Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today on Bill C-34, the safe social media act. Upon taking office, the Prime Minister pledged to protect and strengthen Canada, and that is what we are doing today. We have also remained focused on ensuring that as Canadians, we take control of our own destiny, protect what we believe in and pave the way for future generations. That starts with keeping Canadians safe, not only in their communities but online. Today, I am here to reaffirm our government’s unwavering commitment to protecting Canadians and, in particular, young Canadians. We have all seen how online harms have exploded. These harms have real consequences for our communities. We need only think of the Tumbler Ridge tragedy, which claimed eight lives, including six children, and left many more injured. The perpetrator of the shooting used OpenAI’s chatbot to get advice. Another example is the young person who was admitted to Toronto’s SickKids hospital in a catatonic state after classmates set up a site just to humiliate them. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection processes more than 100,000 reports of online child sexual abuse every month. Police-reported online child sexual exploitation incidents rose by 347% between 2014 and 2024 alone. Violent online networks are targeting our children on the platforms they use every day, encouraging them to hurt themselves or even take their own lives. If this activity happened on the playground, the playground would be shut down immediately. One in four young people say they have been cyberbullied. This represents a 500% increase since 2014. We are also witnessing a rise in mental health challenges, including anxiety, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. These figures are alarming. Behind every one of these statistics is a child, parents and a family. Over the summer, my colleagues on this side of the House and on the other side of the House and I met with Canadians, experts, parents and young people. Everywhere we went, we heard the same message: We need to act, and we need to act urgently. Parents, teachers and caregivers cannot be expected to face these challenges alone, nor can they be expected to take on some of the world’s most sophisticated technology companies by themselves. Urgent action is needed to hold online services accountable and to ensure that our children are safe on the platforms they are growing up with. The reality is that our laws have not kept up and kept pace with technology. Current legislation imposes penalties only after the harm has occurred, rather than preventing it in the first place. This bill, the safe social media act, would establish clear responsibilities for regulated social media services and AI chatbot services operating in Canada. It would place the onus where it belongs: on the platforms themselves. It would ensure their services are safe. This act is structured around three core duties. The first is a duty to act responsibly. Social media services would need to assess and mitigate the risks of exposure to seven categories of clear, harmful content, apply labels to synthetically generated content, build safety measures into the design of their platforms, make it easy for Canadians to report and submit complaints, and, finally, provide Canadians with better tools to keep themselves safe, such as blocking and flagging functions. AI chatbot services would have to mitigate the risk of chatbots communicating harmful content, intervene in crisis situations when a user intends to harm themselves or another person, and mitigate the risk of chatbots engaging in harmful behaviour with our children. Secondly, social media platforms would have a duty to make certain content inaccessible. Platforms would be required to remove the most serious forms of harmful content within 24 hours of it being flagged or reported. This includes content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent. Third, the law would establish the duty to protect children. It would require social media and AI chatbot services to implement age-appropriate safeguards. This means building safety into the design of their services and ensuring that children are not exposed to high-risk interactions or harmful content. This includes an obligation for regulated services to prevent children from accessing pornographic content on their services. For regulated social media platforms, this would also mean having a responsibility to prevent children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts. This approach was requested by parents and educators almost unanimously. It is in line with the emerging international approaches to online safety, but this design is made for Canadians. We expect platforms to adopt age verification and age estimation measures that meet the highest standards of security and privacy protection. However, the age restriction is just one of the measures in this bill, because we know that the best way to protect young people is to design online spaces to be safe. That is why social media platforms that put sufficient safeguards in place will be able to seek an exemption from the age restriction. Finally, regulated services will need to be transparent with Canadians and publish digital safety plans detailing how they are meeting their obligations. We also recognize that Canadians deserve to know how their personal information is being used, shared and protected. That is why my colleague, the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, introduced Bill C-36. It represents the most significant change to Canada’s private sector privacy law in over 25 years. This bill establishes clear guardrails to protect Canadians’ personal information, with a special focus on children’s personal information. Making Canadians safer online, enhancing platforms’ accountability and preventing online harms before they occur must be priorities for us and the House. The safe social media act would establish conditions necessary for the online services that shape our lives to operate responsibly and, importantly, transparently. It is designed to address current concerns while allowing us to keep pace with technological changes, which often outpace legislation. Finally, it would ensure that our children and Canadians can benefit from new technologies without compromising their safety and privacy. Canada has been falling behind, and we must ensure that Canadian youth are no less protected than young people elsewhere as our world becomes increasingly digital. We need to act now. Canadians expect action from the House, and we must deliver. I invite all members to give this bill serious consideration and engage in an open and constructive debate. Our children’s safety must be a shared priority that rises above partisan lines. I am committed to working with all members of the House to protect our children online.
