Canada

Did a photograph shared in April 2025 authentically show Diana Fox Carney standing alongside her husband, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney? No, that's not true: the image was digitally edited. The original was taken by the Reuters news agency in March, when Carney won the race to replace outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau as Liberal Party leader. The fake picture…

Did viral posts spread an authentic warning about two suspects at large in connection with "the death of 10-month-old baby girl Diana Tyler" in March 2025? No, that's not true: Those posts were an example of the bait-and-switch scam. Their contents were later replaced with unrelated text trying to trick people into following a link and sharing their personal information.…

Did U.S. President Donald Trump write "I am ending all the tariffs today against China, Canada and Mexico" in an April 1, 2025, post on Truth Social? No, that's not true: A screenshot shared by users on other social media platforms was fake. Trump has marked April 2 as a day on which his administration will roll out new tariffs.…

Did Laila Ali lose her life while giving birth in a Canadian hospital in March 2025? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the 47-year-old former world boxing champ and daughter of boxing great Muhammad Ali was pregnant in March 2025 or that she died while birthing a child. Ali posted a video on March 30, 2025, to…

Did President Donald Trump order the Keystone pipeline system "to transport ONLY American Oil"? No, that's not true: The claim came from a site with a satire label that explicitly says "nothing on this page is real". Originating in Canada, the Keystone Pipeline System moves unrefined Canadian petroleum, and some from the U.S. to refineries in the United States. The…

Does a viral image authentically show European leaders taking off their suit coats in support of Ukraine during a group picture? No, that's not true: The image is likely a screenshot from a video that was digitally edited, possibly using AI. Actual footage of the moment the group picture was taken did not show anyone taking off their suit and…

Did President Trump post on Truth Social that he was going to "annexe Alaska" after Greenland, in order to make it the "53rd State" and did he say "the people of Alaska don't want to be part of a backward nation in Canada?" No, that's not true: Viral screenshots of such a post are fake. Trump's actual Truth Social account…

Does Canada bar American banks from operating in the country? No, that's not true: As of this writing, 16 U.S.-based bank subsidiaries and branches were operating in Canada, according to the Canadian Bank Association. These banks hold around 113 billion Canadian dollars in assets and "make up half of all foreign bank assets in Canada," the association added. Canada's Department…

Does calling 112 on a cell phone directly link the caller to a state trooper in the United States? No, that's not true: 112 is the emergency number used across the European Union -- it is not a dedicated state police line in the U.S. The emergency number 911 is used in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Although some cell…

Does Canada get 95 percent of its imports from the United States? No, that's not true: According to Statistics Canada, the national statistical office, the U.S. was the source of 62.2 percent of Canada's total imports in 2024, not 95 percent. Additionally, about 76 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. The claim appeared in a video published on…

Does an authentic photo show two Black women who were the pilots of the Delta Flight 4819 that crash-landed and flipped over in Toronto on February 17, 2025? No, that's not true: The inverted image in a social media post is 16 years old. It shows the first all-African-American female crew to operate a commercial jet for Atlantic Southeast Airlines.…

Does an image shared online in February 2025 show Jonathan Simpson, the pilot of Delta Flight 4819, which crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport? No, that's not true: The person depicted in the image is porn star Johnny Sins, whose image is often used in fake posts. The image featured a Grok AI watermark and, according to an online detection…

Did Global Affairs Canada delete its foreign aid database? No, that's not true: The Canadian government's X account stated that no data was deleted and that it was only experiencing technical problems. The database was publicly available at the time of writing. Lead Stories was able to access the database through its website. The claim appeared in a post (archived…

Does a photo making the rounds online and used on some news sites show the Delta Flight 4819 plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport? No, that's not true: According to an online detection tool the image was generated using AI. It also featured a Grok AI logo and several artifacts inconsistent with reality. An example of the image…

Did the Canadian government threaten a "100 percent tariff on Tesla" in February 2025? No, that's not true: While the federal government in Ottawa was considering its options, the Department of Finance Canada said," The claim is false." Instead, proposals to impose a 100 percent tax on Teslas came from individual Canadian politicians, not the government itself. The implied claim…

Did Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, say, "Jesus Christ didn't have electricity either and he did just fine" while explaining President Donald Trump's tariff policies? No, that's not true: None of Leavitt's press briefings before the purported quote appeared online included that remark. There is evidence that the supposed quote originated in a joke response from a Reddit…

Did CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper appear on Canada's CBC News to endorse a set of "crypto trading secrets" supposedly launched by Elon Musk? No, that's not true: A CNN spokesperson told Lead Stories that a video which appeared to show the endorsement was "fabricated and manipulated." AI detection tool Hive Moderation found the video and audio were likely created…

Did Canada plan to stop sending energy to the United States in February 2025 because of President Donald Trump's tariffs? No, that's not true: After a call between the two leaders on February 3, 2025, both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump said separately that tariffs were delayed for 30 days. As of this publication, Canada did not say…

Does an old photo show Elon Musk's grandfather Joshua Haldeman standing in front of the office of Technocracy Inc. in Canada? No, that's not true: The black-and-white image shows Howard Scott, an American engineer who founded the technocracy movement in 1933, according to reverse image search results. Haldeman's obituary says he was a chiropractor in Canada. The claim appeared as…

Does an authentic photo show Canadian Liberal Party leadership candidate Mark Carney with Jeffrey Epstein in a pool? No, that's not true: Multiple online artificial intelligence detectors judged that this image was almost certainly AI generated. Lead Stories found no real photos of Carney and Epstein together after consulting online news archives and image searching tools. The image appeared in…