Last Week’s News Comedically: The Canadian Election, Trust, and Truth

News Covering: April 18, 2025 – April 24, 2025

It seems all the American late-night shows that I typically take a look at were off this week. For me, that’s alright, because instead I get to turn to Canadian politics, where our federal election is this upcoming Monday. This Hour Has 22 Minutes came out with a hilarious election special this past week, which I watched front to back. Featuring interviews the various federal leaders, as well as their attempts to reach Pierre Poilievre.

I’ve always had an interest in This Hour Has 22 Minutes, but even more so now that we are in an election, and even further so, since I’m still listening to Rick Mercer’s Talking to Canadians. Right now, I’m actually at the part where he’s discussing his time on the show, and it has been a ball through and through. I do highly recommend.

Now as we look at elections and as we look at public opinion, I think we also need to turn to the question of how people get their news. Now I’m sure it’s no surprise that the younger generations get some of their news from social media, but they’re also getting their political information from social media as well.

In a recent survey of young Canadians from Leger, 38% of respondents aged 18-34 said they got most of their political information from social media. Now respondents were able to select up to two options from the list, but I believe the results from the survey to still paint an interesting picture.

• Social media – 38%
• News websites – 33%
• By talking to people around me – 24%
• Television – 23%
• YouTube or other video platforms – 21%
• Radio – 10%
• Following creators or influencers who talk about politics – 6%
• Spotify or other podcast platforms – 5%
• Other – 1%
• I don’t follow politics – 8%

I think there is a challenge with this question since respondents were able to select more than one option. It would have been interesting to see what the responses would have been had they only been able to select one. But you can see that there is also some overlap in some of those questions as well. Take for example, social media and then creators or influencers who talk about politics. There’s an odd overlap with those two selections. Then again you can take that same creator option and apply it to the podcast option and the YouTube option as well.

Flaws aside, you can still see that there is clearly a combined interest in those areas over more traditional methods such as news websites, television, and radio, even if it is pretty close.

Another thing the Leger survey looks at is trust in the media and mis/disinformation. I think there are some questions in this section that are particularly interesting. For respondents aged 18-34, 71% agreed that it was getting harder and harder to distinguish real from fake information, 69% agreed that they often distrust the political content they see online, and 68% agreed that they trust their own judgement rather than the media or experts to tell them what is true.

From this you can see that young Canadians believe it’s getting harder to identify real from fake information, that they distrust the political information they see online, and that they also trust their judgement more than media or experts.

So, my question is: what exactly is happening? Young people seem to be getting their political information from mostly online sources (like social media, YouTube, influencers, and podcasts) and traditional sources (news websites, television, and radio), and yet they don’t seem to actually trust these sources.

Now if we look back at the first results I talked about, 24% had selected that they get their political information from people they talk to. While we don’t have a direct indicator as to whether or not young Canadians trust these people, I’m going to lean with no again. And I say this because in this survey, a whopping 78% of respondents agreed that online misinformation influences voters’ electoral choices. Which means that voters (aged 18-34) believe other voters are at least a little misinformed.

So, who do we trust? If we can’t trust the media, social media, or even our fellow voters? Do we just trust in ourselves, to see if we can figure out what’s real and what’s not?

It kind of seems like yes and no. In another survey, this time from Abacus Data, 62% of Canadians believe that they can detect disinformation when they see it. But, 82% of Canadians also believe that developments in artificial intelligence are making it harder to be sure whether something is real or fake. And when asked if they’re confident they can identify AI-generated content (like fake news articles or deepfake videos during an election) only 38% agreed they could.

I think we are in an interesting situation, where trust in information, trust in each other, and trust in ourselves is becoming increasingly challenging. I think we really need a comprehensive Canadian survey on trust and truth. I think we need to ask more questions about how people get their news and information, who they trust to give them that information, and look at a deeper understanding of how they feel about themselves interpreting and believing that information. One thing I really like, and I’ve heard it from both David Colletto (from Abacus Data) and Nik Nanos (from Nanos Research), is that we need to ask questions about our neighbours or people around us. Sometimes this ends up being a more effective way to get accurate results. They talk about this in a public opinion sense, but I would be curious what people say about themselves vs what they say about others when it comes to trust and false information.

For example, these questions:

• Do you believe you can identify false political information?
• Do you believe that most Canadians can identify false information?
• Do you believe that you are more capable than the average Canadian at identifying false information?

I think these would interesting questions to explore. You’re gauging how people feel about themselves, their fellow Canadians, and if they’re better at identifying false information. I also think it would be interesting to ask those questions, and also ask if they trust their friends or family when they’re provided new information from them.

• Do you trust your family members or friends when they provide you with political information?

If you were really going for it, you would additionally provide true and false examples of political information and see if respondents could identify the true from the false.

There are a lot of challenges facing us when it comes to information, online news, and trust in media and each other. And I am really looking forward to any more research that comes out on this topic as we continue to explore how people consume news and political information.