Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government will table a bill on Wednesday which is expected to restrict young Canadians’ access to social media platforms and bring in online safety standards.
Teasing the announcement, the government said the new legislation will “make social media services and AI chatbots safer for children.”
“I think it’s obvious why it’s a priority. Kids are dying,” Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday morning.
Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported that the bill will propose a ban on social media for children under 16, mitigate harms caused by the rise of artificial-intelligence chatbots and stand up a new digital regulator to establish safety standards.
The newspaper reported that companies that then meet this criteria would be permitted to allow young Canadians back on their platforms.
A source told CBC News the bill would include a ban of some kind.
In announcing its AI strategy last week, the government said it would introduce legislation to address the safety of chatbots.
A source said AI chatbots will be regulated, but suggested the rules will be less sweeping than those put on the social media companies. There will be a duty to protect children and measures for age verification, they said.
CBC News agreed not to name the sources because they had not been authorized to discuss the forthcoming bill.
On Tuesday, Culture Minister Marc Miller said he couldn’t comment on the government’s online harms bill before the legislation is tabled in the House of Commons, but added, ‘I think it’s obvious why it’s a priority, kids are dying.’
Neither Miller, who is the lead on the bill, nor Justice Minister Sean Fraser would confirm what’s in the legislation — citing rules protecting the confidentiality of bills before they’re tabled in the House of Commons.
“I think it suffices to say that we will take all reasonable measures to make sure kids are safe in this country,” said Miller.
Ottawa under pressure
The government has been under pressure from parents and advocates to address social media harms, from their severe mental health impacts to their addictive design and potential to expose users to harmful content.
Groups like Unplugged Canada, a grassroots advocacy group, has been pushing a government-imposed social media ban for children under 16.
Critics of a full ban argue kids can easily get around restrictions and that it doesn’t keep social media companies accountable.
Emma Mason explains why she supports Australia’s social media ban for teens, after her daughter committed suicide because of online bullying.
If you or someone you know is struggling, here’s where to look for help:
– Canada’s Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call or text 988.
– Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868. Text 686868. Live chat counselling on the website.
– Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre.
– This guide from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health outlines how to talk about suicide with someone you’re worried about.
Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications at McGill University, sat on the government’s advisory panel on online safety.
“A ban assumes that a product can never be made safe,” he said.
“I do think it’s fair to say that until companies prove their products are safe, we think the dangers in them are so great that we should temporarily remove their access to a market. I think that is a reasonable proposition.”
The model Owen has been pushing for, which the Globe’s reporting reflects, would see an independent body set out enforceable regulations for social media companies to follow, like risk assessments, transparency regimes and age-appropriate designs.
Owen is also hoping the upcoming legislation will include age-appropriate measures to address AI products like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok.
“It would be crazy not to include them,” he said.
Last Liberal attempt failed
A previous attempt to bring on an online harms bill died when former prime minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament in early 2025.
That divisive bill included Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act amendments, targeting content used to bully a child or encourage a child to harm themselves, hate speech, content that incites violence or terrorism, content that sexualizes children or victims of sexual violence and sexual content that is posted without consent.
At the time Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused the government of chilling free speech, saying bullying and other forms of online harms should be handled by police, not “pushed off to a new bureaucracy.”
Ahead of this new bill, Fraser pushed back on accusations the government is trampling on free speech.
“You don’t have to give up your freedoms in order to ensure people can live safe in a society,” he said.
Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, the party’s associate critic for Canadian identity and culture, said he watching to see what the Liberals table.
- Is a social media ban the right way to protect kids online? Click ‘Join the Conversation’ at the bottom of this story. On the app? Tap here.
“But to be honest with you right now, let’s signal to the parents to do a better job, if you don’t mind me saying,” the Saskatchewan MP said.
“We gotta teach the parents to parent.”
NDP Leader Avi Lewis said the party “absolutely” believes in regulating tech companies to protect people from online harms and will be watching to see how far the proposed bill will go in “reining in a business model that is addictive and exploitative by design.”
He said in a statement that Canada “cannot allow an age-verification process to become yet another massive data grab for Big Tech.”
Australia has issued a ban on social media for kids under 16, passing a world-first law through its Parliament. Many parents are celebrating the move, but social media companies say it’s been rushed.
Miller’s bill comes as a number of other countries plan to curtail children’s access to social media and days ahead of the G7 in France where the issue is also expected to be raised.
Australia became the first country late last year to set a minimum age to possess an account on TikTok, YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
