Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 23rd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 30 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), the committee is meeting on its study of the current state of civic resilience in Canada and later, in camera, on its study on the challenges regarding special ballot voting.

Before I continue, I would ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, especially our interpreters. There's a QR code for a short awareness video.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members.

All comments should be addressed through the chair. Members in the room, if you wish to speak, raise your hand. Members on Zoom, use the “raise hand” function. We will manage the speaking order as best we can.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses for today. As individuals, we have Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook chair in media, ethics and communications, McGill University; and Heidi Tworek, director, Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of British Columbia. We also have, from Equal Voice, Lindsay Brumwell, interim executive director.

Each witness will have five minutes to deliver their opening remarks.

We'll go to Professor Tworek for five minutes, please.

[Heidi Tworek, Director, Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of British Columbia, As an Individual]

Thank you so much for inviting me to appear before this committee.

I'm Heidi Tworek, Canada research chair and professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where I direct the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. We focus on platforms and media, including examining online abuse and harassment, elections, and health communications in Canada and globally.

While some of our research indicates comparatively high trust in electoral institutions in Canada, I will focus today on two broader challenges to our democracy: online harassment and generative AI.

First, online harassment of public officials and politicians has become an increasing problem. I began looking at the online abuse of political candidates in the 2019 federal election. Since then, our work has examined many groups of public officials and professionals, including health communicators, journalists and academics. By harassment, I mean intimidation such as death threats or identity-based insults, not rigorous and vigorous democratic debate over important issues that could include, for example, swear words because people feel so strongly.

I'm sorry to report that harassment is worsening, and its effects are very real. In Quebec, for example, 741 of the province's 8,000 local politicians have resigned since 2021. This is almost 10%, and many of them cited online harassment as a reason. Local politicians were surveyed by Canadian Municipal Barometer in 2025, and 63% had experienced harassment.

Online abuse and harassment also silence public officials. Any emergency, whether COVID or wildfires, puts officials into the spotlight. Abuse swiftly follows. Some public agencies are now reluctant to put forward spokespeople at all. Without intervention, this can become a vicious spiral of silence, in which institutions and public officials say less because they fear harassment, thus lessening the quality of our public democratic debate and undermining resilience.

Second, generative AI has supercharged such problems. It lowers the barrier to creating massive volumes of fraud, scams, impersonation, deepfakes and other forms of online harassment. This can happen for political, economic or personal gain, or even for nihilistic violence.

Canadians' increasing use of GenAI chatbots creates new vulnerabilities. Many GenAI providers privilege U.S.-based information, for example. This is even reflected in some tools designed by Canadian institutions to assess the reliability of claims. For example, when I ask such tools questions about health, they privilege answers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control over information from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

A crucial issue here is data voids, which are spaces in which there's little or no high-quality information. A study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that when there were data voids, chatbots in the European Union often reproduced Russian state media, even when those sources were banned. This so-called LLM poisoning enables foreign actors to inject incorrect material that is then reproduced within chatbots without users' knowledge. This is a prime space for foreign interference.

To address these issues, I offer three recommendations.

First, the government can use legislation to address chatbots and many of the transparency issues related to the problems I've described, for example, in a revised online harms act.

For full disclosure, I am a member of the reconvened expert group advising the heritage ministry on online safety, but we, the experts, will have no part in drafting the final bill.

Second, we need to ensure capacity for long-term monitoring across and between elections, rather than providing short-term grants. I support the establishment of a non-partisan Canadian democracy fund, recommended already by so many witnesses. This could complement British Columbia's proposed centre of excellence for democratic engagement, but any funds need to ensure long-term research too.

Finally, it remains vital to provide accurate information via trusted channels to the multicultural, diverse population of Canada and to prevent data voids. Public institutions need communications strategies built for the 2020s and the chatbot age. Communications are often the first thing to go in a budget crunch, but the cost of poor communications is a weakened democracy.

Thank you so much. I look forward to questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to Lindsay Brumwell for five minutes, please.

[Lindsay Brumwell, Interim Executive Director, Equal Voice]

Good morning, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today on behalf of the Equal Voice Foundation.

We are Canada's only national, multipartisan organization dedicated to strengthening women's participation and leadership in political life. We work across party lines, across the country and at all levels of government to help build a more representative, inclusive and resilient democracy.

Today's study on civic resilience is both timely and important. At its core, civic resilience is about whether Canadians continue to believe that our democratic institutions are open, responsive and worth participating in. It's about trust, belonging and confidence that individuals can contribute meaningfully to public life.

One of the clearest ways to strengthen this trust is to ensure that Canadians see themselves reflected in leadership and the decisions they make. According to our national research, Canadians in general do not think politics is very accessible. Less than half believe there are opportunities for Canadians to run or even get involved in politics, and eight out of 10 say that politics are not very welcoming to those who are new to the sector.

When people believe that politics are only for a narrow group of insiders, participation declines. This is why representation matters—not only as a question of fairness but as a matter of democratic strength.

At Equal Voice, we often see barriers arise long before someone even considers becoming a candidate or getting involved. Many talented women are interested in serving their communities but hesitate because politics continues to appear inaccessible, adversarial, financially difficult and incompatible with caregiving and professional responsibilities. Others face harassment, online abuse or simply a lack of encouragement or pathways into public life.

As a result, many capable people self-select before they even reach the starting line. This is a loss not only for individuals but also for Canada as a whole. A resilient democracy depends on drawing leaders from the broadest and strongest possible talent pool. Women are 50% of the talent pool.

We are also increasingly focused, at Equal Voice, on research and evidence. Strong institutions and good training programs need to be evidence-based and need to use real and evolving information. If Canada wants to improve participation, we already know most of the barriers that exist and who is being left out. We also know there are solutions and actions that are effective in addressing many of these barriers. At Equal Voice, we tackle some of these barriers in the quiet time between elections, when the real work needs to happen. This is where Equal Voice continues to show up.

We are also known for our multipartisan model, and support for this approach is only growing. We heard this over the almost 18 months of consultations that went into our new strategic plan: lead, connect, compete and govern.

At a time when many democracies are experiencing polarization, Equal Voice brings women together across political affiliations to build relationships, share experiences and support one another in public life. This unique type of bridge-building is valuable. It reminds us that participation in democratic renewal can rise above partisan divides.

In our experience and research, there are also areas of hope. There's a great deal of untapped interest in getting involved in politics in a volunteer capacity. In our polling, 58% of women are interested in getting into politics at a municipal level. Young women would be more likely to get involved or run if they knew more about the opportunities and process for involvement.

As the committee considers recommendations, we would respectfully offer three areas for consideration.

First, continue supporting public life leadership development initiatives, in the long term, that prepare more Canadians for public life, with both civics training and political literacy training.

Second, recognize harassment and intimidation, particularly online, as real barriers to democratic participation.

Third, continue improving research and data collection on representation, participation trends and the pathways into leadership, so future policy is evidence-based.

Canada's democracy is strong, but strong democracies still require regular reflection. Equal Voice is proud to contribute to this work.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

That was four minutes and 59 seconds. I appreciate that.

We'll go to Professor Owen for five minutes, please.

[Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications, McGill University, As an Individual]

That's impressive.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Two days ago, our researchers at the Canadian Digital Media Research Network published a report on a network of 20 YouTube channels—with nearly 40 million views—targeting Albertan audiences over the past year. The channels use AI-generated avatars of Premier Smith and Prime Minister Carney, paid American voice actors reading templated scripts and maps placing the western provinces as the 51st through 54th states of the United States. Real Albertan grievances are being co-opted and amplified by inauthentic infrastructure at scale six months from a provincial referendum on secession.

Civic resilience in 2026 is not an abstraction. Frontier AI models are advancing on a cadence driven by hundreds of billions of dollars of private investment, concentrated political endorsement across major powers and genuine breakthroughs in capabilities. What follows will almost certainly be a period of rapid social transformation and real upheaval, including labour market shocks, epistemic disruption, reorganized public services and new patterns of political organization and contestation.

What's more, the institutions we've entrusted with our democratic values are not well suited for this moment. Parliaments, courts, regulators, public broadcasters, universities and the press were designed for slower, more deliberative politics. Their legitimacy rests on judgment exercised in public and held to account over time. This cadence is a feature, not a bug, of our democratic system, but it is being asked to hold against a rate of change it was never built for.

Trust has eroded over a decade, in part because these institutions were slow to adapt as the information environment was being remade. They enter this transition already weakened and facing a compounding risk. This weakness is not incidental but is too often sought both by foreign adversaries working to accelerate our institutional decline and by a domestic political current that runs from openly anti-democratic movements to a quieter indifference about whether traditional institutions survive.

Our research has documented three shifts in the information environment that bear directly on the challenge we're about to face.

The first is social fracturing. We've long understood information fragmentation as something that happens within platforms: filter bubbles on Facebook and echo chambers on X. However, when you look at the information environment as one system, which we now do, by tracking coordinated signals across YouTube, X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, Substack and all podcasts, what you see is different. Canadians are being fractured as a country. The Alberta network is one example of how the fracture is produced and exploited. When social cohesion erodes at a moment of open hostility from the United States, so does our sovereignty.

The second is who intermediates information for Canadians. Our work has shown that a majority of political news now reaches Canadians through influencers rather than journalists, and AI systems themselves are now becoming news intermediaries. Our audit of four major AI systems proved that they were trained on Canadian journalism, substituted their own responses for it and rarely credited the newsrooms that produced it. Information integrity was anchored in institutions with editorial standards, libel exposure and professional norms. It's now distributed across individuals and technological systems with none of these yet developed.

The third is AI-native manipulation at scale. The Alberta network produced 12 times more pro-annexation content than all authentic Albertan YouTube channels combined. The scripts were templated, the voices synthesized or paid for and the avatars fabricated. These are not sophisticated operations, though, because they don't need to be. Generative AI has driven the cost of producing such content to near zero, while platforms continue to carry it in Canada to Canadian audiences at scale. The origin and intent of these operations remain unresolved because YouTube holds the data.

In my view, then, civic resilience requires two things built together.

First, we need a regulatory regime that compels platform and AI co-operation with accredited researchers. The legislative vehicles already exist for this: a reintroduced online harms act with strong researcher access provisions, extended to cover consumer-facing AI products.

Second, we need the independent research infrastructure to make those provisions work. Canada is defunding this infrastructure at the moment it most needs it, as my colleague, Aengus Bridgman, testified to this committee last week. As the Hogue commission's 48 recommendations called for, we urgently need a standing national capacity, at arm's length from platforms and government, with structural funding rather than departmental line items that are vulnerable to budget cycles.

Wide-ranging efforts are needed to build civic resilience, as this committee has heard, but none of them will be possible if we don't understand and ensure the integrity of the information environment on which our democracy depends.

Thank you. I look forward to talking about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll go to questions. We'll start with Mr. Cooper for six minutes, please.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll begin with Ms. Brumwell. You stated that participation has declined in terms of...what exactly? You were not clear. Could you elaborate on that?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

It's participation from women candidates. Heidi mentioned the number who are leaving government, as well as those who are not engaging and getting more involved or putting their name forward. It's twofold.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Can you elaborate on the data you have and some of the trends you've identified in that regard?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

Certainly. We have trends showing data from 2017 on and the increase of women who hesitate to get involved and participate by putting their name forward. The trends are continuing to show a lack of interest. It has to do with many of the items that were listed, but we're also finding a lack of support and participation for women who are willing to put their names forward.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

To be clear, has there been an overall decline in the number of women candidates at all levels—federal, provincial and municipal?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

No, it's a mix. Federally, we saw fewer candidates in the last election, but then we were on an upward trend of women candidates. If you look at this at a municipal level, the research and data are spotty. We are seeing differences across the country. In Yukon and B.C., they went past the 50% mark in terms of candidates and elected officials, but in other provinces, we are seeing a decline in participation.

We also plan on submitting a written submission, and I'll lay out our data and evidence in that to help provide more detail if you need it.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Sure.

In terms of where you're seeing a decline, were there upward trends? You alluded to, at the federal level, an upward trend and then a slight decline in 2025.

[Lindsay Brumwell]

Yes. There was across the board—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

You identified similar trends in which a number has moved downward, or are there other factors at play?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

The reasons are some of the ones I listed for the decline, where we've been able to gather them. Yes, in the last election, we had fewer women candidates at the federal level across the board and across all political parties.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

What about in terms of the percentage of women who are getting elected? This has gone up, has it not?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

Federally, it's been static for three elections, at about 30.1% to 30.6%. Even after the by-election, it moved from 30.2% to 30.6%.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

What about at the provincial and municipal levels?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

As I said, it's mixed. B.C. and Yukon are showing highlights and passing 50%, but it's different across all the other provinces.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Okay.

Professor Tworek, in your statement, you referenced that, of 8,000 elected officials in the province of Quebec, 741 have resigned since 2021. This sounds like a fairly high number, but how does it compare to previous years? Do you have any comparative data?

[Heidi Tworek]

Yes. As Lindsay Brumwell said, the data can be a bit spotty, but as far as we can tell, this is a larger number than usual. It represents another part of this trend.

Lindsay was talking about the numbers who run, but we're also seeing people not staying in politics as long. There hasn't been a survey of all 741, but when we did a news scan, looking at as many as we could, many of them were talking about online harassment as one reason. We're also seeing a loss of institutional memory, because people don't want to stand for election again or they resign more swiftly than we've generally seen in the past, with online harassment being one of the reasons often mentioned.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Going back to you, Ms. Brumwell, you cited some of the factors for why there has been a decline in participation, with people self-selecting and not wanting to get involved.

This is not backed up by data, but my observation is that while there's work to do in Canada in terms of participating in political parties, getting involved and running for elected office, and although there are significant barriers, relative to many other comparable jurisdictions, those barriers are far less significant than perhaps those of the United Kingdom, for example.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Lindsay Brumwell]

I can't speak to the United Kingdom or other countries. What I can encourage the committee to do is to look at all levels of government and women's representation in them.

The last comprehensive study that was done by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities still showed that 16% of municipal governments do not have a single woman on city council, or municipal council.

In terms of civics resilience, look at the grassroots, local levels and all levels of government. This shows the more complex barriers and where they still are, versus looking at just a federal level.