The federal agency is spending $650,000 on the campaign, which will launch this month, aiming to target younger demographics with below-average voter participation rates. Thirteen social-media influencers have been selected. Though they haven’t yet been publicly identified, they include Olympians, television personalities, singers and YouTubers. They all signed agreements promising to remain politically neutral up until a year after the campaign. (Globe and Mail)

Talking point: This is the first time Elections Canada is employing an influencer-based campaign. Though voter turnout in Canada for those aged 18 to 24 increased in the 2015 federal election to about 57 per cent, it was still well under the national average. The agency is betting on Instagram—with 39 per cent of its users being under 24 years old—to reach younger people. It’s just one of a growing number of advertisers to take advantage of the platform: Instagram influencers have posted 150 per cent more sponsored content than last year. Influencers received a blow in Canada in May, when Instagram rolled out a countrywide test feature that hides the number of likes users receive on their posts, making it difficult to measure whether sponsored or partnered posts are getting engagement. But similar campaigns in the United States have had positive results. The non-profit DoSomething—which, among other initiatives, partners with influencers to encourage youth to register to vote—said it registered 117,472 voters in 2018.