Where to find election information online

With a federal election called for April 28, it’s important to know where to find trustworthy information pertaining to this important part of our democratic process. Regardless of your political alignment or who you plan on voting for, understanding some of the information sources and where they fit into this process we’re all participating in is crucial for you to exercise your right to vote effectively.

Elections Canada’s website (elections.ca) should be your first stop when looking for election information. Elections Canada is our independent nonpartisan agency that conducts federal elections and ensures compliance with electoral legislation. Their website includes information on how, where, and when you can vote. You can also check that you are registered to vote and learn how to register or update your voter registration. Elections Canada also lists candidates that are running in your riding.

If you want to know more about how our Canadian political system works, you can visit the Parliament of Canada website (OurCommons.ca). There you can find a primer on our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. You can also look up each Member of Parliament and find what committees they serve on, what motions they voted on, and transcripts of what they have said in the House of Commons. Elections are a time for politicians to put their best face forward, however you can also learn a great deal about how well an MP has served their constituents by looking at the official public record of their work.

It can be difficult to make sense of all of the different political positions that exist among those running for office. One tool that can be useful for this is Vote Compass, created by political scientists at Vox Pop Laboratories. Vote Compass uses a questionnaire format based on the publicly available policies and positions released by each party in parliament. By answering how much you agree with each question, your aggregated opinion is placed on a matrix where you can compare your proximity to the different parties. You can also add weight to each question based on its importance to you, as well as see where you align on each question with a given party. Vote Compass is not meant to tell you who to vote for, but as a tool for exploring your own political leanings and is a good starting point for future exploration.

Opinion polls are another major feature of an election period, and it can feel like a new one comes out almost daily. There are a number of polling firms across Canada, and they collect information from representative samples of the Canadian population to extrapolate what the overall opinion of Canadians might be. Poll by poll, results can be quite similar or wildly different depending on the sample they collected information from and their methodology. One way to make a bit more sense of these opinion polls is to look at polling aggregators. There are a few polling aggregators that are worth looking at including 338Canada, CBC’s Poll Tracker, and Polling Canada. A polling aggregator takes the numerous polls over a period of time and combines the results in a model that shows the probability of how a particular party might perform in the election (e.g.: the probability that they’ll form our government).

Something to be aware of is that scammers love to take advantage of a moment, and there is the risk of scammers posing as polling firms to try and get your personal information. In Canada, the Canadian Research Insights Council (CRIC) sets standards for polling and opinion research. These standards include keeping personal information confidential. Many of the major polling firms are accredited by the CRIC and are obliged to adhere to their standards. If you are contacted to participate in a poll and don’t recognize the company name, it’s a good idea to check the CRIC website (canadianresearchinsightscouncil.ca) to see if it is accredited or check if it is listed by one of the polling aggregators. I received a text message from ERG National Research; however, this company has no website that I can find, are not accredited by the CRIC, and are not listed by any polling aggregator. So, not knowing if that is even a real organization, I deleted the text and reported it as junk.

Of course, another very important place to find election information, especially when it comes to our local candidates, is our local media. Haliburton County has a fantastic local media presence with three newspapers and two radio stations. So be sure to add them to your sources of federal election information.

Learn more

Canadians alarmed by text messages asking their vote preference. Then their postal code. Then their name. 2025. Colleen Underwood. (CBC News) Last accessed 2025/03/27.

Alert: ERG National Research. 2025. (CRIC) Last accessed 2025/04/02.

Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2022 – Elections Canada. 2025. (Elections Canada) Last accessed 2025/04/02.

Vote Compass Methodology [PDF]. (Vox Pop Laboaratories) Last accessed 2025/04/02.

338Canada Canadian federal polling. (338 Canada) Last accessed 2025/04/02.

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