Amid a Canadian federal election campaign focused in part on the country’s sovereignty, Canada’s two leading political parties are taking sharply different approaches to their advertising strategies. A close analysis of digital ad impressions on Facebook and Instagram reveals that the battleground is not just ideological, but demographic and geographic.

While both the Conservative and Liberal parties invest ad dollars in Canada’s most populous provinces, their strategies reveal a deeper story: Conservatives bet on Gen Z and Millennial voters, while Liberals double down on older voters and those in Francophone Canada.

We first observed these divergent strategies as part of an analysis conducted by the Ted Rogers School of Management Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. As part of our Election Transparency and Accountability initiative, we examined Canadian political ad spending on Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram, using PoliDashboard, the open-source platform we developed.

We conducted a detailed analysis of the ad impression data for the campaigns of all major parties. Here, we focus our findings on online ads purchased by the Liberal and Conservative parties, the current frontrunners in the polls.

Based on impressions data from Facebook and Instagram during March 23-30, the week after the election announced, there was a clear generational divide in digital outreach. The Conservatives devoted much of their messaging to Canadians under 45, while the Liberals appeared to focus more on those 55 and older.

A significant portion of Conservative Party Facebook and Instagram ad........

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