I'm not sure if AC would enforce zoned boarding with electronic gates even if they had them in Canada. There are electronic gates at LHR T2, and AC usually doesn't even use them. In the odd time that they do use them, the gates aren't set to enforce boarding zones.

It's in the boarding experience where AC consistently falls well short of other airlines. It's far more miserable and stressful than any other airline that I can think of right now, regardless of airport. Even at HND, which is usually the pinnacle of boarding civility, there was a sense of everyone-for-themselves when I boarded AC2 a couple of months ago (although to be fair maybe passenger nerves were frayed already from the 4+ hour delay before boarding, but then again the delay itself was AC's fault).