Thank you to all those who attended!
On June 5 & 6th, over 200 leaders from across the country attended the Canadian Vote Summit 2024 in Toronto, hosted by The Democratic Engagement Exchange in collaboration with Elections Canada.
The white paper policy report from the 2024 Summit highlights actionable steps to build resilience and foster cross-sectoral collaboration, essential for Canada’s democratic health. This includes:
Fraying Social Fabric: With increasing loneliness and polarization, social cohesion is weakening, impacting trust and participation in democracy.
Disinformation and Electoral Integrity: The rise of AI-driven misinformation, a changing media landscape and complicates Canadians' access to trustworthy information and pose a threat to Canada’s electoral integrity.
Youth Disengagement: Lower youth engagement stems from limited representation and perceived barriers to participation, posing a long-term risk to democracy’s resilience.
On the margins of Day 2 of the Canadian Vote Summit, a diverse group of thought leaders, public servants, issue experts and practitioners gathered to tackle the escalating challenges of disinformation and foreign interference in the Canadian electoral democratic process.
The workshop, titled “Building Democratic Resilience to Foreign Disinformation in Canada” aimed to diagnose critical issues, share global best practices, propose solutions, and galvanize coordinated action to fortify Canada’s defenses against these threats. It provided participants with an opportunity to discuss critical threats affecting Canada’s electoral democracy, specifically foreign interference and disinformation, and the role of different stakeholders in addressing them. A report was drafted capturing key outputs and recommendations.
2024 is the year of elections. Four billion people, half the world’s population, will be called to cast a vote. Their votes hold the power to strengthen democratic leaders or embolden authoritarians threatening democracy.
Canada is not immune to the forces that threaten democracy around the world. The rise of domestic and foreign disinformation campaigns fed by AI, the fraying of social connections and the rise of loneliness, increasing polarizing appeals, declines in independent journalism (especially local news coverage) and increasing frustration with the ability of democratic institutions to address our most pressing challenges. The Summit is the only national event to bring together senior policymakers, thought leaders, civil society organizations, journalists and election administrators from all levels of government. It endeavors to clearly identify the challenges we face and bring together the people required to meet these challenges with concrete policy solutions and programmatic responses.
