to put policy and infrastructure in place to counter this specific thing,” Bridgman said.