Canada’s chief electoral officer, Stéphane Perrault, has asked MPs to make transparency the top priority as artificial intelligence reshapes how voters find and judge political information. The recommendations include mandatory labels on AI-generated election content and a rule that chatbots point people to official sources when asked how to vote.
Speaking on Nov. 3 to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is studying AI and Canada’s democratic institutions, Perrault said the technology’s biggest effect on elections is on the information environment itself.
Beyond deepfakes
Early worries about AI and elections focused on deepfakes, synthetic images, audio and video made to mislead voters. Perrault told the committee that risk remains, but that AI’s influence now goes much further. It changes how information is distributed, found and examined, as well as how it is created.
AI tools can produce convincing content quickly and cheaply. They can also distribute and promote material, true or false, aim it at specific audiences, and amplify conversations, whether those conversations are real or manufactured.
Canadians are also increasingly asking AI chatbots about the voting process and about how party platforms compare. Those tools summarize information from sources the user often can’t see.
“The greatest concern, in my opinion, relates to the opacity of AI influences on the information environment and how that opacity can undermine trust in the democratic process,” Perrault said.
If voters can’t tell legitimate speech from coordinated manipulation, or don’t know how AI tools are filtering what they see, “the ability of electors to make informed choices and to trust democratic outcomes is at risk,” he told MPs.
Labels, sources and taglines
Perrault repeated several recommendations to Parliament:
- Labels on synthetic content. Elections Canada recommended in 2024 that transparency labels be legally required when AI-generated content is used in electoral communications. Perrault told the committee this falls within the scope of Bill C-34, and urged that it be pursued “more aggressively” for election material.
- Chatbots that cite official sources. Platforms that offer AI chatbots should be required to point users to official or authoritative sources when answering questions about how to vote. He suggested Parliament consider extending this to party platforms and candidate materials when chatbots answer questions about political positions.
- Identify who is speaking. Under current law, only election advertising must carry a tagline identifying who is behind it. Perrault called that “much too narrow” and recommended that all electoral communications by parties, candidates and third parties indicate their source.
Without these measures, Perrault said, voters are left to navigate an increasingly complex information environment “without knowing who is communicating with them, whether the content is real or synthetic or if the information they receive comes from authoritative sources.”
How Elections Canada will use AI
The agency is taking a cautious approach to the technology itself. It has appointed an internal “Champion for AI” and is finalizing an AI strategy focused on staff literacy, governance and what Perrault called “cautious exploration.”
Elections Canada has no plans to use AI in voting, in counting ballots or in giving information to voters, Perrault said. It may use AI for back-office work such as summarizing documents, improving software code and assisting with geography functions.
The agency will also publish a transparency statement on its own use of AI, following a practice already in place in Australia.
In September, Elections Canada and the United Nations Development Programme co-hosted the Global Conference on Responsible AI and Elections in Ottawa.
Perrault has been Canada’s chief electoral officer since June 2018.
Source: Elections Canada, “Remarks of the Chief Electoral Officer before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on Artificial Intelligence and Canada’s Democratic Institutions,” Nov. 3, 2026.
