On Thursday, ahead of the legislature’s fall break, the Canadian province of Manitoba passed five pending bills, including one aimed at curbing election disinformation and imposing fines for spreading deepfake videos of political candidates.
Manitoba’s New Election Misinformation Bill
The bill, first introduced in March, imposes fines of up to $20,000 daily for spreading election disinformation or deepfakes created with artificial intelligence to produce realistic videos of candidates.
It also introduced penalties for deliberately sharing misleading information about voter eligibility, election officials, or companies involved in providing ballots and vote-counting machines.
As reported by Global News, the changes drew from recommendations by the province’s chief electoral officer and were first introduced in the legislature in March.
The New Democratic Party–led government said the measures aim to protect Manitoba’s elections from the kind of controversies seen in the United States, where election officials have faced attacks amid the latest elections.
The new legislation also lowers the maximum contribution individuals can make to a candidate or party and requires political parties to establish a system for public complaints about their advertisements.
According to Government House Leader Nahanni Fontaine, it is essential to have a legislative framework that strengthens democracy in Manitoba.
Canada has a Disinformation Problem
Experts in the field note that Canadians are increasingly aware of the harm disinformation poses to democratic institutions. In a report published in May, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives warned that the spread of disinformation has fueled support for fringe movements and eroded trust in Canada’s democratic process.
Although the Canadian government has acknowledged the harmful effects of disinformation on the country’s politics and democracy, the organization notes that Canada’s policy response remains limited.
It argues that the country needs to take the issue more seriously, especially compared to other nations that have taken decisive action, such as the European Union with binding regulations, Australia mandating revenue sharing between platforms and legacy media, and India’s ban on TikTok for violating national laws.
According to the Centre, the line between domestic disinformation and foreign interference is blurred, and Canada has yet to respond adequately to the disinformation spreading in the U.S.-based platforms, including X and Meta.
The report notes that X has become a “hub for hate speech” while Meta ended its fact-checking program, which was specifically designed to combat disinformation on the platform. The Centre considers these platforms compromised, describing them as “riddled with insufficient or non-existent fact-checking tools,” and points out that Canada has been hesitant to regulate them directly.
The organization argues that while Canada has legal tools, it does not hold platforms accountable for how they operate within the country, not just for the content they host, limiting the effectiveness of these tools. It views the E.U.’s approach as a potential model, treating disinformation as a systemic risk and regulating the infrastructure that enables it.
According to the Centre, legislation alone may be insufficient, and stronger measures will be needed to protect the information ecosystem if platforms continue to amplify misinformation, refuse transparency.
The report cites that some countries have taken steps to enforce platform compliance or impose partial shutdowns when national interests are at stake, with Australia even pushing a revenue-sharing agreement with local media.
It notes that Canada has already banned TikTok from federal devices and closed its offices in the country. According to the Centre, Canada has the tools, the warnings, and global examples to follow, but “lacks the political will to act.”
Online Political Misinformation in Canada
Last April, weeks before Canada’s 2025 federal elections, a report by the Canadian Media Ecosystem Observatory found that over a quarter of Canadians had been exposed to fake political content on social media.
The report described this content as “more sophisticated and more politically polarizing,” calling on platforms to enhance protections amid a “dramatic acceleration” of online disinformation during the final weeks of the election campaign.
It also highlighted a growing number of Facebook ads impersonating legitimate news outlets and promoting fraudulent investment schemes, often involving cryptocurrency.
According to The Guardian, this year’s federal elections in Canada marked the first national vote during which Canadian news could not be shared on Meta-owned platforms and apps.
The ban, which began in August 2023, stems from a dispute between Meta and Canada over the Online News Act, which requires intermediaries like Meta and Google’s parent company to compensate media outlets for sharing their produced content.
Meta has described the legislation as “unworkable,” arguing that the only way to comply is to block news access for Canadian users. Meanwhile, researchers have found that more than half of Canadians still get political news from Facebook.
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