Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-34 today. I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg South Centre. This bill is long overdue. This is not the first time this House has tried to legislate to protect children in particular from online harms, but hopefully this time we will get it done. Based on the speeches I have heard from colleagues across parties in the House, it seems like there is finally consensus to protect our children online. When I was preparing for this speech last night, I stumbled across an article in the New York Times. It gave me pause and crystallized for me why it is so crucial that we put this legislation forward and get it right. The article was about a young woman living in the United States who had epilepsy and decided to talk about her medication with ChatGPT. What ended up happening is that ChatGPT counselled her on how to reduce her epilepsy medication and hide it from her doctor, which ultimately led to her death. Bill C-34 deals with chatbots. It deals with AI. We need to ensure that there are protections in place. There are vulnerable people and children using these tools in a way that is harmful to them. This woman’s story is an absolute tragedy and is something that I think all of us want to ensure does not happen again. What it crystallizes for me is that, left to their own devices, these companies cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. We have only to look at the whistle-blowers from Meta, Frances Haugen and Arturo Béjar, who both testified in front of Congress in the United States and said that Facebook and Meta have knowingly not put forward safety mechanisms because they want increased profits. We have heard that when it comes to protecting children, there are studies at Meta showing that young women are particularly vulnerable when it comes to bullying, body image issues and eating disorders, yet consistently they choose profits over safety. We have all heard stories from constituents and people across this country whose children have experienced online harms. Unfortunately, there are cases like that of Amanda Todd, who was so severely cyber-bullied that she ended up taking her own life. We have a responsibility to act in this House. I had the opportunity to meet with her mom, Carol, who has met with many of us in this place over the years and has been asking all of us, as members of Parliament, to act responsibly. Bill C-34 would do just that. It is there to protect our children from online harms and would come forward with a digital safety commission that would make sure the big tech companies are putting in safety by design as their principle. It would have real teeth and a real ability to fine companies that do not uphold their obligations to protect our children. If these things were happening in a playground, it would be unacceptable and the police would be called. There is no reason for these harms to be allowed online. The companies and people who perpetuate them need to be held to account. What I like about the digital safety commission is that it is based on principles, values, laws and protecting our children, but it is flexible for the future. When I hear colleagues say that we need to write these laws right now, I challenge them on it: Do we know what those harms are going to be five, 10 or 15 years from now? I am going to date myself a bit, because my first year of university was the first year that Facebook came out. In 2006, nobody knew that Facebook would become Meta. Nobody knew that Meta would effectively become the Internet in some parts of the world and have the kind of reach and control it does now. We do not know what the next thing is going to be. We do not know exactly how ChatGPT, Claude or any of these AI companies are going to transform our experiences and what existing or new harms they could potentially cause. I am not saying there is nothing good about any of these things. There certainly are. There are ways people connect that are great, but we have an obligation as members of Parliament, as legislators, as citizens, some of us as parents, to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect our children, the children of this country and people in this country from those potential harms. What would be good about the digital safety commission is that, for the first time, we would not just be legislating in the rear-view mirror; it would actually be forward-thinking and would give Canadians the tools to ensure that we can protect against some of these harms. Bill C-34 would also impose an age limit when it comes to social media. In her testimony to Congress, Frances Haugen suggested that, in fact, platforms like Instagram should raise their minimum age from 13 to 16, or even to 18. I think this is a really good step. We know there are age limits for a number of things in this country, whether it is drinking, voting, driving, or being able to buy cigarettes or cannabis. There are always people who are going to get around those age limits, but that does not mean it is not the right thing to do. It gives parents the tools to also help protect their children. A journal for the Canadian Medical Association talks about the fact that when children have constant access to online content, their levels of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation increase. Just reducing that from three hours a day to one hour a day has incredible benefits for their mental health. It is why the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Mental Health Association, organizations like Unplugged and Raise the Age, Children First Canada and a wide range of pediatricians, etc. support Bill C-34, as it is about providing opportunities for healthy and safe lives for our kids. AI is changing the way in which we interact, just as social media has done over the past 20 years. We need to ensure that, as Canadians, we can take control of what is happening in the online world and have the tools to enforce protections for our children. This is important work that would build off legislation like Bill C-16, which already made it illegal to share content like deepfakes, revenge porn, etc. We need to make sure we are protecting everyone from an image that can go around the world in seconds. As a mom of two young kids who are not quite at the age where they would be engaged in social media, I cannot say how much I want this to pass right now. I talk to young people who tell me about their anxiety, their depression, the challenges and the bullying. They cannot turn social media off. When I was younger, maybe some of these things existed in magazines and we had these kinds of images, but I could put that down. I could put that away, and I could walk outside. When we are connected all the time, there is no escape. Bill C-34 would not solve all the problems. There are always going to be challenges, but this is such an important piece of legislation at this moment in time to do what we can to protect our children, protect future generations and make social media and the Internet a safer place for everyone.
