Ruby Sahota

“Madam Speaker, freedom of speech has its place. Let me say that first, because it is where this debate must begin, and nothing in this bill changes it. The question before us is a different one. How do we use a technology without building a society that is splintered by thought? We have a society of isolated groups that are increasingly speaking past one another, whose ideas are reinforced whether they are the brightest glimmers of hope that come with the dawn of a new generation or the darkest of thoughts only shared behind a screen through a fictional ID and the clicks of a keyboard. I speak, of course, of social media, and we should make no mistakes about its dangers. Biases are being reinforced. Isolation is increasing. In the space that exists between us, there are those who insert misinformation on purpose. Social media was meant to be a common space, a space that was created to bring people together, but its very essence is more divisive than it has ever been. Its guardrails are intentionally taken down, and it is increasingly a place of bots and misinformation intentionally injected to create division and chaos. That matters more than ever, because these platforms have become for many Canadians a source of news and information. I am old enough to remember that, when I was growing up, there was a set number of channels we watched and, in my father’s generation, a set of radio stations he would listen to on his morning drives. We were given, within reasonable bounds, a common set of facts we could all agree upon, a shared reality. Today, we live in a world where inconvenient facts can be spun as lies and expedient conjecture can pass for truth. The information we get from search and social media is subject to manipulation and uneven distortions. When social media was in its early days, there was a great hope that it would become the new public square, a space where people could come together and discuss things freely without fear of retribution or censorship, but what we have seen, when these companies engage in content moderation, or worse distortion, and individuals hide behind fictional identities, is that social media has become less of a public square and more of a space of silos, where hatred is monetized, with little room left for robust public debate. If we, as relatively informed adults, have become so susceptible to lies and conspiracy theories from social media, we should be concerned about the effects on those whose minds are still developing. Social media companies engage in content moderation. The problem is that the industry standards have fallen. Children are entering the digital world at ever younger ages, often without their parents’ knowledge. With a few clicks, a child can open an account on a platform designed to hold their attention, expose them to harm and collect their personal data. The evidence is serious. Youth who experience online victimization report three times the suicide ideation. Over the past decade, depression among Canadians 15 to 24 has doubled, and anxiety has quadrupled. In 2023 alone, police recorded almost 20,000 incidents of online child sexual exploitation. That is a 59% increase in a single year, and a 500% increase since 2014. We can tell parents to monitor more closely, but they are already stretched thin, and no one can watch a child’s screen 24 hours a day. No parent can inspect an algorithm. Here is the heart of the matter. We have laws for when the harm has already happened, but almost nothing that requires platforms to prevent it. If we have learned anything over these last years, it is that we must lower our expectations of what social media companies would do on their own and raise expectations of what government must do in their place. Government regulation must become part of the solution. Let me say plainly what Bill C-34 does. It creates three duties: a duty to act responsibly, to assess the risks on their own platforms and reduce them by design; a duty to protect children and build age-appropriate safeguards into the product itself; and a duty to make certain content inaccessible, which requires the rapid removal of child sexual exploitation material and intimate images shared without consent, including deepfakes. The bill would prohibit children under 16 from holding social media accounts. However, it is not a wall without a door. A platform can apply to the new digital safety commission for an exemption if it can demonstrate that its products are safe for children. The ban would give companies a reason to compete on safety, because safety is what opens the door. AI chatbots would not face an age ban, because they would be bound by the duty to act responsibly and the duty to protect children, and they would need to direct users to intervention services when someone expresses thoughts of suicide or self-harm. Platforms would publish a digital safety plan telling Canadians what risks exist, what they are doing about them and how much harmful content has been flagged. An independent commission of three to five experts would review those plans, assess whether age verification actually works and issue penalties of up to 3% of global revenue for failure. This is lower than Australia, the EU and the U.K. Let me address the concerns that have been raised, because they deserve a serious answer. Some will say that this would threaten free speech. I take that seriously, which is why I began where I did. Let us look at what this bill would define as harmful: content that sexually victimizes a child; intimate images shared without consent; content that induces a child into self-harm; content used to bully a child; and content that foments extreme hatred, incites violence, or promotes terrorism. These categories are narrow and clearly defined. This bill would not touch everyday conversation or lawful debate. The commission would have no power to arrest anyone. The bill would place responsibility on the platforms, not on citizens. Some will say this bill invades privacy, but private messaging would be specifically exempt. Data gathered for age verification would be securely collected and swiftly destroyed. The bill would not dictate one method. It would put the onus on platforms to build systems and on the independent commission to judge whether they are adequate. Others will say this is simply another layer of bureaucracy. I would ask them what the alternative is. Is it leaving it to the companies we have just discussed, or to politicians trading shots across this chamber every time a crisis breaks? The purpose of an expert, independent commission is to take this issue out of political point scoring and replace it with consistent, measured expertise. There are critics who say the commission’s details remain unclear. I think that is a fair point. Some respected scholars have called it opaque, and some groups are withholding full support until the regulations are final, but the commission must be independent, and prescribing every decision in statute would undermine that independence. We are acting quickly, but we intend to get this right. We are not alone. Pediatric hospitals and children’s health groups have called this an important step forward. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has called it “a crucial step”. Some, like the Phone-Free School Movement, want us to go further. This tells me that the direction is right and that the debate is about how far to go. Canadians are with us, as 77% say we should consider restricting social media for those under 16. That is true of 67% of those aged 18 to 34 and 83% of those 55 and over. It is rare to find a consensus that crosses every generation. The question is not whether we believe in free expression; we do. The question is whether a space built for connection can once again be worthy of that name, whether our children can grow up with a shared reality, with room for real debate and with protection from those who profit from their harm. We cannot rebuild that common ground in a single bill, but we can lay the foundation for a safer space. Let us do it. Let us pass Bill C-34.”