Power shift: The rise of political influencers in Canada

Executive Summary

The line between lifestyle, commerce, and news has never been blurrier, and the influencer is the figure traversing all three. Recent years have seen the dramatic rise of the political influencer — people or groups that primarily produce political, current-affairs, or social-discourse content and have amassed a following doing so. This potent, digitally native group is now leveraging its reach to shape public debate. In the B.C. 2024 election, we found that while news outlets posted the most, political influencers generated 63.9% of all engagement. In the 2025 federal election analysis, they accounted for almost half (47%) of all political content posted in our dataset, compared with 28% from news outlets and 18% from politicians. Beyond sheer volume, influencers attract the bulk of attention and bridge media, campaigns, and the public. Influencers have become the information brokers of the internet, setting the pace for political conversation that traditional political parties, media outlets, and advocacy organizations struggle to match.

This information ecosystem brief maps the role of political influencers in Canada's online information ecosystem from January 2024 to July 2025, drawing on four sources of evidence: a nationally representative survey of how Canadians view and engage with influencers; a data-driven grouping of influencer accounts across major platforms to see who resembles whom; an automated topic analysis comparing which issues influencers drive versus those driven by other actors; and a time-series analysis of posting and engagement to track how much influencers post and how much attention they receive.

Key Takeaways

• 42% of Canadians report engaging with influencers on political topics; this rises to 64% among younger Canadians and 49% among partisans.
• Political influencers account for approximately 51% of all posts and 62% of total engagement across tracked accounts — outpacing both news media and politicians.
• In the 2024 BC election, political influencers generated 63.9% of all engagement despite news outlets posting the most content.
• In the 2025 federal election, influencers accounted for nearly half (47%) of all political content posted, compared to 28% from news outlets and 18% from politicians.
• Influencer post volume peaked at 220% above minimum activity levels during major elections (BC 2024, US 2024, federal 2025); U.S. politics accounts for 23.9% of influencer posts, compared to 27.4% for news outlets.