Luc Thériault

“Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that we are discussing a topic that is on the minds and in the hearts of just about every parent with young children today. Young people want to have access to social media because of social pressure, because their friends have access to social media. Young people want to use Facebook because their friends are on Facebook. Young people have access to social media as early as age six or seven. It is easy to get on social media. A person just has to enter a false date of birth, and that is it, they have a Facebook account. Add to that the complicity of parents who are not able to say no to their children, and it really is easy. Now it has gotten to the point where, if users type a few certain words into a search engine, they could be taken to websites that they do not necessarily want to see. Children are no exception. There are curious young people out there—kids who want to see everything. As a result, they can find themselves exposed to intimate images or graphic violence, particularly given the growing prevalence of violent material online. Sometimes, if they are watching a video on YouTube, YouTube will subsequently suggest another video that is completely unrelated to the previous one. Why does that happen? We do not know. If a young person does not have a YouTube account, the platform will sometimes suggest videos based on viewing patterns. These might be clips from violent movies, videos of incidents involving the police or who knows what else. The young person is exposed to what others are seeing in their algorithm, and that is truly harmful. If I sound as though I know a thing or two about this, it is because I spend a great deal of time with my grandchildren. Like many children, they enjoy watching simple videos, funny clips on social media, little Lego-building videos and the like. We let them watch, and then suddenly we hear a scream, as if a monster had just emerged out of nowhere. The algorithm automatically took them somewhere else. As a parent or grandparent, that is the moment when concern sets in and one wonders what the child is watching. One quickly realizes that, despite the safeguards in place, despite being present, and despite the content being displayed on a 55-inch screen, if one gets up to turn off the dining room light, it is no longer the same video when one comes back. That is a significant problem, and it is important that we address it. I did not survey a youth council, as the member who spoke just before me did, but I have seen first-hand, day after day, just how harmful it can be to leave young people unprotected in front of these major digital platforms. I asked myself what I could do to keep my grandchildren from seeing that kind of content and from ending up there in the first place. I thought there must surely be safeguards or tools available to prevent it. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any. I then began wondering how I could educate them. I started looking into how best to teach kids aged five, six and eight to navigate these issues and use these technologies responsibly. My colleagues know as well as I do that, even if I found a way to educate them, young people have become more skilled than I am at distracting the adults and watching whatever they want. It is incredible: The youngest is only three years old, but he can turn on the TV and go to YouTube. Now I have to be careful to make sure he cannot get on there. I have a responsibility at home. Once the TV is on, we have to protect children from accessing that kind of content. We must protect young people who will later become victims themselves, young people who have been lured in by third parties, by people with bad intentions, who, through messages on social media, such as Messenger or any other communication platform out there, will trick them into letting their guard down, even though we have told them not to talk to strangers, not to give out their names, and all those things. Despite all that, there are people who are so skilled that they will manage to get what they want from these young people. Why? It is because young people are impressionable by nature. Yes, this is worrisome. How can we stop kids from using social media? When they are four, five or six years old, it is easy. Parents can turn off the TV and stop them from having access to all that. Problem solved. If we take a close look at all the terms and conditions on Facebook or most social media, 12-year-old kids are not even supposed to be there. However, there are not many 12-year-olds who are not on some kind of social media, be it TikTok or some other platform. How can we stop kids from being kids? That is the big question. Is Bill C‑34 the answer? There are some answers in Bill C‑34. Does it contain all the answers? I do not know. Above all, as we venture into this area, we need to be careful not to go too far, because this is the technology of tomorrow. I remember the initial reaction when computers and social media first came along. Our parents and grandparents would ask what we were doing on “the Internets”. They would say it was dangerous and that people were selling drugs on there. In the end, I have to say that it has proven far more useful than many of us thought at the time. My parents used to say they would never, ever use it. I remember when people said that every family would one day have a computer. Well, that is not what happened. Every family now has more than one computer. My cellphone is more powerful than the first computer I ever owned. It contains more images than I could ever have stored on 56, or even 50,000, floppy disks. That is the reality. The real issue is what we do with the technology and how we use it. The challenge is figuring out how, as a society, we can protect our children while continuing to benefit from social media and all of its positive aspects, and at the same time succeed in getting rid of all the junk we find on those platforms. In Quebec, children are no longer allowed to bring their cellphones to school, and we have seen a real improvement. I do not have any statistics to share, but what I am hearing from teachers and from everyone is that there has been a real improvement now that children no longer have access to their phones at school. They are socializing more, talking to each other more and participating in more activities. At lunchtime, they do not stay on the school grounds. I think they are quick to scatter. That is another issue. Anyway, there has to be some control. Parents play an important role. Any legislation must recognize the role of parents. Parents often feel as though they are at a loss when it comes to how to help their children. We must recognize that they have a role to play. No law will be able to prevent a young person from going somewhere if the parents do not co-operate. I think that is important. There is also the role of these major social media platforms, these digital giants. They have a role to play. They are the ones who enable this kind of content to be distributed and posted and who make it accessible to young people. They, too, have a responsibility, and I think there are technical ways for them to prevent young people from accessing this content without us necessarily having to give them all our personal data so they can build a massive database. Imagine if a database of young people with Internet access fell into the hands of people with malicious intent. Protecting young people’s privacy is just as important. With this kind of database and the artificial intelligence we see everywhere today, if someone were ever to get their hands on a list of all the young people who visit this kind of site, it could cause serious harm. We have a role to play, and the government has a role to play. At the same time, the government must not take on the roles of judge, adjudicator and punisher all at once. It must exercise a certain degree of control. We cannot appoint someone to be the czar of communications with children. We need to appoint someone who is genuinely committed to protecting children. Protecting children means safeguarding their data and supporting parents. It means being there to support them, not to make all the decisions for them. We will study Bill C-34 in committee. That is important. I hope I will have the opportunity to add my views, because I do have some recommendations to offer, based on my experience as a grandpa.”