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Taleeb Noormohamed

Liberal on Adjournment Proceedings 2026-11-03

Replying to Elizabeth May (Green)

“Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell the House how often memories come back to me of the Speaker’s saying, “It being now 12:40 a.m., pursuant to an order reached earlier this week”, deeming a motion to adjourn the House to have been moved, and saying, “The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has the floor.” It is nice that our adjournment proceedings are beginning at a more civil hour and that there are still members in the chamber. I am pursuing a question I asked in question period on June 4. It was the day the government announced its artificial intelligence strategy, which was called “AI for all”. My question for the government started by noting that I just wondered how the slogan “artificial intelligence for all” lands in Tumbler Ridge. We had just become increasingly aware of the role AI had played in the tortured and challenging mental health crisis that was being experienced by the adolescent who then killed children and caused such unbearable pain. I noted that seven families were in court seeking redress for the loss of their children who were not adequately protected, and I asked when there would be protection. The hon. secretary of state who responded to my question did, of course, share that sense of grief, and said, “[The government is doing] everything we can, including working with AI companies and advancing our protective legislation, to ensure that these types of tragedies never happen again in Canada.” I am glad I submitted an Adjournment Proceedings slip, not because the answer was particularly egregious from the secretary of state but because our response to this is inadequate. I also referenced in my question on June 4 that I was very much taken by the advice of Pope Leo XIV that artificial intelligence, in his words, needs to be “disarmed”. That was before the additional trauma and additional facts were unearthed about the Tumbler Ridge tragedy. It is still with me. I am so honoured that I was included, and I thank the Prime Minister for including all leaders of the other opposition parties so we could all go to the vigil in Tumbler Ridge together. It has not left me for a day how searing that tragedy is and how avoidable it was. Flags were raised within OpenAI and other companies that are really creating an addiction problem for young people and creating real mental health issues, even to the extent that artificial intelligence and what are now called chatbots were actually engaging in a conversation to encourage the very tragic and disturbed person who committed these crimes. It has now come to light that there are at least allegations, which have been unearthed through joint work of the RCMP and law enforcement in the United States, that there was another person who was in an ongoing conversation with the young person in Tumbler Ridge, promising them that they would become famous because the person in the States was promising to livestream the killings in the school as they happened. Again, this would never have been possible without artificial intelligence. We have before us Bill C-34 now. I asked my question before Bill C-34 was tabled, which happened later in June. I know that a lot of levels of government and different countries around the world are trying to grapple with what we do with artificial intelligence. We are being warned by people such as Geoffrey Hinton, a Canadian who is actually credited and known as the godfather of AI, that there is an existential risk. Here we are, and we still have no answers.”

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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for her question. We are both British Columbians. We have both felt the pain of the families and victims at Tumbler Ridge. I am a dad. No day goes by that I do not think about what it is like for the parents who lost children or whose children have been injured, and what it is like for that entire community. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that Canadians and all of us in this House are heartbroken, and we continue to keep the families, survivors and victims in our thoughts and prayers. To the hon. member’s question, our AI for all strategy is built on three pillars: trust, opportunity and sovereign control. It has to begin with trust. We all know that Canadians are only going to use and benefit from AI when they know they are protected and when they can trust it. Over the course of the last several months, we have spoken to parents, we have spoken to kids and we have spoken to teachers, educators and experts. That is how we have come up with our response. That is why our government is taking the approach of protecting children, strengthening privacy protections and putting clear rules in place so that Canadians can use this technology safely. That is the right way to move forward. These protections are not an afterthought. It is quite the opposite. They are the foundation and cornerstone of our strategy. It starts with clear rules around how personal information is used. The hon. member referenced legislation. We are modernizing Canada’s consumer privacy law through Bill C-36, which was introduced in June and recognizes privacy as a fundamental right. It would safeguard children’s information. It would strengthen Canadians’ control over their personal data. It would create a right to deletion. It would protect them against surveillance pricing. However, trust also means keeping Canadians, especially our kids, safe online. Bill C-34, the safe social media act, would hold social media platforms accountable for reducing harms from online content. It would also protect children from the harmful content the hon. member mentioned: AI chatbots. We are taking tangible action to stop AI from being used to mislead voters. We are working with police and security experts to stop people from using AI to scam Canadians, cause harm or worse. We have committed $50 million to expanding the Canadian AI Safety Institute, strengthening Canada’s ability to track risks and advance technical safety research. Our government has invested $150 million in LawZero, led by Yoshua Bengio, the world’s leading AI safety researcher. Alongside Germany, we are helping build AI that is safe by design right here in Canada. Following this tragedy, our government summoned OpenAI officials to Ottawa to demand stronger accountability and clear escalation pathways. I was in that conversation, and I can say that our government has been tireless in ensuring that young people know that we will keep them safe from any risks related to AI. Following this, OpenAI established direct contact with the RCMP to report high-risk cases, and our government directed the company to apply stronger standards and to review past cases while the Canadian AI Safety Institute continues its review. Canadians’ safety is our first priority. We will ensure that companies operating in this space act responsibly and that Canadians, and particularly Canadian kids, are protected. Nothing that we can do will change what happened at Tumbler Ridge, but we owe it to survivors like Maya, who is now home, to ensure that young people and families know their government is taking steps to ensure that this technology serves them and keeps them safe, not the other way around.