This timeline largely excludes COVID-19 misinformation in Canada and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.
Disinformation is "false information that is purposely spread to deceive people". Misinformation is information that is false or misleading, that contradicts consensus by experts in the field or by the "best available evidence". Malinformation is content grounded in truth but presented in a misleading or exaggerated way, which can lead to misconceptions and harm. It manipulates factual elements to mislead audiences through distortion or selective emphasis.
In January 2019, just days after publicly calling out technology giants, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the first federal financing of $7 million to respond to online misinformation and disinformation in Canada.
In August 2021, the Canadian Election Misinformation Project was launched by McGill University in response to concerns about the rise of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in foreign interference in elections globally. According to McGill's 2022 Media Ecosystem Observatory's report, Canada's information landscape is fragmenting, with citizens increasingly relying on diverse and potentially unreliable sources for political information, raising concerns about echo chambers. The rise of minimally moderated platforms has created a chaotic environment, making it harder to combat disinformation. A disconnect exists between the actual prevalence of misinformation and public perception, potentially eroding trust in democratic processes. Additionally, a growing segment of Canadians has become deeply skeptical of democratic institutions, operating in an alternate information reality disconnected from mainstream narratives. According to the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) the annual cost globally of "misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation" (MDM) represents billions of dollars.
2000s 2003 — A petition with 1,180 signatures was submitted to the House of Commons alleging that "massive amounts of chemicals"adversely affecting Canadians across the countrywere sprayed by the federal government. Health Canada and Environment Canada refuted the claims. The Environment Canada statement said that the term 'chemtrails' was a "popularised expression" and that petitioners were seeing contrailsairplane condensation trails. The decades-old chemtrail conspiracy theory has been "widely debunked by scientists and experts, who emphasize there is no credible evidence to support the claims associated with this theory". 2005 April 15 — The Boston Globe retracted a story published on April 13, 2005, about the opening of the annual commercial seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The article, which graphically described the ice and water turning red with the blood of hundreds of seal cubs, was entirely fabricated. The actual first day of the seal hunt occurred on April 15, two days after the story was submitted by a Halifax-based freelance writer. The seal hunt was a contentious issue, drawing attention from organizations like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In response, the Globe published a follow-up article titled "Animal rights vs. Inuit rights," co-authored by an Inuk graduate student from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Governance. This piece highlighted the devastating impact on Inuit communities that relied on subsistence seal hunting for their livelihood. The article noted how a successful international media campaign by animal rights activists in the 1980s collapsed the sealskin market, affecting both commercial and subsistence huntinga campaign that included the distribution of 12 million postcards depicting baby seals across both sides of the Atlantic.
2010s 2014 — Canadian pro-Putin groups have promoted Russian narratives about the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation which marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. — The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) was unveiled. At that time, seven of the world's top spamming organizations were active in Canada. March 26, 2014 Canadian Inuk Alethea Arnaquq-Barilwriter and director of the 2016 Inuit-themed feature-length documentary film Angry Inukinitiated a "sealfie" protest in response to Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres's support of the anti-seal-hunting Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). During the Oscar ceremony, DeGeneres took the "Oscar Selfie" using a Samsung smartphone. Samsung pledged to donate one dollar for each retweet of the photo, which broke Twitter records and temporarily crashed the platform. DeGeneres subsequently donated million to the HSUS, describing the seal hunt as "one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government". In response, the "sealfies" movement gained traction, rallying support for Inuit subsistence sealing. HSUS spokesperson Rebecca Aldworth clarified that their protests targeted commercial sealing in Atlantic Canada by non-aboriginal people, not the "socially accepted Inuit subsistence hunt" in Canada's North.
2017 March 14 — Russian disinformation in Canada included the "Nazi-grandfather" conspiracy theory that claims that descendants of Nazis who are currently living in Canada have amassed "outsized political power." Chrystia Freeland became a target of the hoax. Canadian pro-Putin groups continued to promote false narratives about the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. 2018 June 9 — The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (G7 RRM) was established in Charlevoix, Quebec at the "Charlevoix Commitment on Defending Democracy from Foreign Threats" by the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) countries—United States, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. The G7 RRM focusses on "addressing foreign-sponsored disinformation". October — The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CSSS) was established with Scott Jones as the head. 2019 January 25 — Trudeau criticized social media giants at a public event in Quebec City, with particularly sharp rhetoric against Facebook for spreading disinformation around the world. January 29 — The Canadian government announced a $7 million plan to fight online misinformation and disinformation ahead of the 2019 Canadian federal election. The government also called on social media platforms to be more proactive in combatting disinformation by implementing policies. — In response to the increase in "false, misleading and inflammatory" online disinformation, the federal government created the Digital Citizen Initiative, to "support democracy and social inclusion in Canada". The Digital Citizen Initiative is also supporting the Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN). June 8 — In the collage of dozens of individuals illustrating New York Times front-page story "The Making of a YouTube radical", journalist Luke LeBrun, identified 40% of the radicals as Canadian. July 16 — Anti-Trudeau hashtags #TrudeauMustGo topped Twitter's trends on July 16 after Trudeau criticized President Trump on July 15 for his racist tweets in which he told four U. S. congresswomen to go back to where they came from. The tweets were generated at non-human rates by new accounts. The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) said that this represented a volume which far exceeded the number and intensity of negative hashtags directed at other political parties. It did not point to direct involvement of domestic political campaigns. October 29 A Global News report uncovered a hate group with 19,577 members called "Justin Trudeau Must Be Stopped Facebook" using the platform's feature, members-only Groups, a Facebook feature since 2010 that extreme online subcultures were beginning to exploit more often. This Group's postswhich included hatred against Muslims and immigrants, and in some cases, called for Trudeau's assassinationled to its removal. The CPC chair, Bob Zimmer, of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics said that the 2015 Canadian federal election was largely "unencumbered by interference", although there were some attempts to "disrupt, misinform and divide", but these "efforts" were "uncoordinated", limited in number, and had little if any impact. However, by 2019, the threat to and vigilance of democracies around the globe had been heightened as tools that had been developed and used to strengthen civic engagement, [were] "being used to undermine, disrupt and destabilize democracy." — During the 2019 Canadian federal election there was not a lot of misinformation or disinformation but it was a threat to the public sphere, according to a 2020 Public Policy Forum journal report. — By 2019, due to 2014's CASL, all seven of the top spamming organizations that had been active in Canada in 2014, had been removed.
2020s 2020 — The Digital Society Lab at McMaster University was created by political scientist, Clifton van der Linden and receives some funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation and SSHRC. 2021 January Scientists and health experts established ScienceUpFirsta digital science education campaign to counter misinformationinstigated by Timothy Caulfield and Nova Scotia Senator Stan Kutcher. It has received funding from the Government of Canada and the Canadian Association of Science Centres. July 25 — According to Canada's National Observer, dozens of accounts "tweeting at non-human rates" posted the #TrudeauMustGo hashtag shortly after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's criticized Donald Trump for making racist comments. The Observer described the anti-Trudeau hashtags as an emerging "wave of disinformation". Fake X accountsformerly Twitter run be automated bots is a form of "aggressive social media manipulation", according to Social Media Intelligence Unit (SMIU) analyst. Social Cartograph's Geoff Golberg, a social media manipulation researcher, said that hashtag #NotABot, which followed the previous hashtag, is also a "form of disinformation in itself". He added that those who push disinformation "tend to run a similar playbook when called out for engaging in coordinated inauthentic activity". 2022 June — As Canada and the United States worked on developing domestic rare earth mining projectsminerals that are strategically critical to electronics manufacturing spamouflage a Chinese government online disinformation program created social media accounts disguised as local residents, to protest against the mines in a effort to quell competition against China's rare minerals mining industry, according to a 2022 report by Mandiant, a cybersecurity research company. A 2022 campaign called "Dragonbridge" by Madiant protested Canada's Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corporation's new mine in Saskatchewan. Mendiant reported that these fake accounts, numbering in the thousands, have used the camouflage of non-political spam combined with pro-Chinese and anti-West propaganda since 2019. It is a Chinese government online disinformation program. Shortly before the 2022 Quebec general election, Coalition Avenir Québec Premier François Legault cautioned that adding more immigrants who do not speak French to Quebec would be suicidal for the French language. At the same time, Jean Boulet, the outgoing Immigration Minister, said that "80% of immigrants go to Montreal, don't work, don't speak French, or don't adhere to Quebec's values." Radio-Canada refuted the statement point by point, reporting that 77% of immigrants in Greater Montreal (89% outside it) know French and that their employment rate is comparable to or higher than that of Canadian-born residents. Boulet was reprimanded by (CAQ) Coalition Avenir Québec Premier François Legault. 2023