Gabriel Ste-Marie

“Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure, a sense of responsibility and, above all, gratitude that I rise today to speak to Bill C-34. To explain why this bill matters, I would like to begin with an image that is familiar to every parent in the House here in Ottawa. It is 11 o’clock at night. The house is quiet. The lights are off, and yet, beneath our child’s bedroom door, there is still a faint blue glow—a screen still lit, a thumb continuing to swipe, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. We believe our child is safe. They are at home, under our roof, only a few metres away from us, but in reality, at that hour, they could be anywhere, with anyone, facing all kinds of risks. It is for that child that I rise today to support Bill C-34, the safe social media act. I have spent my professional life at the intersection of information technology and public safety. I taught in the field of technology, particularly artificial intelligence. I served on Montreal’s city council for eight years and on the city’s public safety commission. I also worked as an adviser to the Montreal police service. If I have learned anything, it is that behind every statistic is a face. As we look at the numbers, let us think about the faces. According to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 52% of Canadian teens have received unwanted sexual images online and 44% say they have been pressured to share or send these types of images. That is one in two teens. Let us imagine a high school classroom. Every other row of students has experienced this. In only one year, 2023, Canadian police recorded 19,516 incidents of online child sexual exploitation, a 59% increase over the previous year and a 500% increase over 2014. Among young people aged 15 to 24, in a single decade, depression has doubled and anxiety has quadrupled. In addition, young people who are victims of online harm are three times more likely to consider suicide. Yes, three times more likely to consider suicide. I am not just quoting statistics here. I am talking about our children, children in Montreal, Calgary, Rimouski, Ottawa and all across Canada. I am talking about all of our children, including my own. For far too long, parents have been told to keep a closer eye on their children, set limits, check their phones, check their computers, and check their electronic devices and smart phones. Let us be honest, parents are already overwhelmed. We cannot ask them to monitor their children’s digital lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week, especially when, on the other side of the screen, there are systems specifically designed by the world’s top engineers, with input from sociologists and behavioural experts, to capture our children’s attention and never let go: endless scrolling, autoplay, algorithms that learn what catches a child’s attention and keep serving them more and more of it. Online harm does not stem solely from individual misbehaviour. It also stems from the way these systems and services are designed. Let us talk about what is known as safety by design. This is a very important concept that Bill C-34 is set to implement, and one that has been emphasized quite a bit by our colleagues in the Conservative Party. I will come back to this later. I would also really like for us to talk about AI, chatbots that talk to children, virtual companions that mimic friendship and even affection, that respond to young people at three o’clock in the morning when no one else is there for them and that sometimes give young people in distress the worst possible advice and answers. When a toy is dangerous, it is pulled from store shelves. When a car has a defect, it is recalled. When an infant car seat fails safety tests, it is never put on the market. Why then should social media platforms, where children spend hours and hours each day, be the only exception? These platforms had a chance to take action voluntarily. They did not do enough. Our laws have not kept pace. We have laws that punish after harm has been done, but we have almost nothing to prevent harm in the first place. Bill C-34 changes all that. This bill is based on a simple idea: safety by design. I am going to list three duties that will help achieve that. First, there is the duty to protect children. We need age-appropriate safeguards built into the products. Companies need to mitigate addictive features, add warnings and provide safe search settings. I repeat: This is a duty that begins at the design stage. Second, there is the duty to act responsibly. Companies must identify and reduce risks, provide effective blocking and reporting tools, and label deepfakes and content created by AI. Canadians deserve to know what is real and what is not. Finally, there is the duty to make the most serious types of content inaccessible: child sexual abuse material and intimate images shared without consent. Once reported, such content must be removed within 24 hours. If the platform does nothing, the victim will no longer be alone. They can turn to the digital safety commission of Canada. Chatbots need a crisis protocol. When a young person expresses an intention to harm themselves or others, the bot will no longer be able to simply continue the conversation. It will be required to refer the person to appropriate help. For social media, users will have to be at least 16 to open an account. However, the door is wide open for platforms to be granted an exemption if they can demonstrate that their service is safe for children. The message is simple: Platforms are welcome to seek an exemption if they can prove that their product is safe and truly reliable for users. I talked about it with my 14-year-old son. I told him that our government was planning on imposing a minimum age of 16 for the use of social media. It sparked quite a discussion, but my son eventually came around to the view that this objective was very noble, because protecting young people is so important. All of this will be overseen by Canada’s new digital safety commission, which will be independent and made up of three to five expert members. It will review the safety plans published by the platforms, handle complaints, support victims and have the power to impose fines of up to 3% of global revenues. I am hearing some concerns today. They are legitimate, and I want to address them frankly and clearly, but above all in a responsible manner. With respect to freedom of expression, it is protected by the charter, and this bill does not restrict it. The bill covers seven categories of harmful content, each of which is deliberately narrowly defined. The bill does not cover debate, disagreement or criticism, even when expressed in the strongest possible terms. What is more, the commission will have no power to arrest anyone. With respect to privacy, private messaging is specifically excluded. Data collected for age verification purposes must be protected and then promptly destroyed. It can be used for only one purpose: to prevent harm. This bill does not target what Canadians say. It focuses on how platforms are built. Seventy-seven per cent of the population wants us to take action, so that is what we are doing. Pediatricians want us to take action, and so does everyone else. I will return to the image of the faint blue glow under the door. I do not long for a world without screens. That world is gone. Digital media offers a marvellous opportunity for our young people—if it is used right.”