Angelo Iacono

“Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to share the views of my constituents in Trois‑Rivières, as well as those of my family. I have two kids aged 16 and 18. My daughter just turned 16 yesterday. They are not affected by the bill, but it was a close call. They are certainly interested in it, though. We have had some lively discussions about it. As the mother of two teens, I can say that I lost the social media battle a long time ago. Obviously, the pandemic did not make things any easier. My children have both been active on social media for quite some time now. I think that I will bring a practical perspective to the discussion because I have gone through all this myself, and I am still dealing with it every day. As a mother, I had to find other ways to ensure that my children were using social media safely because I could not necessarily trust the platforms. For me, that means periodically reviewing the content my children have access to, asking questions about what they are looking at and explaining how algorithms push content based on what they click on. Despite all that, despite the time I have spent every day having these conversations with my kids, they are still among the too many young people today who are living with anxiety or mental health issues. As studies show, there is a link between the use of social media, the content that is generated, the content our kids have access to, and the state of their mental health or anxiety levels. The numbers are getting higher and higher. Young people who experience online victimization report three times more suicidal ideation. That was just in the past year, so there is a real impact. Depression has doubled and anxiety has quadrupled among Canadians aged 15 to 24. These figures show that even supervision, open communication and an understanding of how things work are not enough. Simply keeping a watchful eye on things is not enough. My children have certainly been affected, as have many other children. I cannot even begin to imagine the pressure this puts on parents who may not be equipped to have these conversations, to provide this guidance, or who do not have the time to keep such a close eye on their kids. Some parents might have one, two or three jobs. As we know, it is difficult. Our government was elected with a mandate to protect Canadians. Clearly, we are living in a digital world and, as we know, the evidence points to serious and growing mental health challenges among young people. Furthermore, online harm is on the rise. We see this every day, even as parliamentarians. Regardless of our political affiliation, we all receive comments on our social media accounts. Our children are also exposed to this. They are exposed to the same kind of treatment. I believe we have a duty to act. We introduced Bill C-34, the safe social media act, precisely to regulate online activities and better protect our children. Bill C-34 introduces a duty to act responsibly and regulates certain services, requiring them to assess the risks associated with harmful content. It also establishes a duty to protect children by ensuring that services incorporate age-appropriate safeguards into the design and operation of their platforms and products. Finally, it introduces a duty to make certain content inaccessible to underage users. Obviously, in some cases, this will mean the faster removal of content that victimizes young people, sexual exploitation material and intimate content. We must put frameworks in place. These things happen every day in schools across Canada and in Quebec. We need to establish a regulatory framework to combat this. Most Canadians believe that the status quo is unacceptable. That is why we are introducing this bill. I would like to talk about what people told me this summer back home in Trois-Rivières. I had several discussions with stakeholders in the health and education sectors. In fact, yesterday, the Mauricie youth council, a non-partisan council, was here in the House. We are really making sure that we hear young people’s opinions. I had discussions with police representatives who work in schools to combat bullying. We also held round table discussions with students in grades 10 and 11. These discussions allowed us to hear the perspectives of both young people and stakeholders on certain issues. These discussions were insightful, constructive and nuanced, and they demonstrated young people’s interest in issues affecting their safety and experiences online. They shared their ideas with us and were very engaged in the discussions. We began the conversation by asking them whether they felt safe on social media and to rate that feeling on a scale from 1 to 10. What was interesting was that the boys’ sense of safety was around 9, while the girls’ was between 6 and 7. We then had a discussion about whether this was related to the type of content they are shown or are more likely to be exposed to. That led to a rich and insightful exchange. Several key findings emerged from those consultations, and I would like to bring them to the attention of the House so they can be taken into account in the important debate before us today. First, young people agreed that online safety is a shared responsibility. A number of different actors have a role to play. Platforms, of course, bear the primary responsibility for ensuring the safety of young people. We also discussed the ability of platforms to remove harmful or abusive content quickly. That was one of the young people’s main concerns. Users themselves obviously bear a significant share of the responsibility. The young people also said that parents, schools and all levels of government have an important role to play. What is interesting is that, at the beginning of the conversation, the young people were uncomfortable with the idea of the government getting too involved. However, as we explained the bill and they discussed it amongst themselves and shared their experiences with social media, they began to change their minds. By the end of the conversation, many of them recognized that governments did in fact have a responsibility. They understood that the goal was not to prevent them from using social media before they were 16 but to make the platforms take accountability and create a safe online environment. We also talked about age. Interestingly, the young people we talked to suggested a gradual approach. For example, they said that if they were allowed to get a job when they were 14 but could not use social media until they were 16, then they would not be able to communicate with their co-workers about their shifts or availability. They really made some interesting points. In closing, I would simply like to say that our children have the right to a safe online environment and that they deserve to be protected. When children leave the house, we protect them and we want to know who they are with and what they are doing. We need to give ourselves the necessary tools to protect them the same way when they are online in a virtual environment.”