The NDP has called on the elections commissioner to find out what’s behind an army of social media bots supporting Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
New Democrats said the social media platform X was inundated with posts after Poilievre’s tour of Northern Ontario in July.
These posts claimed to be from people who attended a Poilievre event in Kirkland Lake, Ont. They were actually generated by accounts in Russia, France and other places, and many of them have similar messaging.
Charlie Angus, one of the NDP’s MPs from the region, suggested the Conservatives were behind the operation and that it had misfired. At least one account said they had to “brave the cold to attend” the rally in Kirkland Lake.
“This was done so badly where these bots were claiming they had to go through the cold in Northern Ontario at a time of a huge heat wave,” Angus said. “I think it’s made them look ridiculous.”
The Conservatives denied any role in the bot campaign.
“It is unsurprising that the NDP is once again spreading baseless conspiracy theories and that the CBC is choosing to amplify it,” said Sarah Fischer, communications director for the Conservative Party of Canada.
“The CPC does not pay for bots and has no idea who is behind these accounts. We are seeking the support of actual Canadians, as witnessed by large in-person turnouts at our events.”
In his letter to the elections commissioner, Angus called on the office to ensure that neither the Conservative Party of Canada nor the local electoral district paid for what could qualify under the law as third-party advertising.
The letter says the NDP wants the commissioner to ensure that whoever created the posts resided in Canada and complied with the advertising rules under the Canada Elections Act.
The letter also suggests that foreign actors could be behind the online activity.
“If a foreign third-party independently undertook to falsely advertise a narrative for Mr. Poilievre’s event, appropriate remedies are applied,” says Angus’s letter.
The office of Canada’s elections commissioner confirmed it received the letter but would not say what steps the office is taking, if any.
“That said, as we do with any complaint sent to the commissioner, all allegations are taken seriously and evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” said Myriam Croussette, a spokesperson for the commissioner of Canada elections.
“This serves to determine if the issue falls within our mandate and if a review or an investigation is warranted.”
Fischer said the same types of bot accounts promote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Health Minister Mark Holland, speaking after Conservatives rejected an allegation that the party used bot farms to post online content, says there are ‘a lot of questions that have to be asked’ and encouraged people to be circumspect about what they see online.
Liberal Party spokesperson Parker Lund said the party does not use or interact with online bots.
“It’s extremely alarming that ‘bots’ were posing as fake Pierre Poilievre supporters and boosting the Conservative Party’s messaging over the weekend,” Lund said.
Liberal Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe wrote a letter to X CEO Elon Musk calling on his company to publicly share any information about the “anti-democratic incident” and its source.
“It’s extremely alarming that these ‘bots’, many geo-tagged as being in locations around the world, were boosting and repeating the exact same Conservative Party messaging, all falsely claiming to have attended the rally,” Lapointe’s letter says.
“This is blatant online manipulation designed to influence public opinion with disinformation and to interfere in Canada’s public discourse and democratic processes.”
Academics who study the use of technology in political campaigns tell the CBC they hope the election commissioner looks into the matter.
‘Astroturfing’ and election advertising
Elizabeth Dubois, the University of Ottawa research chair in politics and communication technology, said the evidence suggests that this may be a case of what experts call “astroturfing” — online operations crafted to create a false appearance of grassroots social media activity.
Dubois said it appears someone created hundreds of accounts that are not associated with real people from Northern Ontario.
Aside from being misleading, Dubois said such campaigns raise questions about whether a foreign actor is paying for what could amount to election advertising.
“We have pretty strict rules about how much money can be spent on things like election advertising, how it gets reported, who’s allowed to purchase it. Foreign actors, for example, are not supposed to be paying to promote messages within our electoral system,” she said.
While Dubois said she doesn’t think the July incident influenced anyone’s support for a political party, she does think it could undermine confidence in the democratic system. She said she also thinks such astroturfing operations could become more effective as the use of generative artificial intelligence becomes more widespread.
Dubois said generative AI could be used to create posts that promote the same political message in 100 different ways, making it hard to detect whether a real person is behind the account.
Fenwick McKelvey, the coordinator of Concordia University’s Applied AI Institute, said he believes the elections commissioner should have investigated the use of bots in political campaigning years ago. He said Canada’s political parties should also be made subject to Canada’s federal data and privacy protection legislation.
Political parties collect and use massive amounts of voter data — names, dates of birth, ethnic backgrounds, opinions and home addresses — with little oversight.
“This is a bed that political parties have kind of made for themselves and that they really haven’t wanted to step up toward more accountability in their election practices,” McKelvey said.