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Why some Ontario voters are turning to AI chatbots for 2026 municipal elections
Some Ontario voters turn to AI for election info
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Eric Apps had an inkling of who would get his vote in Toronto’s municipal election, but the lawyer wanted a second opinion before making his final decision.
In Parkdale-High Park, his usual safe choice in longtime councillor Gord Perks was taken away when the 63-year-old decided to retire. The race for the city’s west-end ward has ballooned to 10 candidates — none of whom Apps is familiar with.
He turned to a system he was familiar with: Claude, Anthropic's artificial intelligence chatbot. Apps asked the bot for the top five polling candidates in his ward and their policies on issues such as bike lanes, housing and property taxes.
"It laid them all out in a very easily digestible format," he said.
Apps is not the only one turning to AI for election information. During Quebec's provincial election earlier this month, an estimated 40 per cent of the province's voters turned to AI chatbots and received false and outdated information about the election, according to McGill University researchers. Many Quebec news outlets don't allow chatbots to access their websites, so their reports cannot be mined for users' queries.
Experts say this marks a troubling shift in the democratic process, where citizen engagement and human judgment is superseded by some algorithms that could be providing false information.
There were a few gaps in Apps' own search, he noted. The chatbot could not provide much information on candidates who weren’t as widely reported on by news outlets or who didn't have very active online presences. He acknowledged that some of the gaps could be related to the parameters of his questions.
“The blind spots are probably in the eyes of the beholders,” Apps said. “If you have your point of view going into it, then it probably is going to be giving back information that is not necessarily going to focus on opening your eyes.”
Alissa Centivany, an associate professor of Information and media studies at Western University, said artificial intelligence bots have replaced traditional search engines, such as Google, and reliable media platforms, such as news organizations' websites.
For some voters, chatbots have become their main method of seeking information.
For AI researchers like Centivany, it remains unclear what an AI chatbot’s "technical process" is as it scrapes the internet for information. Centivany notes that the quality of information AI chatbots can compile is often lower than she would hope for, especially in the context of political elections.
One concerning element, she said, is that the mishmash of information it gathers can include user-generated content from social media sites like Reddit. Centivany said researchers are starting to see evidence of how a bot will compile information based on what they think a user will want to hear, based on past queries, as opposed to objective facts.
“A lot of it is opinion, a lot of it is untrue, a lot of it is inflammatory,” she said. “And it’s being used as a source of information.”
As he asked Claude more questions about candidates in his ward, Apps said he was also keenly aware of its limitations, especially with the influx of content on social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram.
"You have to take your AI engine with a grain of salt," he said. "It gave me the basic information and then it puts it back to the viewer."
The accessibility of the AI platforms made political participation easier, Apps said. While he considers himself somewhat politically aware, he said the chatbot acted as an information "refresher."
"You ask it a question and it gives you an answer," he said. "It's not giving you glossy videos with clickbait-ish headlines."
Anthropic said Claude uses web search to find up-to-date information and shows its sourcing so users can "judge their credibility for themselves."
"Claude is trained to note when claims are disputed, when sources conflict, or when a source may be inaccurate or have an agenda," the company said in a statement to The Canadian Press.
Earlier this month, Anthropic announced new updates to its usage policies, which included a "refocusing" of their elections section and political content restrictions.
"We’ve further sharpened our section on elections, focusing it specifically on disallowing the use of Claude to deceive voters or disrupt elections (for instance, by spreading false information about candidates or how to vote, impersonating candidates or election officials, or trying to suppress turnout)," the company's news release read.
Alex Marland, a professor of Canadian politics and the Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at Acadia University, said it makes sense that voters would turn to an accessible tool such as AI for information about candidates in elections.
Typically, people might vote for the political party they most align with, but candidates in Ontario municipal elections are not affiliated with a party.
“What ends up happening is you have to invest a lot more time to try to understand, 'What are my choices and what do these people stand for?'" Marland said.
It’s a positive sign that voters want to get engaged in municipal politics, Marland said, since Ontario’s last municipal election had record-low voter turnout. According to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the average voter turnout in the 2022 was almost 33 per cent, compared to roughly 38 per cent in 2018.
But it’s up to users to be vigilant in fact-checking the information they’re receiving, Marland added.
“This is a piece of information that is going in with other pieces of information."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2026.
By Sadeen Mohsen | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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B.C. election at a glance: Hand count for most votes due to snap call's 'logistics'
B.C. election: Hand count for most votes
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
It's the last full day of campaigning in British Columbia's election ahead of final voting day Saturday.
Here's a look at some of the latest developments on the campaign trail.
HAND COUNT FOR MOST BALLOTS
Elections BC has confirmed that votes cast on election day will be tallied manually, in a departure from 2024, when electronic tabulators were used to count paper ballots for the first time in a general election.
That was hailed as a success in Elections BC's report on the polls, but the agency says in a statement that it's going back to a manual count due to "short time frames and complex operational logistics of a snap election."
It says paper ballots cast at advance polling stations and at district electoral offices will still be counted with electronic tabulators, and it expects those results to be reported first after ballots close at 8 p.m.
Elections BC also says the election-night count will not include absentee or mail-in ballots, which will be tallied at the final count scheduled for Nov. 6 to Nov. 10.
Elections BC's report on the 2024 election says electronic tabulation allowed the first preliminary results to be reported within five minutes of polls closing, and 59 per cent of preliminary results to reported within half an hour.
It said that in past elections first results typically started to be reported around 45 minutes after polls closed.
DOERKSON RALLIES WITH CLARK AND MCCALLUM
The B.C. Conservatives held a rally in Surrey on Thursday night, with mayor-elect Doug McCallum endorsing Lorne Doerkson as the province's next premier.
Also present at the rally were former B.C. premier Christy Clark, and former Surrey mayors Linda Hepner and Dianne Watts.
McCallum told the rally that he was standing with people who had changed Surrey and it was time to change B.C.
The 82-year-old McCallum is about to embark on his third separate stint as Surrey's mayor, after defeating incumbent Brenda Locke in the Oct. 17 municipal elections.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.
By Canadian Press Staff | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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What we know and don't know about the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright
What we know about the fire at CFB Wainwright
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Ulan
Military officials provided an update Thursday on the investigation into the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright earlier this month.
Officials say four soldiers were killed and dozens more were injured when a fire swept over the base on Oct. 17. On Thursday, officials said 27 injured soldiers remained in various hospitals, with 13 in critical condition. Twelve others have since been released.
The dead have been identified as: Pte. Shaun Farrell, 23, of Prince Albert, Sask.; Pte. Aidan Goulding, 23, of North Vancouver; Pte. Hayden Lykkemark, 19, of Langley, B.C.; and Sgt. Morgan Wong, 26, of Edmonton.
Here's what we know and don't know so far about the events of Oct. 17.
When and how did the fire start?
The fire started "as a result of a training event that was taking place on the anti-grenade launcher range," Brig.-Gen. Vanessa Hanrahan, head of the military police, told Thursday's press briefing. She said the training was "routine."
It's not clear exactly how the fire started. Officials said no gas infrastructure was damaged. Hanrahan told reporters there was "no indication that there was an explosion of any kind that resulted in the fire" or that an explosion was triggered by the fire.
Maj.-Gen. Wade Rutland of the 1st Canadian Division told reporters that, just before 4 p.m. local time, the fire spread to the pairs range, where soldiers train in pairs to provide covering fire.
Why did they continue training despite the fire?
Military officials wouldn't touch on that question when pressed by reporters Thursday. Hanrahan said it's part of the military police investigation.
"The investigative team is still out there determining all of the decision-making that happened once the fire started, up to and including when they responded to the incident involving the tragedies of today," she said.
"So it would be inappropriate for me to speculate now about all of those decisions and any of the other aspects of the investigation. Once the investigative team has time to review all the evidence and do what it is they need to do, I'll be in a better position to provide accurate information."
How did the fire spread so quickly?
On Thursday, Rutland said high winds contributed to the fire's spread.
"Uncommonly high winds took a pre-existing range fire towards the pairs range and it overtook (the soldiers') position," he said.
"The fire crossed the base fire guard and burned beyond the training base."
Hanrahan said in her opening remarks that firefighters were unable to suppress the fire because it was in a "permanent danger area" of the base. Instead, the fire was being monitored, she said.
Permanent danger areas can be contaminated with unexploded munitions.
What were the soldiers doing at the time of the fire?
Rutland began his part of the briefing by correcting information he had given previously.
"I said the injured soldiers were conducting a section attack range. This was incorrect," Rutland said.
"They were setting up for a pairs range. This is where two soldiers attack a target, taking turns covering and firing for one another. In our training sequence, soldiers re-qualify on their weapon individually, then conduct a pairs range, and then move on to the next progression, which is a section attack range."
Who is leading the investigation and how long will it take?
There are several investigations in the works and it's not clear how long they'll take.
A military-led board of inquiry will look into the broader circumstances and make recommendations.
"Normally, those investigations are done to illustrate systemic issues for us to take actions on," Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan said Thursday.
The military says a board of inquiry is “a fact-finding investigation” to determine how an incident happened and how similar incidents can be prevented in the future.
Rutland said previously the overall investigation would take at least a month, but on Thursday he broadened that timeline to account for the inquiry.
"This underestimated the scope of the upcoming board of inquiry, which will take as long as it takes to examine all facets of the situation," he said.
Hanrahan said that inquiry has not been launched but it will be in the "near future."
Hanrahan said the military police investigation is being conducted "independently from the Canadian Armed Forces chain of command."
"Their role is to establish the facts and determine whether any criminal or service offence may have occurred," she told reporters, adding 30 people are working on the investigation.
"The involvement of the military police should not be interpreted as an indication that an offence has taken place."
She said the investigation's findings will "be provided to Canadians" but did not say how long it will take.
The Alberta Chief Medical Examiner's office, which probes fatalities in the province, is also conducting an investigation. No timeline was provided for that investigation either.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.
— With files from Kyle Duggan and Nick Murray in Ottawa
By The Canadian Press | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Voici quand tu devrais «booker» tes vacances pour voyager durant les fériés 2023 au Canada
Va falloir t'y prendre d'avance si tu veux avoir du choix!
Chalet mignon devant un lac avec feu extérieur pour faire griller des guimauves, villa sur la plage avec vue sur de magnifiques couchers de soleil, ce n'est pas pour rien que ces logements de rêve se booke comme de petits pains chauds. Afin de t'aider à mettre toutes les chances de ton côté, l’entreprise de location de maisons de vacances, Vrbo, une filiale d'Expedia, a publié les meilleures dates pour faire la réservation de ton logement.
Selon la compagnie, les mois de janvier et de février seraient les plus populaires pour faire une demande de location puisqu'après les Fêtes, plusieurs Canadien.nes commencent déjà à organiser leurs vacances. Marque bien les dates proposées dans ton calendrier, car elles pourraient t'être bien utiles si tu désires t'offrir un repos bien mérité dans un décor haut en couleur. Eh oui, il faut faire vite pour avoir la chance de siroter son café sur son balcon dans les montagnes.
Vrbo prévoit, d’ailleurs, qu'en 2023, les réservations augmenteront grandement : « Toutes ces dates sont avancées de deux semaines par rapport aux années précédentes. Ces deux semaines sont déterminantes pour permettre ou non l'obtention d'un chalet de montagne convoité pour un voyage de ski pendant les vacances de printemps ou d'un chalet en bord de mer pour les vacances d'été annuelles. »
Ainsi, il te faudrait effectuer tes réservations environ deux mois à l'avance. En plus d'avoir une plus grande offre de logements et l'opportunité d'économiser, ce délai te permettrait d'obtenir plus de flexibilité pour des annulations ou modifications.
Voici les dates recommandées par l'entreprise de location :
Si ta maison de rêve se trouve à l'extérieur du pays ou de l'autre côté du Canada et qu'il te faut prendre l'avion, sache que l'agence de voyages Expedia a récemment publié sa liste des meilleurs trucs pour obtenir les prix les plus bas des compagnies aériennes et ça vaut assurément la peine d'y jeter un coup d'oeil . Tu pourras ainsi savoir quels sont les meilleurs jours et la bonne heure pour acheter tes billets au plus bas prix, quand est-il mieux de partir en voyage si l'on veut économiser et plus encore.
Avec ces astuces en poche, cela peut te permettre de te gâter sur des activités ou de bons repas.