Mike Lake

In response to a question from Mario Simard

“I want the committee to take enough time to study this bill properly. People have raised many real concerns, and provinces need a chance to share their views.”

“Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament from Alberta, I would share those thoughts. Obviously, if the committee is given a strong enough mandate and enough time to study this piece of legislation, provinces will have a chance to weigh in, either at committee or by sending comments to the committee, and I think that would be really important. It is important to me, more than almost any other piece of legislation I have seen, that Parliament, through the committee process right now, take the time to get this right. There are many legitimate concerns that have been raised, and it is very important that the committee that undertakes this study take the time to really hear those concerns and get it right.”

In response to a question from John-Paul Danko

“Many people want us to help kids spend less time on screens. Privacy is a big issue here, and the committee will study it. But I also want us to focus on helping kids spend less time on devices so they have more time to play.”

“Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. Of course, I assume we have all been lobbied by the unplugged folks who are so passionate about this issue on behalf of their kids, which I think is more than 10,000 strong in terms of the impact. We have all gone back to our constituencies and talked to people. In relation to the privacy issues the member raises, I want to give kudos to the member for Lethbridge who has consistently, as we have been having this conversation, been raising those issues. I expect they will be significantly raised in the committee as well. Again, I come back to my focus and the work I have been doing and intend to be doing. There is a real power to play, and in order to make room for play, getting off or reducing time on our devices is going to be critical.”

• Little substance
  ?

  Reply to a debate question

  Signal 20 of 100

  Much of this statement went to praise, blame, greetings, routine procedure or general stories rather than reasons, requests or specific points.

  See full analysis →

“I want this bill sent to committee. Social media companies design their apps to grab our attention to make money, and it harms kids by showing them content about eating disorders, gambling, and pornography. Teenagers are not ready to handle these platforms. A committee should study this bill to check how it affects free speech and what powers it gives to regulators.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to this piece of legislation today. I have been thinking for some time about the issues raised by the legislation, in my capacity as shadow minister for mental health and wellness and in working with many stakeholders who are very concerned about the impact of social media on our kids. To start, I am actually going to talk about something from my own experience that I think speaks to the very things we are talking about today. A few months ago, my mom was having a fairly minor surgery. One night as I was getting ready for bed, I thought I should text my mom to find out how her surgery went. The next morning, for whatever reason, I was about to text her about something else. I opened up my phone and realized I had never texted my mom the night before to ask her about her surgery. What I had done was open my phone with the full intention of sending a text, but I saw an Instagram notification, just that little dot on the Instagram logo that we cannot ignore, and clicked on something that was not important at all. Instagram was just getting my attention, as it does. I spent probably an hour scrolling reels on Instagram, and none of those reels was important. The types of reels that get my attention on Instagram, generally, are fantastic sports plays set to great music. Certain comedians also get my attention, so my algorithm has Nate Bargatze, Jimmy Carr and other comedians. It also has videos that explain things through AI-generated songs that are kind of funny and maybe clever, maybe not filled with really accurate information. I do not know. The other thing, though, that I notice about my algorithm is that it is filled with some things that are not so light. Recently, oftentimes, my feed would be filled with crash videos, sometimes plane crash videos. I fly a lot, and for whatever reason, if I see a piece of video or something like that, I will linger on it maybe a little longer than I should. I have noticed recently that my feed is filled with RIP content about people who have recently passed away. In retrospect, I know why that has happened. I believe in the JFK quote “Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.” There is a reason why I see what I see. It is that a few prominent people whom I followed have passed away in recent times, and I read the stories about them. It was enough to feed my algorithm, and now what has happened is that my algorithm has way more content related to sadness and death than it used to have. What this has done is manipulated my natural love for people, my natural empathy for people, and has replaced that with a kind of rumination on tragedy, I would say. One other comment is that on X, there is the ability, in some cases, to say, “I am not interested in this.” I have a specific ad that keeps popping up on X, a series of ads. I have clicked “not interested in this” at least four or five times, but they just keeps coming anyway. I cannot get rid of them. What does that look like for kids? I think that is the question we have to answer today. It is one thing as a 57-year-old to be drawn into social media. I would not phrase it as an addiction for me right now, but it definitely is something that is very compelling and takes me away from things I care about doing. What does that look like for a 13- 14- or 15-year-old? They might sit down to look something up on their phone to do some homework or study for something, or maybe there is something that would just be interesting that adds value to their life, or they are texting a friend to make plans, but they get locked into some kind of notification or addictive scrolling session that might last an hour, or two or three hours, when they were just going on their phone to make plans with their friends to do something in person. What does the content look like for kids? Too often, we are hearing that the content that our kids are seeing on there might be related to eating disorders or to the way that someone ought to look. It might be related, in many cases now, to gambling. Maybe it is just fun games at first, but it does not take very long before the algorithm starts to feed them gambling ads. Pornography is another thing that is drawing many kids in. There is a question that we have to ask ourselves, because some people might have a conversation. I think there are some legitimate conversations around free speech in the debate. It will be interesting to see when we go to committee and hear from experts on the impact of other parts of the bill as they relate to free speech. However I would say, for the social media part, for me personally as I am looking at this, I do not see the issue of whether a 15-year-old should have access to social media as a free speech issue. In my view, 15-year-olds are not equipped to be signing contracts with social media behemoths and signing away access to their attention, which is what is happening. It is not a coincidence that we are all seeing what we see on our social media feeds. It is not a coincidence that kids are seeing what they are seeing on their social media feeds. People are paying for them to see what they are seeing on their social media feeds, and the more time they spend on their devices, the more money someone makes in the background. That is an issue. Again, I do not believe that 15-year-olds are equipped to be entering into contracts that they do not fully understand and that tie them into seeing things that they did not expect to see and do not understand why they are seeing them. I have a quote from C.S. Lewis that I love, and I think it kind of highlights where we are right now. He said: We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. I want to think about the place we want to be, which C.S. Lewis talks about. I think we all want to be in a place where our kids can thrive, where we all can thrive, where we all can flourish and where we all can live up to our potential. I like to think of a world where our kids can play like we used to play. Jonathan Haidt’s work has been raised in a lot of the conversations around social media age limits particularly, of course. He has four norms that he points to, in terms of his work. He talks not only about a social media age limit, but also about a restriction on smartphones in schools, which provinces across this country have enacted. He talks about parents deciding to delay smartphone access for their kids to 14 years old. The fourth norm is more play in the real world. There is incredible research being done on the power of play in the real world. I think of my friend Lenore Skenazy and her work on free-range kids, and Mariana Brussoni, a Canadian who does incredible work on unstructured play and the power of risky play. If we are going to go down a road with less social media access for kids, we have to have alternatives for our kids to undertake. I would say, as a country, one thing that we have to look at is where the spaces are where our kids can get outside and play, so more green space, but more green space where kids are safe to explore like we used to explore. I know my time is running short right now. I am very much looking forward to this bill getting to committee. I think there are some legitimate concerns that folks would have about the bill that relate to fairly undefined powers of a regulator, the impact of some of the freedom of speech provisions within the bill that are not related necessarily to a social media age limit, and others. Right now, I look forward to questions, but I really look forward to the conversations that are going to happen at committee on the bill.”

“We would cut the laws that hurt Alberta's oil industry. The Liberals spend too much money, and now we spend more on debt interest than on health care. This high debt will eventually force cuts to health and social services, which hurts vulnerable people. The government needs a plan to balance the budget.”

“Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the hon. parliamentary secretary’s speech. At one point she did ask what we would cut. Let me be very clear, because she also referenced my home province of Alberta in kind of a flippant way. The first things we would cut would be Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which have made it impossible to compete in the global environment where, believe it or not, oil coming to Canada from Algeria, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia faces fewer restrictions and less rigorous regulation around reporting than oil coming from Alberta being sold in our own country. Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 are where we would start cutting. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Hon. Mike Lake: I know the member is heckling me, Mr. Speaker, but I do want to talk about something fairly serious to me. She made the assertion that Conservatives do not care about the most vulnerable. The member is new to the House and is mocking me as she smiles. The member might not know that I have a son with autism. He is 30 years old. I talk about this a lot in the House. In 1995, when we were in a similar situation to what we are in now and we had a Liberal government dealing with a generation after the 14 out of 15 deficits that the former Trudeau government had run, that Liberal government, under Paul Martin, was forced to cut 32% from transfers for health, social services and education. Every province in the country and every vulnerable Canadian in the country had to pay the consequences of those devastating cuts. Those devastating cuts happened for exactly the same reason, because of the exact same type of fiscal policy that the current Liberal government is running. We have massive deficits, a situation I mentioned a few minutes ago in which we are paying more on interest today than we are on the Canadian health transfer. Because of deliberate spending decisions made by the member’s government, today we are spending more on interest than we are on the Canadian health transfer. The Liberals’ own budget documents presented in the spring economic statement indicate that by 2030, we are going to be using the entire deficit to pay off interest on the debt. It is the equivalent of going to a bank, getting a mortgage and convincing the bank to allow payment of only the interest on that mortgage, not paying off any of the principal but only making interest payments on the mortgage. That is the situation we are in today. Another Liberal member just called that the best fiscal situation in the world. That is laughable. There is no Canadian who believes that right now. I have a quote from C.S. Lewis. This goes back a while, but I find it a perfect quote for where we are right now. Lewis said: We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the [one] who turns back soonest is the most progressive.... We need to turn back. We need to get this country’s fiscal situation back on track. We need to have a plan, at least someone on the government side who indicates that it is important to one day get back to a balanced budget and a time when we have the flexibility to make the best decisions we can for all Canadians, including the most vulnerable.”

“In 2015, Canada had a balanced budget and the richest middle class in the world. Now our national debt has doubled. We spend more on interest than on healthcare, and soon the whole deficit will just pay for that interest. The government needs to explain how we got here.”

“Mr. Speaker, in 2015, The New York Times reported that Canada had the richest middle class in the world. In 2015, we had a balanced budget and the richest middle class in the world. Fast-forward to today. We have more than doubled our national debt. The Liberals brag about the fact that we are subsidizing groceries for a third of the population. That is the situation we are in. We are spending more on interest than we are on the Canada health transfer, and the Liberals’ own financial statements indicate that by 2030‑31, the entire deficit would be used to pay interest on the debt. How did we get here?”

“The Liberals cut debate short on this spending bill, but they did not even show up to make sure enough members are here. I want a count to see if we have quorum.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have shortened debate on this really important amount of spending they are doing, and they cannot even be bothered to show up to have quorum. I would like to make sure we have quorum.”

“Canada's economy and national unity would improve if Alberta could sell its oil around the world. Foreign oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Algeria faces fewer emission rules than Alberta oil. I want to know if the member thinks that is fair.”

“Mr. Speaker, one thing that would help Canada’s fiscal situation substantially and would help our national unity situation substantially is if we were allowed to sell our resources from Alberta around the world. Currently, because of policies put in place by this member’s government over the last 10 years, oil shipped from Alberta is subject to more rigorous emission standards than oil imported from Saudi Arabia and Nigeria to Canada. Does the member think it is okay that oil coming from Nigeria, Saudi Arabia or Algeria is subject to less rigorous standards than oil and gas coming from Alberta?”

• Off topic
  ?

  Question or comment in debate

  Relevance 1 of 100

  None of this question addressed the preceding speech or the topic under debate.

  See full analysis →

“In 2015, Canada's federal debt was $616 billion. This year it will reach $1.4 trillion under the Liberals. I want someone in the government to stop this spending.”

“Mr. Speaker, in 2015, Canada had a balanced budget and the richest middle class in the world. Coming out of a global economic meltdown, Canada’s federal debt stood at $616 billion. Yesterday, we found out that after a decade of Liberal economic experiments funded on the national credit card, our debt this fiscal year will hit $1.4 trillion. The Liberals are trading away Canadians’ future prosperity to fund this tiresome daily Liberal QP routine of riffing off ever-increasing lists of things they are charging to the national credit card. Is there someone over there with the courage to stand up and say, “enough is enough”?”