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Rules for online safety

C-34 Safe Social Media Act: An Act to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Regulates social media and chatbot services, meant to protect people in Canada and reduce online harms.

What Bill C-34 would do

The bill would create the Digital Safety Act and set up the Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee it. Operators of regulated social media and chatbot services would have to mitigate exposure to harmful content, label synthetic content, and protect children through design features and age limits. Platforms would also have to remove non-consensual intimate content and child sexual abuse material, and submit digital safety plans to the commission.

Official text

Official summary

Part 1 enacts the Digital Safety Act , whose purpose is, among other things, to promote the safety of persons in Canada, particularly children, reduce harms caused to them as a result of harmful content online and ensure that the operators of regulated social media services, regulated chatbot services and other regulated online services are transparent and accountable with respect to their duties under that Act. That Act, among other things, (a) imposes on the operators of regulated services (i) a duty to act responsibly in respect of the regulated social media services that they operate, including by implementing measures that are adequate to mitigate the risk that users will be exposed to harmful content on the services, by providing tools to users to enable them to block other users and flag harmful content and by labelling synthetic content, (ii) a duty to act responsibly in respect of the regulated chatbot services that they operate, including by implementing measures that are adequate to mitigate the risk that the chatbot will communicate harmful content to a user, measures to ensure intervention in crisis situations and measures that are adequate to mitigate the risk that the chatbot will engage in certain harmful behaviours, (iii) a duty to protect children in respect of all of the regulated services that they operate by integrating into those services design features that are set out in the regulations, by implementing minimum-age restrictions for accessing pornographic content on regulated services, and, if provided for by regulations, by implementing minimum-age restrictions for being able to have an account with, or being otherwise registered with, regulated social media services, (iv) a duty, in respect of the regulated social media services that they operate, to make inaccessible to persons in Canada, in certain circumstances, content on that service that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent, and (v) a duty to be transparent in respect of all of the regulated services that they operate, including by submitting a digital safety plan to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada to assist it in determining whether an operator is complying with its duties under that Act; (b) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations to make the operators of other online services subject to the duty to protect children and the duty to be transparent; (c) provides that persons in Canada may make a complaint to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada that content on a regulated social media service is content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor or intimate content communicated without consent and authorizes the Commission to make an order requiring the operator of the service to make that content inaccessible to persons in Canada if the person making the complaint has used their best efforts to seek recourse from the operator of the service under that Act; and (d) provides that persons in Canada may make submissions to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada respecting the measures taken by the operator of a regulated service to comply with its duties under that Act.

Part 2 enacts the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act , which establishes the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, which has powers, duties and functions under the Digital Safety Act . The Part also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

The government's summary, printed at the front of the bill as introduced.

Kind
Government bill
Sponsor
Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs)
Introduced
in the House of Commons
Last activity

Where it stands

  1. ProposedJun 10
  2. Being studiedsince Oct 29 Exact stageAt consideration in committee in the House of Commons · Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage · since October 29, 2026A committee of MPs or senators is going through it line by line.
  3. Almost law
  4. Law

In a House committee since October 29

  1. First reading in the House done

    Before the House on 1 sitting day,

  2. Second reading in the House done

    Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

    Before the House on 3 sitting days, to · 8 debates here

    2nd reading and referral to committee - CHPC: agreed to on division,

  3. Committee in the House now

    Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage

  4. Report stage in the House not yet

  5. Third reading in the House not yet

  6. First reading in the Senate not yet

  7. Second reading in the Senate not yet

  8. Third reading in the Senate not yet

  9. Royal assent not yet

Exact procedural stages

Officially: At consideration in committee in the House of Commons · Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage · since October 29, 2026.

  1. House
  2. Senate
  3. Royal assent

Debates in the House 8

Members who spoke: Liberal 47 Conservative 35 Bloc Québécois 10 Green 1

Second reading 8

  1. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 152 · 47 statements · 41 graded

    13 members spoke

  2. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 152 · 1 statement · 1 graded

    1 member spoke

  3. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 157 · 23 statements · 23 graded

    9 members spoke

  4. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 157 · 202 statements · 170 graded

    38 members spoke

  5. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 158 · 38 statements · 32 graded

    16 members spoke

  6. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 158 · 81 statements · 72 graded

    27 members spoke

  7. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 158 · 23 statements · 20 graded

    10 members spoke

  8. Safe Social Media Act

    · Sitting 158 · 42 statements · 32 graded

    17 members spoke

Also raised in 11

Question Period, members' statements and other debates where the bill came up.

Show 11

  1. Business of the House

    · Oral Questions · named 1 time

  2. Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

    · Private Members' Business · named 21 times

  3. Business of the House

    · Government Orders · named 1 time

  4. Business of the House

    · Oral Questions · named 1 time

  5. Young People and Pornography

    · Statements by Members · named 1 time

  6. Business of the House

    · Government Orders · named 1 time

  7. Routine Proceedings

    · Routine Proceedings · named 1 time

  8. Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

    · Private Members' Business · named 22 times

  9. Government Business No. 13—Proceedings on Bill C‑22

    · Government Orders · named 2 times

  10. Combatting Hate Act

    · Government Orders · named 1 time

  11. Government Orders

    · Government Orders · named 1 time

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Status, stages and votes from LEGISinfo. Debates are linked from the House's own record of what was before it. Grades are the site's analysis of each statement.