Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, there was a time when children spent their afternoons riding bikes around their neighbourhoods and families gathered around the dinner table and discussed their day. They caught up with friends after school, which, of course, meant meeting in person or picking up the landline, often tethered to the wall, and making a phone call. An embarrassing moment at school might become the talk of the playground the next day, but it would never follow a child home in the form of a viral video. While children have always faced dangers from strangers in the past, those encounters were more likely to happen in person, where a stranger would have to go through a school or a parent to access the child. Today’s reality is very different. Children can now be reached by strangers through a screen in the privacy of their own bedroom. An embarrassing moment can be recorded, shared and viewed by thousands of people within seconds, and harmful content can appear on a child’s screen without warning, while addictive algorithms are designed to keep young users scrolling long after they should have logged off. Today’s children face a set of challenges unlike any previous generation in this regard. It is important for us to underscore the seriousness and severity of those challenges. From an early age, children are exposed to digital devices, and they spend hours navigating online spaces, where the risks are not always apparent but often appear when it is too late. They face addictive algorithms designed to capture their attention, and they keep scrolling, often at the expense of sleep, physical activity and face-to-face interaction. They are exposed to harmful and inappropriate content, including material that can be disturbing, misleading or unsuitable for their age, and this happens without them even searching for it or wanting it. They face cyber-bullying and online harassment where degrading comments, humiliating images and personal information can spread rapidly and remain accessible long after they have logged off. The consequences can be serious and long-lasting, leading to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and social isolation. The spread of humiliating content can also damage a child’s reputation or affect their academic performance, often leaving them feeling unsafe even in their own homes. They are also vulnerable to online predators who can use anonymity to privately message them, gain a child’s trust to manipulate them and exploit their vulnerability. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection reports that it receives over 100,000 reports every single month with regard to child exploitation. In fact, it is so grave that authorities simply cannot keep up. As children grow up online, they face growing concerns about privacy and mental health from the permanent circulation of personal images and the pressure of comparing themselves to the carefully curated and often half-false versions of other people’s lives. These are serious challenges for children that, of course, have lasting implications. These children are still developing the judgment and maturity that they need to recognize risks and protect themselves. Consider the case of Amanda Todd, a young British Columbia teenager whose story brought national and international attention to the dangers of online exploitation and cyber-bullying. At just 12 years old, Amanda Todd was targeted by an online predator operating from the Netherlands, thousands of kilometres away from her home in British Columbia. He persuaded her to expose herself on a webcam and saved the image for later. He used it to blackmail her, threatening to share it with her friends and family if she did not continue to do things for him. What followed was years of exploitation and harassment, online and off-line. Amanda died by suicide at the age of 15 due to this experience. Amanda’s story is a devastating reminder that the Internet has no borders. A predator thousands of kilometres away was able to reach a Canadian child, exploit her trust and inflict lasting harm without ever being physically present in her life. More recently, the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, raised serious questions with regard to the role that artificial intelligence can play in the lives of young people, as well as the responsibility that technology companies have to protect the general public. On February 10, a shooting in Tumbler Ridge claimed the lives of eight people, including five students, and it forever altered the life of Maya, who has been left with life-altering injuries. This tragedy devastated families, it crushed a community, and it shook our entire country. In the months since, reports have emerged about the shooter’s interaction with an artificial intelligence chatbot before the attack. The company has confirmed that an account associated with the shooter had been flagged and closed months before the tragedy, but nothing further had been done. A platform’s inaction and negligence resulted in one of Canada’s very worst mass shootings. The reality is clear. Children are increasingly exposed to online risks, parents are struggling to keep up with rapidly evolving technology, and online platforms are failing to do enough to protect children and support families. Platform operators will often claim that they are adding safety features or tools for parents to use, but these are often buried in hard-to-find places and are too complicated for busy parents to be able to use. Sometimes parents are not tech-savvy enough, either. The truth of the matter is that the platforms’ first priority is not the protection of children but rather their commercialization and, of course, making a profit, often at the expense of the safety and well-being of Canada’s young people. Canadians and legislators are saying enough is enough. We want to move forward. We want to make a difference. Platforms must be held accountable because they cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. We have tried that for too long. As legislators, therefore, it is our responsibility to ensure that online platforms are held accountable for their actions and the impact of their products. We must put legislation in place that truly empowers parents by putting control in their hands rather than in the hands of big tech. I have heard from many parents who want legislation that reflects the concerns they face every day as they try to keep their children safe online. They want platforms to address harmful content and features that can negatively affect their children’s mental health and well-being, rather than designing online experiences that put that well-being at risk. They want their children to be able to enjoy the benefits of technology without sacrificing their confidence, their sleep or their mental health. They want to know that their children will not be exposed to sexually explicit material while browsing the internet. They want platform operators to take responsibility for preventing children from accessing this material, rather than leaving parents to discover and address the problem when it is too late. Parents want their children protected from online predators and from those who seek to manipulate, exploit or harm them. The non-consensual sharing of intimate images can have devastating consequences for children and their families. AI makes it easier than ever to create convincing yet fake intimate images of real people, putting children at great risk of humiliation, harassment and lasting harm. Parents rightly expect platforms to act swiftly to remove these images and take meaningful steps to prevent them from being created and shared in the first place. These are not unreasonable demands. They are the concerns of parents who love their children and deeply want to protect them. Parents are not asking the government to take over their role. Parents know their children better than any government official or any technology company ever could. Their judgment and their authority must be respected in whatever legislation is put forward. The role of government and online platforms should be to support parents, not replace them. That support must also come with safeguards for the privacy of children and their families. Furthermore, parents expect law enforcement agencies to have the necessary tools to investigate child exploitation and bring perpetrators to justice, all while upholding Canadians’ constitutional freedoms. Any legislation intended to keep kids safe and empower parents must address these concerns, which brings me to Bill C-34, the bill up for debate today. It has potential, but its success would depend on whether it would deliver meaningful protections for children and give parents the necessary support they need. Good intentions are not enough. We must look carefully at whether this bill’s stated intent would in fact be achieved. My colleagues and I have held dozens of town hall meetings across this country, and we have surveyed those in our communities. Canadian parents have a lot of questions about the bill. They want to know if the legislation would actually make the difference that they need. For example, the bill would require platforms to implement safe design features, but what that would really mean in practice is not transparent in the bill. How would the government ensure that recommendation algorithms, autoplay functions or notifications are designed with children’s well-being in mind? Much of the detail of the legislation is left until later. I have heard from parents who are concerned about the amount of time their children spend online and the difficulty of setting boundaries in an environment designed to keep them engaged. Imagine being a mother who wants her child to put their phone down to get a good night’s sleep and to focus on school. She can set rules at home, but she cannot control the algorithms that are being used to influence her child and where her child looks. There are no settings with regard to notifications and when to draw them back or to turn off the device during school hours. Many parents are asking about the regulations that are to be established after the bill is passed, and let us be honest, there are a lot of them that are to come later. They want to see real tools that would allow them as parents to set boundaries regarding who their children are connecting with, or to manage screen time and restrict inappropriate content. They want clear, accessible settings that work. There are also important questions about how this legislation proposes to restrict young people’s access to social media. If the government imposes a blanket social media ban for children under 16, what happens next? Young people tell me that they will find a workaround, and parents confirm that this is true. They know it. Many of these kids are smart. Australia applied a ban, and 70% of its youth are still plugged in, so what assurance do we have that Canada’s model would actually be more effective? Many parents are also concerned about age verification. Since these measures would apply to all social media users, regardless of age, Canadians want to know exactly how their identity would be verified. Would Canadians be asked to submit government-issued identification, biometric data or other sensitive personal information, and if so, what are the regulations that would guide that? What safeguards would ensure that this information is not retained, misused or exposed in a data breach? In my conversation with parents, video games come up constantly. Kids spend hours on platforms like Roblox and Minecraft, where grooming and exploitation happen regularly. Why does Bill C-34 focus heavily on social media feeds while leaving these major gaming environments entirely out? Other parents have pointed out that AI chatbots are now widely accessible. Dedicated platforms such as OpenAI offer chatbot services, while similar tools are increasingly available on social media platforms like Instagram. Over the summer, a doctor shared with me a very heartbreaking story. She told me about a patient of hers who suffered from severe bullying. Looking for help, the young girl asked an AI chatbot how to end her life by overdosing on iron pills. When she hesitated to swallow that many pills, the chatbot actually suggested an alternative way of being able to consume them. The girl did as the chatbot told her and ended up in the hospital. Fortunately, however, she was saved. This is alarming. A child who was already struggling, who needed support and compassion, turned to a chatbot for answers and received instructions that were meant to end her life. Bill C-34 introduces duties for chatbot services and automated systems, but how would the government ensure that these safeguards apply wherever children might turn for help within the AI system, whether through social media, independent chat apps or educational tools? Parents want to know the answers to these questions. Parents are also asking fair questions about the digital safety commission, which would be created under Bill C-34. Given the tremendous power that would be granted to the commission to act as rule-maker, investigator, enforcer and judge, what specific checks and balances does Bill C-34 include to ensure the new commission would not abuse its extensive power and would in fact respect the rights and freedoms of Canadians? These are important questions, because the details of the legislation would affect what Canadians could access online, how platforms would operate and how children’s safety would or would not be protected. When so much is left up to future decisions by a regulatory body to be made behind closed doors with no accountability, Canadians need clarity. They need clarity about the limits of the authority that would be given to this commission and the safeguards that would be given to make it work for us as Canadians. Protecting children online is not a partisan issue. Parents across Canada want to know that their children can use technology safely without being exposed to exploitation, dangerous content or preventable harm. Legislation must address these concerns in practical and effective ways. We must ensure that online platforms are held accountable for the design choices they make and the risks they create. We must give parents accessible and easy-to-use tools to protect their children. Parents want to be empowered. We must ensure that safeguards keep pace with emerging technologies, including artificial technology, and we must do all of this while protecting the privacy and constitutional rights of Canadians. This is what is required. It is a tall order, but I do believe it is possible. The government cannot simply tell parents that their children are safer because a bill has been passed. It must demonstrate that the measures introduced will actually work and will actually make a difference. To that end, Bill C-34 needs to be studied carefully with input from children, parents, doctors, child psychologists, law enforcement officials, technology and artificial intelligence specialists, civil liberty advocates and other witnesses who can help us understand the risks children face online and determine how best to address them. Protecting kids online is non-negotiable for Conservatives. It is a must, which is why we are thankful that the government is finally doing something. This is the Liberals’ third attempt after all. However, good intentions require sound mechanisms. We are focused on holding tech giants accountable and empowering parents, not expanding government bureaucracy. As the bill before us moves to committee, we will scrutinize its provisions to ensure that it delivers real protection, because we owe it to Canadian families to get this right.
