That's an excellent question.
I'll start my answer by saying that influencers are here to stay. Right now, that's how young people take an interest in political content, and that will continue. It's true that our research team observed a shift in mindset in 2025. More than half of political content and engagement was playing out that way. This is a dynamic that's being observed around the world, not just in Canada. There has been a shift in the way information is consumed. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's important to be careful.
During an election, there are certainly a lot of rules surrounding spending limits and what can be said or promoted during a campaign. Influencers are like a new entity. They're different from traditional media and organizations, but they have a much deeper impact on the opinions and behaviours of Canadians. That means it's important to think about how the law will deal with that. How will it treat this new group, which has much more influence than all the other groups, but which isn't regulated in the same way?
Here's an idea. Lauren Southern appeared before the committee one year ago. She's a major Canadian-born influencer, but she now lives in the United States. She was involved in the Tenet Media scandal; some $10 million originally from Russia had been used to support a group of influencers in Canada and the United States. In her testimony, she said that she was just a small media organization with little money. She said that was her position in her remarks. Okay, but if she's a real organization, if she's a company, and if she pays taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency, then she isn't just an influencer. We have to stop thinking about an influencer as a single person. In fact, influencers have editors, researchers and an entire infrastructure. It's true that, in Canada, there's less money in all of this and there are fewer people like that. However, in the United States, an influencer is a media outlet. When people talk about Joe Rogan, they're talking about not just Mr. Rogan, but also his entire team and all the infrastructure behind him. In fact, he and his team have more impact on American politics than all the rest of the media and all the other traditional actors.
Personally, I think it's really worth reflecting and taking action to formalize or limit the role of influencers in the ecosystem. I think a good start would be to do so through the Canada Elections Act.