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%.
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.
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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.
