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Surveys Showing Large Majority of Canadians Want Laws Enacted Requiring Honesty in Politics to Stop Disinformation, Misinformation and AI Deepfakes from Undermining Elections and Other Political Processes

(as of June 2026, in reverse chronological order)

(Also click here to see the list of surveys showing that only about 25% of Canadian voters trust politicians and governments)


  1. A national survey in October 2025 of 2,028 adult Canadians found that 88% think AI-generated misinformation will become one of the biggest challenges facing society.
  2. A national survey in September 2025 of more than 5,400 adult Canadians found that 90% want Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulated.
  3. A national survey in August 2025 of 1,518 adult Canadians found that 78% believe that AI spreads false information during elections, and 85% believe AI should be regulated by governments to ensure ethical and safe use.
  4. A national survey in March-April 2025 of more than 4,800 Canadian voters found that 80% were concerned about AI-generated misleading content online, and that 80% support penalties for AI-generated misinformation.
  5. A national survey in January 2025 of just over 2,500 adult Canadians found that 71% had seen false news they initially believed to be true and later discovered to be false, and 38% saw false news multiple times each week, and 67% saw AI deepfakes at least a few times each year, and 68% believe that false information online is a threat to Canada’s democracy and reducing it is more important than protecting freedom of expression, and governments should regulate social media companies to stop false posts (and 80% support requiring the companies to remove false posts from their sites).
  6. A national survey in April 2024 of 2,001 adult Canadians found that 80% are concerned about AI being used to spread misinformation during elections, and 62% are either unsure or not confident that they would be able to tell if something was AI false information (click here for details).
  7. A national survey in 2025 of more than 5,500 adult Canadians found that 88% want AI regulated.
  8. A national survey in fall 2023 of more than 4,900 adult Canadians found that 78% want AI strictly regulated.
  9. A national survey in 2021 (p. 15) found 71% of Canadian voters want government regulation of social media companies and sites to reducing the amount of hate speech, harassment and false information (especially false information concerning politics) online.
  10. A national survey in 2021 of 2,000 Canadian youth showed (on p. 5) that 70-75% want increased federal regulations for news outlets and social media platforms to regulate content and news shared on their websites/platforms to ensure it is accurate.
  11. A national citizen assembly that met in 2021 produced a report calling for a strict, strong law and an independent, empowered enforcement agency to prevent and prohibit disinformation and penalize Internet and social media companies that allow disinformation to be posted (see recommendations 7.5 to 7.18 on pp. 35-37 of the report).