What you can expect from CBC News this federal election

We use this editor's blog to explain our journalism and what's happening at CBC News. You can find more blogs here.

Here we go …

Helping Canadians understand what's at stake in a federal election as they contemplate where to place their vote is among the most important things we do as a public service news organization. 

That moment has arrived — and it arrives at a time when Canadians are deeply engaged in the story of the country, our economy, our relationship to the United States and to ourselves. 

We earn your trust by providing you with independent, fact-based election coverage that is fair, balanced and impartial, rooted in your concerns and questions. We will ask the candidates tough questions. We will press them on their policy positions. We will be professional but firm, living up to that century-old journalism maxim to report "without fear or favour."

Our journalistic principles will apply to every story we cover, including the story of the CBC, should the future of the public broadcaster become an election issue. 

There is an obvious challenge and inherent conflict of interest in covering ourselves and our public funding, but we have plenty of past experience doing journalism about the CBC. I promise our standards won't waver on this story and we will treat it like we would the coverage of any other Crown corporation — always with the public interest and our journalistic principles first in our minds.

As with all of our journalism, we will be accountable to CBC's independent ombudsman for living up to our journalistic standards and practices.  

Our 2025 federal election coverage strategy is rooted in four pillars: Listening, Live, Local and Linked.

Listening

We will listen to you, the people we serve, in new ways, and gather data and feedback that can constantly feed and shape our coverage. We will expand our Ask CBC team during the election, answering your questions and turning your ideas into stories. (You can reach them at [email protected].) We've created a project called "What Matters" to hear directly from people across the country through community outreach. And we are soliciting First Person essays on the personal story behind how you're voting this election. 

Live

The CBC News audience promise is to be "live when you need us, and on demand when you want us." We will do that by publishing live story pages on our website and news app daily during the election campaign. These pages feature a constant flow of information with short text, photo and video elements, most often during breaking and developing stories. 

They allow our journalists to share reporting and analysis in real time, and for our field reporters across Canada to file live updates. Our "live" promise also extends to streaming video and audio, with an ongoing focus on live events, including debates and election night. 

And during the final three weeks of the campaign and a week past the vote, CBC News Network will be in free preview for Canadians across cable, satellite and also on our own platforms — Gem, CBC News app and CBCNews.ca.

Local

This election will play out differently in every one of the now 343 ridings in Canada. Our parliamentary reporters cover the dominant campaign stories, while our local reporters and programs connect directly with the issues impacting each riding. This is an important time for our current affairs radio programs, and this will be the first federal election to play out, as well, on our 14 local news streaming channels.

Linked

We are working together across national news, local news and current affairs program teams like never before. We will have a joint fact-checking unit, and planned key events and road shows in one universal plan to ensure that we can cover and represent an ever-wider range of election issues and locations. 

Already we have special programming and community outreach events planned for Brampton, Ont., Burlington, Ont., Burnaby, B.C., Charlottetown, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Medicine Hat, Alta., Nanaimo, B.C., Oshawa, Ont., Quebec City, Red Deer, Alta., Saint John and Yellowknife. 

Our What Matters project has already engaged directly and in person with Canadians in 18 communities across Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan, with many more to come. 

Audience features

Some of our most successful election features are back, including: Poll Tracker, the Canada Votes newsletter, Vote Compass, and our platform comparison tool. 

We have launched a new election pop-up podcast, called House Party, which drops every Wednesday in The House feed, hosted by Catherine Cullen, Jason Markusoff and Daniel Thibeault. 

We are expanding our TikTok content, and always encouraging audiences to download the CBC News app. Several programs will be taking their shows on the road, including The National, The Current, Cross Country Checkup and Power & Politics. 

Programs like Front Burner and About That will continue to play a critical role explaining election stories and issues for on-demand audiences. And our visual investigations team will be working on tracking online misinformation, altered images and fake news stories, in collaboration with the team from Radio-Canada's Décrypteurs.

We will produce special programming before and after the French- and English-language leaders' debates. The English debate will be moderated by veteran journalist Steve Paikin and is expected to happen a few weeks before the vote. 

All of this will culminate on election night on April 28. Our streaming and television special will be hosted by Rosemary Barton, Adrienne Arsenault, Ian Hanomansing, David Cochrane and Catherine Cullen. Our radio special will be hosted by Susan Bonner and Piya Chattopadhyay. Our digital teams will host a dynamic live story page, including a detailed results dashboard. And watch for a second-screen streaming program hosted by Jayme Poisson. 

As we enter Canada's 45th federal election, our goal is to be with you every day, making sense of this election together. Thank you for your trust. It's an honour to be at your side through the campaign and beyond.