“Artificial intelligence hurts young people's mental health, and it played a role in the killings in Tumbler Ridge. The government's plan to deal with artificial intelligence is not good enough. I want to know when we will have real protections against these harms.”

“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.”

“I support the goal of this bill, but it is too weak. We cannot trust artificial intelligence companies, and they will not protect children unless they fear punishment. I want the government to change this bill to threaten their profits and punish their directors personally.”

“Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. I do not think we can trust any of these AI companies, and Bill C-34 would not make them behave in ways that would make them trustworthy. They have to be held accountable. As much as I support the intent of Bill C-34, proposed section 85 says: The purpose of a penalty is to promote compliance with this Act and not to punish. These are multi-billion-dollar profit-making criminals. They plunder the earth for their profit. They do not care about children’s safety. They will not care about Canadian children’s safety until they are really afraid of the punishment. I hope that when we go to committee and go to clause-by-clause, the government will agree that it is important to put in threats to their profits and put in strict liability and personal liability for directors on the boards of companies like Anthropic and others so they realize that for shareholder benefit, they have to be punished.”