Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2025

[Aengus Bridgman]

Yes, we see that young people have more right‑leaning opinions. It’s a very recent phenomenon that we weren’t talking about a few years ago. Now, we are.

Studies conducted in Canada and around the world clearly show that, at this time, opinions expressed online are more right‑leaning. It’s not just on the platform X. Certainly, the discussions happening on that platform among more conservative individuals have increased significantly, but it’s not the only place where they’re happening.

The phenomenon is obviously complex, but generally, centrists and people on the left tend to trust traditional media a bit more. Currently, people on the left are dividing their attention between traditional media, influencers and social networks. People on the right have less trust in traditional media. They therefore seek out news online more and also engage in more online discussion.

The popularity of these platforms gives some weight to the voices of the right. A study published on Media Matters for America in the United States clearly demonstrated that most of the biggest American influencers have a right‑wing ideology. Canadians consume American content. This is also true everywhere in the world.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Morin, we’re listening.

[David Morin]

I would like to add a slight nuance regarding the data.

For our part, we just finished a survey of over 6,500 people.

When we say that young people are on the right, we need to be careful. First, there’s a big difference between young men and young women. That’s major. The answers are very gendered on these questions. Young women are rather left‑leaning, clearly left‑leaning, on a number of social issues.

Then, when we say that young men are on the right, it’s not the majority of young men. There’s an increase in young men who are on the right, but they’re not yet in the majority. That’s very noticeable. I wanted to give these nuances.

Now, we do see it on digital social networks. I mentioned earlier that I also think that, due to the way digital social networks operate, they’re more favourable to a number of right‑wing influencers in their approach to political issues. I say this here without any political or partisan judgment.

Moreover, I also think that the American right—as I mentioned in my introduction—quickly understood how to effectively use digital social networks and make relevant use of them to reach young people. We saw it during Mr. Trump’s election campaign with the late Charlie Kirk, who was indeed able to mobilize a part of the American conservative right.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Chair, do I have a little time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Apparently not.

Thank you.

Mr. Greaves, welcome to the heritage committee. You have the floor now for five minutes.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, colleagues, for having me today.

Thank you to our witnesses for sharing your expertise with us today. This is alarming stuff, but it's important for us to hear. I appreciate your time.

My question, to start, is for anybody, but perhaps Mr. Bridgman might have an answer. I'm curious as to whether there's a standard definition for an “influencer”. How do we determine the threshold that separates an influencer, per se, from anybody online with opinions?

[Aengus Bridgman]

It's an excellent question.

I'm going to give a data-driven definition. In our work we're primarily concerned with political influencers and political influence. What we're looking for are people with a large following who share their opinions online and who trade in the currency of, for better or worse, authenticity. It's somebody who is speaking from their voice and who spends the majority of their time talking about politics.

We have a threshold depending on the platform, but we set the bar in the Canadian context at about 10,000 followers. If you have 10,000 followers or above, and you're primarily producing political content, you get labelled as an influencer.

Various studies have different definitions, but this is the general thing: Are you focusing on political content? Do you have a certain number of followers? Are you speaking on behalf of yourself and with your authentic voice as opposed to an institutional or organizational perspective?

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Excellent.

Mr. Morin, do you agree with this definition?

[David Morin]

Absolutely. You should never contradict a colleague or engage academics in a conceptual debate; otherwise you’ll all end up sleeping here.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

In the same vein, I'm curious if either of you are either aware of any research or have conducted research yourself on what the ideological orientation of this body of influencers is. Do we see a particular tendency in terms of particular places on the political spectrum, or is it not that clear-cut?

[Aengus Bridgman]

It's certain that there is a wide variety of perspectives. Influencers are a very diverse group.

In a recent study, we examined the Canadian influencer map. We were looking at over 1,000 prominent influencers in the Canadian context. One of the striking things about the Canadian context is that there's absolutely an ideological divide, but the largest divide we found in our analysis was about the type of content people focused on.

What we were trying to model is how often people engage in conversations with one another. Having a perspective is one thing. We all have a perspective in politics, but are you actually talking to somebody else about issues you care about? Is there that dialogue happening?

What we found was that in the Canadian context there certainly is a distinctive, smaller right-wing cluster that does not really have a parallel on the left. There are a few, but it's much smaller. The vast majority of engagement and attention is this core set of influencers who are really responding to the day-to-day of politics. They are really generating that conversation from their perspective, but often bringing nuance and interpretation and not bringing that ideology-forward approach.

In some ways, this was very heartening for us in the study. Over and over again, social media studies have demonstrated deep polarization in online spaces. That absolutely exists. There are echo chambers, but in the Canadian context, it does seem that there is this core—I'm sure many of the names are familiar to this committee—that actually just responds to the political news of the day and shares their hot take.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

Continuing on the theme of your remarks, Mr. Bridgman, you used an interesting phrase during your opening statement. You referred to the “loss of intention” that comes by the algorithmic nature of these platforms. If we think back, there was a lot of optimism about the increase in freedom that the Internet and social media might bring to individuals, with the democratization of information, etc. Your comments and, of course, many other indicators suggest that this might be a little bit of a misleading understanding of the current context, especially given the presence or the role of these very large tech companies in dominating this space.

Would you agree with the assessment that having 81% of youth getting their news from social media and social media being dominated by a small number of large companies...? Does that actually increase or restrict the freedom to access information that individuals in a society might enjoy?

[Aengus Bridgman]

I'm deeply concerned about the ability of individuals to access information. I think it is partly because of the algorithmic filtering. It is partly, as well, because of the isolation that occurs in online spaces. When I think about the radicalization stuff, people seek connection online but they often find isolation. What I mean by isolation is ideological isolation. It's isolation in terms of a particular community, where you lose that broader perspective. I think this can happen.

Thank you for picking up on the intention comment, because I think this is one of the defining features of our current information environment. It's the ceding of intention. It's the ceding of agency to social algorithms. What's remarkable is that Canadians really don't trust social media platforms. They don't trust social media platforms to act in the public good, for many of the reasons that some of my colleagues highlighted. They say that, but actually, in their behaviour—their day-to-day behaviour and the way they engage in the platforms—they place enormous trust in the algorithm to show them what it does. You see this repeatedly, particularly on TikTok. The explosive growth of TikTok is exactly because people believe the algorithm is showing them things they need to see. Untangling that will be critical to moving forward on this problem and to addressing what I think is an information-seeking agency crisis in the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

There are more and more questions all the time. We've had very interesting testimony today.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

It’s true that we often find more questions than answers, but we still have to keep asking them.

I come back to you, Mr. Morin.

We talked earlier about different axes of radicalization. We talked about religion, which is one of the commonly used paths. We also talked about masculinism, which you mentioned a little earlier, and about which you testified earlier this week at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, if I’m not mistaken.

What are the other trends that are, let’s say, popular among manipulators?

Is it possible to predict trends? Can we observe them to better equip ourselves and better prepare our youth, who are the targets?

[David Morin]

Obviously, you saw this summer that four people were arrested by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, two of whom were members of the Canadian Armed Forces. It is one of the main sources of concern for security services in Canada at the moment. Right‑wing and anti‑government extremism interact quite a bit. Currently, it’s a source of concern for both national security and public safety, as there’s a lot of resistance toward institutions and so on. It’s a movement that has obviously been very present in the western space for a decade.

I would say that in North America, right now, it’s as concerning as the jihadist threat for our intelligence services. It’s difficult to deter these elements.

I would like to add one point to answer your question and continue the thinking on the previous question.

When we look at the radical ecosystems and influencers, we realize that to a degree, it mirrors the two solitudes in Canada: an English‑speaking ecosystem and a French‑speaking ecosystem.

The English‑speaking ecosystem is heavily influenced by major American influencers, like the Tucker Carlsons of this world, among others. They really have a very significant influence.

The French‑speaking ecosystem, particularly in Quebec, is more linked to French influencers. During the pandemic, we saw a lot of exchanges, and not just virtual exchanges. Today, there are influencer invitations on both sides. These two ecosystems represent a very important trend.

The second trend, and I’ll stop there, is the desire of alternative influencers to reach a large audience, nevertheless. Obviously, I’m talking more about radical influencers who seek to enter the public space.

The member was saying earlier that he watches a lot of TV, which I do too. I think these influencers still have a desire to exist in the public space. They’re trying to get invited to more mainstream platforms, the public platforms, and we’ve seen that a lot since the pandemic.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

It’s interesting to see that the older generation isn’t the only one still watching TV. So there’s hope.

I’ll stop there because I’m looking forward to Ms. Carignan joining the conversation, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Before we move on, I'm just going to ask another question of my own, because I noted that, Ms. Paul, you talked about the social media algorithms being very intentional with how they are attracting their dollars and how these algorithms are being used to run their business. From Mr. Bridgman, we heard lots also on algorithms being the key part of the problem.

Mr. Bridgman, you said that it's a key lever that is available to us, but we've had Meta at this table, at heritage committee. They tell us that their algorithm is their key value proposition and the government can't touch that. Perhaps you have some suggestions on what exactly we can do as the Canadian government about these algorithms.

[Aengus Bridgman]

The social media platforms will stand here and say, you can touch nothing about our business model. Nothing about our business model is adjustable to any national government. We are above any single national government. They will say that repeatedly and they will say that with regard to ads. They will say, this is an international problem. This is tricky. You can't.... Okay. Fine. That is their perspective, but it is not the perspective that the national government has to take.

The stuff that platforms are able to do, the ads that they are able to promote, the complexity of their systems, has made them feel invulnerable and ungovernable in this day and age, and I think countries around the world have struggled with governance. We are starting to see some of these pieces fall into line. Next week, in Australia, an under-16 social media ban is going into effect. This is very far-reaching and it's going to be very interesting, and I strongly encourage the committee to evaluate how that goes. It's very pertinent to this subject of study.

These things are absolutely controlled by dials, switches and decisions within these platforms, and they are very responsive to different governments who impose fines, who impose incentives. I think this is the one thing that I really would like to emphasize. The way internally these companies are going to think about this is this: What is the cost to implementing a solution here? What is the cost to an algorithmic change? What is the cost for better screening ads? What is the cost for changing things? How much engineering time and effort is that going to take? That is a business decision. It's a probabilistic business decision. As a regulator, what you have to do, what you have to think about, is how you change that knob in favour of youth health. How do you change that knob in favour of democratic interest? How do you impose on these platforms a cost associated with bad behaviour?

I just want to finish this remark by saying I am old enough to remember Saturday morning cartoons. There were ads on Saturday morning cartoons. If some of the ads that occurred on Meta had been shown on Saturday morning cartoons, those TV stations would have been shut down. There would not have been this hand-wringing. If the TV station said, “No, that's just our business model; we can't do that,” that would have been completely unacceptable, but for some reason, with these large tech platforms, we have ceded this ground. We've said that it's too complicated. I think we really need to remind ourselves that actually that's a choice. They are governable. They operate within our boundaries. They access an enormous Canadian market. It's incredibly profitable for them and they will respond to economic incentives to improve their behaviour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Ms. Paul, do you have something to add?

[Katie Paul]

Yes. I would really like to echo what Mr. Bridgman said. I think it's critical to understand that these companies are completely capable of addressing these issues and only do so when there are repercussions. For instance, as I mentioned, we see ads for drug trafficking and weapons trafficking on these platforms. We see Meta profiting from human smuggling in North America. One of the things we don't see ads for is child sex abuse material, and that's because the legal consequences of even hosting that content are significant. It's proof that the companies are completely capable of addressing these issues and are choosing not to do so when there are not financial or regulatory repercussions.

One of the things they like to highlight is these cost-cutting measures of removing moderators and relying increasingly on AI to become a more financially nimble company. We've seen them fire thousands of content moderators in trust and safety, while at the same time, Meta just offered a historic quarter-billion dollar contract to a single AI engineer as part of its efforts to poach that engineer from another company. It's clear that their efforts are not keyed towards safety in any way but towards maximizing profit at any cost.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you very much.

I would like to welcome our next witness to committee, Marie-Eve Carignan. She is another professor from the Université de Sherbrooke, and she is here with UNESCO. Welcome.

We would like to give you five minutes for an opening statement.

[Marie-Eve Carignan, Full Professor, UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, Université de Sherbrooke, as an individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank the members of the committee for inviting me to appear before them today.

Indeed, I speak on behalf of the UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, and in my own name, as a full professor at the Université de Sherbrooke.

We are particularly concerned about the misinformation that affects young people through online content. This affects not only young people but also the entire population. I think it’s a global issue that needs to be addressed for both the population as a whole and for young people.

Several forward‑looking reports indicate that disinformation and misinformation are major issues, both in the short and medium terms, for our society and democratic societies. We can think of the World Economic Forum, which published a report in 2024, or of Policy Horizons Canada, which really highlights the major risks to democracy. People will no longer be able to distinguish the truth from lies, or from hateful content and polarizing content to which they’ll be exposed online. Furthermore, the rise of artificial intelligence makes it difficult for people to distinguish between what’s true and what’s false.

Young people are directly exposed to this disinformation, often without context and without a perspective that allows them to understand what’s false and what’s true. They don’t know if, behind that, there are economic, political or malicious interests that underlie the content they’re exposed to. Many young people are circumventing the rules of the platforms. They create accounts on platforms that are not suitable for their age. It’s very difficult to monitor and supervise. I’m sure we can talk again about how we need to regulate the presence of young people on these platforms.

Parents try to control the online content that young people are exposed to, but it’s a challenge for parents who don’t always have the tools to properly guide young people’s online practices. This framework is very difficult, as it can make young people feel like they’re being watched, which creates family tensions while we’re trying to have a good overview of the practices to which young people will be subjected online. Disinformation poses risks for society as a whole, both for the young and the not‑so‑young.

The report entitled “Fault Lines” from the Council of Canadian Academies, which I had the pleasure of participating in as an expert, indicated that there were consequences at different levels, namely for society, communities and individuals.

From a societal standpoint, disinformation can lead to political polarization, risks of democratic drift, a decline in public trust in political, economic, media and scientific institutions, and inaction on various issues such as climate change.

From a community standpoint, this can lead to a low adherence to public health measures, resulting in risks of epidemics and preventable diseases, vaccine refusal and a significant increase in health care system costs.

From an individual standpoint, this can lead to health risks, even the risk of death, due to poor decisions and money spent on products that are dangerous or even ineffective. This also concerns young people who are at risk of adopting these behaviours to which they’ve been exposed online, putting them at risk from an individual, community or social standpoint.

Disinformation and the role of disinformation actors, particularly influencers, are a matter of concern for all Canadians. The Digital News Report 2025 highlights that 54% of Canadian respondents consider influencers and online personalities as significant threats in terms of misleading information online, which poses a risk to our populations and to the youth who are exposed to it. We can think of the 2024 NETendances report, which highlights that 59% of young people aged 18 to 34 follow at least one online influencer. A proportion of 45% of young people say they spend more than three hours a day on social media.

In addition, data on young people under 18 is highlighted this month in a report from Sidaction in France, which shows that a large majority of young people are aware of and follow online masculinist influencers.

Media literacy is becoming an important skill to protect young people from this disinformation. This is not a uniform skill. It will be administered somewhat sporadically, as teachers do not all have the same abilities to educate young people about the risks associated with platforms and media literacy.

As part of the work of the UNESCO Chair in the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism, we’re particularly interested in media education and various initiatives implemented by stakeholders, such as the #30sec to check it out grants from the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, the Départager le vrai du faux sur le web initiative from the Agence Science-Presse, or the initiatives from Les As de l’info.

We find that one‑time initiatives like these really have an impact on young people. They help them find more reliable information. This can even have a very direct and effective impact on countering radicalization, bringing a pollinator discourse into families that will help nuance opinions, even among more radical parents.

Exposure to the right information is important, but exposure to media education also allows young people to make their own choices as consumers of content. At least, it can enlighten them. They can know what content they’re exposed to, namely whether it’s professional or journalistic content, or if it’s ideologically oriented content. They can also know who is broadcasting it. Digital social networks are certainly a place of vulnerability for young people.

We can talk in particular about the exposure of young people to conspiracy content and offensive content that can disturb them and leave a lasting impact if they’ve been exposed to this. Several studies show that young people are even unintentionally exposed to sexual and violent content online. It can desensitize them, and it seeks to desensitize them and make them adopt radical ideas. Several groups operate deliberately like that. They will adopt social media and online gaming apps to manipulate and reach young people. Some platforms, like Kick, are used to promote violence freely and to make this violence acceptable to young people. A French influencer passed away this summer, precisely due to practices that normalize violence and encourage acceptance of it.

Social media is becoming an environment for recruiting young people. Different extremist groups, jihadists, those involved in organized crime or those focused on sex or violence, target young people online. Cyber-criminal networks like 764 or criminal groups like The Com primarily target young people aged 8 to 17, who are impressionable, to lead them to commit violent acts, self‑harm, torture or kill animals, produce child sexual exploitation material or even commit suicide. The violence of these acts often intensifies over time.

These platforms are sources of harassment and hate speech for young people. We must therefore be concerned about it.

We need to think about solutions such as funding quality media and information education for young people, which will allow them to recontextualize the information they’re exposed to, and media education initiatives, like the one I mentioned and that we studied.

We also need to think about initiatives to provide communication tools to parents to help them better interact with their youth, better assess problematic situations, discuss them with their youth and better evaluate the communication practices of young people.

We need to provide teachers with tools so they can better raise awareness about the media.

We need to better regulate access to platforms for young people and better regulate access to hate speech, cyber-bullying and violence, not only among young people but also across the entire population, as this is an issue that affects everyone.

Finally, I believe we need to conduct more research to understand online manipulation tactics and the groups that target the general population with hate speech, but particularly young people, so that we can intervene. We really need to continue researching these issues to gain a better understanding of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

That’s very interesting. Thank you very much.

Mr. Waugh, I will now give you the floor for five minutes.