“I want the House to pass this bill to committee. It requires commercial porn websites to check that users are adults before letting them in. Children often see this material by accident, which harms their development and relationships. Parents cannot catch every click, so companies that make money from porn should help keep children off their sites. The bill protects user privacy by requiring the age checks to be done safely by third parties who must delete the data.”

“moved that Bill S-209, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to pornographic material, be read the second time and referred to a committee. She said: Madam Speaker, we know that the Internet gives us access to almost anything. With just a few clicks, we can watch a movie, learn a new skill on YouTube, find a new recipe, research any topic or talk to a friend down the street or even on the other side of the world. Within my own lifetime, the Internet has gone from something new to something that is fully integrated into our everyday lives. The Internet is without a doubt a big part of everyday life for every generation, including our children. They use it to do their homework. They play games. They watch videos. They connect with their friends. However, the Internet also gives children access to things that they are not ready to see, understand or even process. One thing that is readily available to kids is pornography. Research shows that children can be exposed to pornography online without ever even intending to look for it. They can come across it in an unintended search result. They can click on the wrong link. It can be shared by another child, or it can appear through an advertisement. Once a child sees it, we cannot assume they understand what they are seeing. They do not have the experience or maturity to understand what they are looking at, or what it means for a healthy relationship. Parents may not even know that this has happened. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection says children as young as eight and nine can easily come across sexually graphic material online. An Alberta study found that one-third of adolescents in this study had first been exposed to pornography by the age of 10. Other research has reported exposure at even younger ages, including children as young as five. Let us just sit with that for a moment and think about that. At five years old, a child is just beginning school. They are learning to read. They are learning how to make friends. They are learning about the world around them. They should not be exposed to pornography, and they certainly do not have the capacity to understand it. Children are being exposed to pornography online, sometimes at a very young age. The graphic and often violent content is not appropriate for a child. Their brains are still developing, and they are learning how to understand relationships, emotions, boundaries and the world around them. When a child is exposed to pornography, they do not have the maturity to understand what they are seeing. They may start to believe that what they are watching is healthy, and it can shape their ideas about sex, relationships and how people should treat one another. There is another concern. What might start as accidental exposure or curiosity can become a habit. A child may return to that content again and again. Over time, repeated use can become compulsive, and for some young people it can develop into an addiction. There is certainly evidence that compulsive consumption is a widespread and growing public health issue. One Canadian survey examined students from grade 7 to 11. Among the grade 8 students surveyed, 88% of boys and 72% of girls reported seeing sexually explicit content, and 35% of boys said they had seen pornography too many times to count. To be clear, these are children. They are still developing their understanding of sex, relationships and what is healthy, yet some are already being exposed to pornography on a regular basis. This is not something we should ignore, because that repeated exposure is rewiring the brains of the kids who are consuming it. Over time, repeated exposure can shape what a young person comes to see as healthy. It can shape their expectations about sex and relationships, and those ideas do not simply disappear once a child turns 18. What a young person sees while they are still developing can influence how they understand relationships later in life. We can see examples of this in the way that some harmful sexual behaviours have become normalized among young people. A recent article by sex neuroscientist Debra Soh examined the growing normalization of sexual choking among young people. She makes the case that pornography has played a role in making behaviour that was once clearly understood as dangerous seem normal or even expected in some relationships. These harms can affect how young people understand sex, relationships and consent, and the consequences can extend beyond a child who is viewing the content. When harmful behaviours are normalized, there can be victims on the other side of those behaviours. Young women and girls can be affected by expectations placed on them by partners who have learned distorted ideas about sex and relationships. We need to think about the young people who may be pressured to accept behaviour because they have been told it is normal. We also need to think about those who may experience sexual violence or abuse as a result. Protecting children from harmful content is not just about what they see on a screen. It is also about the kinds of relationships and expectations we want them to carry into adulthood, yet there are currently no safeguards in place to make sure children cannot easily access this content online. That is a disservice to our children. Bill S-209 is a response to that lack of a safeguard. I am grateful to Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne for her persistence and dedication in addressing this issue and for her commitment to protecting children online. I share that commitment. To be clear, the bill is very targeted. It would not ban pornography. What it would do is require commercial pornography websites to take responsible steps to make sure their content is not being viewed by children. If a website makes money by providing pornography, it should have a responsibility to help keep that content away from children. Bill S-209 would require these websites to use effective age verification or age estimation measures. In other words, if the content is intended for adults, there should be a reasonable way to make sure that the person accessing it is actually an adult. This is about putting in age restrictions where ones should already exist. We have age restrictions for many things in the real world. One has to be a certain age to buy alcohol. One has to be a certain age to gamble. One has to be a certain age to purchase pornography. We expect businesses to follow these rules. Frankly, we should expect the same online. Children deserve that protection. That is what the bill would do, while also taking into account the privacy of Canadians. It is not a matter of protecting children or protecting privacy. We can and we should do both. Bill S-209 includes safeguards to protect the personal information of Canadians while making sure that children cannot easily access pornography. The bill would put clear requirements in place for any age verification or age estimation method that is prescribed. The method must be highly effective. It must be operated by an independent third party. It must protect the privacy of users and their personal information. It can only collect and use information that is necessary to verify or estimate a person’s age. Once the process is complete, that information must be destroyed. The goal is to confirm that someone is old enough to access adult content. It is not to create a record of what Canadians are looking at online. It is certainly worth noting that Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, has expressed support for Bill S-209 and welcomed the privacy protections included in the legislation. When we are talking about children, there is another important part of this conversation that we cannot overlook, and that is parents. Parents have the primary responsibility for raising their children. They teach their children right from wrong. They set boundaries. They talk to their children about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. Parents do everything they can to keep their children safe. This legislation in no way undermines the authority of parents. It does not replace the role of parents. It does not tell parents how to raise their children. Instead, it gives parents another tool to help protect their children online, because the reality is that no matter how hard parents try, they cannot monitor everything their children see online. They cannot be there for every search, every click, every message and every video. Parents can use parental controls and other safeguards on their children’s devices, and those tools can certainly help, but they cannot protect every child from coming across inappropriate content. That is where this legislation can help. It would add another layer of protection. It would put responsibility on the companies that profit from providing pornography to make sure that children cannot easily access it. Parents should not have to carry that responsibility alone. They are already doing everything they can. This bill would simply give them another tool to help keep their children safe online. When I was home in my riding over the summer, I spoke with many parents about this issue. The message I heard was very clear: Parents want to protect their children. They know they cannot monitor everything their children do online, and they see this legislation as a reasonable step that can help them do that. It is widely understood that early exposure to pornography is harmful to children. After decades of widespread access to online pornography, we have research showing the negative impact that early and repeated exposure can have on young people, and we as legislators have a responsibility to act on what we know. That means putting reasonable safeguards in place, supporting parents and making sure commercial pornography companies have effective age restrictions in place to keep their content away from children. Bill S-209 would do exactly that. It would create a barrier between children and pornography that does not currently exist. It would help prevent unintended exposure and make it more difficult for children to access this content. It would give parents another tool while recognizing that parents cannot do this alone, and it would do so while respecting the privacy of Canadians. This bill would not ban pornography. It would not replace parents. It would simply recognize that protecting children online is a shared responsibility. Children deserve reasonable safeguards and guardrails to protect them from online pornography. Parents deserve the tools to help protect them, and Canadians deserve privacy protections. Bill S-209 would bring these priorities together. I hope that all members of this House recognize the urgency of this issue and support the protections that our children deserve.”

“Another bill deals with social media and chatbots, but it does not cover online porn companies. This bill is needed to close that gap and stop those companies.”

“Mr. Speaker, we need to recognize what Bill C-34 is encapsulating. Bill C-34 specifically applies to regulated social media services and regulated chatbot services, so that is user-generated content. What Bill S-209 is targeting is pornographic content from online porn companies. They are two different things. I believe there is a hole in Bill C-34 where this is not covered. Online porn companies are not covered in Bill C-34. Bill S-209 is a targeted piece of legislation that will close that hole.”

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“I want to send this bill to a committee for more study. It protects people's private information, and Canada's Privacy Commissioner supports it.”

“Mr. Speaker, we do sit together on HUMA, and I very much appreciate working with the member. We know the Privacy Commissioner has endorsed this bill. There are specific provisions in section 12(2) that would ensure that whatever method is chosen needs to be highly effective, be operated by a third party organization, and maintain user privacy and protect personal information. The fact that the Privacy Commissioner has endorsed this bill says leaps and bounds, because his job is to ensure that the privacy of Canadians is respected. For sure, I think this would be great to go to committee, where we can have a deeper dive on those conversations regarding Bill S-209.”

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“Parliament supported this idea ten years ago, but nothing has happened since. I want the member to explain what other countries have done to keep kids away from online porn.”

“Mr. Speaker, the journey of this bill started back in 2015 with Motion No. 47, which came before this Parliament and was unanimously passed. That caused a health committee report that recommended exactly what the bill before us would do. It has been over a decade since that report come out. Canada was kind of a first mover back then, but efforts have kind of stalled. I wonder if the member could talk about what other countries have done in this regard.”

“I want the House to pass this bill and send it to committee. We have known for over ten years that online pornography harms children and warps how they view sex and relationships.”

“Mr. Speaker, it has been a very long time. It has been over 10 years that we have known this is an issue. Not long ago, there was an article in The Globe and Mail, which I referred to in my remarks, about sexual strangulation derailing a generation of girls. This is how pornography is affecting children, the next generation. It is a distorted version of what relationships and sex are. It is time this legislation passes so that we are able to move forward and take it to committee.”

“We need to stick to the bill we are supposed to be debating today. Members should not be talking about other government bills right now.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned, because I understand we are to be debating Bill S-209 right now, and I am hearing about bills that are government bills and are being debated, and it is up to the government to call the calendar. We are debating Bill S-209. We are not debating Bill C-34 or Bill C-36.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It requires commercial pornography websites to check that users are adults, just like stores do for alcohol and cannabis. Early exposure harms children, and the companies profiting from this content should be responsible for keeping them off it.”

“Mr. Speaker, there should be some things in this House that rise above politics, and protecting our children is one of them. That is why Bill S-209 has earned support from across party lines and across political traditions. Whether we sit on the government benches or the opposition benches, or whether we are Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloc or independent, surely we can agree on something this basic: A child should not be one click away from pornography. I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill S-209. I would like to thank Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne for bringing this bill forward once again and for the many years of work she has poured into it. This bill would require commercial pornography websites to take meaningful steps to prevent children from accessing their content. As a mother, I find it deeply troubling that it is 2026, and we still have to debate whether those safeguards should exist. We would never accept a 10-year-old walking into a liquor store and being told, “We trust you to make choices on your own because you’re old enough.” We would never accept a child walking into a casino without checking their age. However, today, a child can pick up a phone, click a link and enter a commercial pornography website. That makes no sense and parents know it. As a mother, I think about the moment when our children begin exploring the world on their own. They ask questions. They become curious. They start using a phone or a tablet to look something up, watch a video or talk to a friend. As parents, we want to give them the room to learn and grow, but we also need reasonable safeguards while they do. Right now, a child can encounter pornography without even looking for it. A link can appear in a group chat, a search can land somewhere unexpected or something can appear on the screen before a child can even understand what they are seeing. Once a child sees it, parents cannot make them unsee it. Of course, we all know that once a child has lost their innocence, it cannot be gained back. That alone is a main concern. However, this issue goes beyond accidental exposure. As children grow, they naturally begin asking questions about themselves, relationships and the world around them. That curiosity is part of growing up. The problem is that today, a commercial pornography website can only be one click away, often without a meaningful check that the person entering is actually an adult. What might a child find there? They may see violence or degradation. They may see women and girls treated as though their wishes do not matter. Without the maturity to understand what they are watching, they may begin to mistake pornography for an education in relationships. Those are lessons no child should be learning from a pornographic website. Research puts the average age of the first exposure at 12. One-third of children are exposed by the age of 10 years old. At 10, many children are still learning how to understand their own feelings, let alone how to interpret explicit material created for adults. Research has associated young people’s exposure to pornography with harmful beliefs about relationships, including beliefs concerning consent and the treatment of women and girls. The bill recognizes concerns about material depicting violence, reinforcing gender stereotypes and contributing to attitudes favourable to harassment and violence. There are legitimate concerns about children’s development and safety, because children are still developing their understanding of relationships, boundaries and behaviour. Repeated exposure to pornography can shape what a young person begins to see as normal and expected, and that has real consequences for how they understand themselves and others. What does commercial pornography teach children about consent, dignity and respect? Those are questions that matter to parents raising their children, and they matter to the society those children will inherit. Parents are already doing everything they can to help their children navigate these issues with care and with honesty, but no parent can watch every screen, every search result, every message and every link every minute of the day. Children can use the Internet at home, at school and with their friends, so yes, we should give parents the tool, but we should also expect the companies making money from this content to take responsibility. The principle behind Bill S-209 is simple: If someone makes money selling adult content, they have a responsibility to make a reasonable effort to ensure that the person accessing it is actually an adult. That should not be controversial. We already accept that principle in the physical world. We place age restrictions on alcohol, cannabis and gambling. We do not tell parents that it is entirely their responsibility; we require the business to check. Why should the online world be any different? Children deserve better, and we owe them better. They deserve the freedom to be curious and to discover the world without being confronted with explicit material they are simply too young to understand. Protecting childhood is part of our responsibility as adults, as parents and as legislators. Bill S-209 would give that responsibility practical meaning. It would make it an offence for an organization to make pornographic material available online for commercial purposes to a person under 18 years of age. A company could not simply say that it is assumed that a visitor was an adult. It would have to demonstrate it used an approved method of determining age. The bill would also establish significant fines for companies that fail to take that responsibility seriously. We know that many of these websites operate outside Canada, but the fact that a company is somewhere else in the world does not make its content any less accessible to a child sitting in a bedroom in Newmarket, Aurora or anywhere else in this country. That is why the bill would provide an enforcement process where, after notice and continued non-compliance, the enforcement authority could seek a federal court order requiring Internet service providers to prevent access to the material in Canada. Ultimately, a court would make that decision. The principle remains the same, though: Responsibility belongs to the organizations commercially distributing the pornography. If they profit from providing adult content, they must take meaningful steps to keep children from accessing it. Some people have raised legitimate concerns about privacy, and those concerns deserve to be taken seriously. Bill S-209 would take them seriously. Approved methods would have to meet privacy requirements, including limiting the collection of personal information, using information for age-assurance purposes and destroying information once the process is complete. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, has supported the objective of Bill S-209 and has said that privacy-protective age assurance can be an appropriate tool for creating safer online experiences for children. We do not have to choose between protecting privacy and protecting children from pornography. We can and should do both. No law can guarantee that a child will never encounter pornography online. Children are resourceful, and technology changes, but the fact that we cannot prevent every exposure is no excuse for preventing none. Age restrictions do not prevent every underage person from obtaining alcohol. We still require them, because safeguards matter, accountability matters and making it harder for children to access something intended for adults matters. For me as a mother, this is where the issue becomes very simple. We cannot keep our children little forever, nor should we. They will grow, and they will ask questions, and part of being a parent is answering those questions honestly and helping our children understand the world they are entering. However, children deserve the opportunity to learn about relationships, consent, dignity and respect from the people who love them and care about the adults they will become. Parents are doing their part every day. Let us give our children the time and space to simply be children.”