Over 19 million Canadians cast a ballot during the 2025 federal election — but according to Pornhub, some voters were also... a little distracted.
The adult entertainment site shared its April 28 Canadian traffic stats with MTL Blog, revealing that while visits dropped sharply during peak voting hours, politically-driven searches for terms like "Canada" and "conservative" surged.
As it turns out, Canadian users had some oddly specific — and weirdly patriotic — interests on election day. Among the top trending search terms were:
- Canada — +323%
- Real homemade — +284%
- Canadian — +226%
- Podcast — +186%
- Quebecoise — +152%
- Happy ending — +129%
- Spitroast — +108%
- Elbow — +96%
- Conservative — +36%
"Quebec" also saw significant jumps as users sought a little French-Canadian flair.
And yes, even "elbow" made the list — likely tied to Prime Minister Mark Carney's viral "elbows up" voting campaign. As for what's so sexy about that, we're hard-pressed to find an explanation.
Plenty of election-inspired searches end up near the top.Pornhub
Looking at the traffic itself, Canadians were far less active on the site than usual. Pornhub saw a dramatic dip throughout the day, especially around 8 p.m., when traffic dropped -18.8% below average.
According to a Pornhub insight expert, this is a sharp contrast to the most recent U.S. election, where traffic actually increased in the evening. For comparison, during Canada’s 2019 federal election, the lowest dip in traffic was just -10%.
Here's how it broke down:
- Traffic peaked early at 6 a.m. (+11.2%)
- It then tanked from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., bottoming out at -18.8%
- It shot back up around 11 p.m. ET, finishing the night on an above-average note
- Daytime traffic was down 8.5% while evening traffic was down by 12%.
Traffic was especially low as polls around the country closed. Pornhub
Notably, BC and Manitoba were the only provinces where traffic stayed above average throughout both day and night.
Turns out some Canadians can close their tabs when democracy calls — though their search history might say otherwise.
AI tools may have been used to support the creation or distribution of this content; however, it has been carefully edited and fact-checked by a member of MTL Blog's Editorial team. For more information on our use of AI, please visit our Editorial Standards page.
