44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsMarch 22, 2024441-02275441-02275 (Health)LeslynLewisHaldimand—NorfolkConservativeONMarch 22, 2024December 11, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsMarch 22, 2024441-02274441-02274 (Health)AlexRuffBruce—Grey—Owen SoundConservativeONMarch 22, 2024February 16, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsMarch 22, 2024441-02263441-02263 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABMarch 22, 2024May 31, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02193441-02193 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 16, 2024March 22, 2024December 14, 2023Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks. 
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02192441-02192 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 16, 2024March 22, 2024December 14, 2023Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks. 
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02191441-02191 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 16, 2024March 22, 2024December 19, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02181441-02181 (Health)YvesRobillardMarc-Aurèle-FortinLiberalQCFebruary 15, 2024March 22, 2024February 6, 2024Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02161441-02161 (Health)DougShipleyBarrie—Springwater—Oro-MedonteConservativeONFebruary 14, 2024March 22, 2024February 6, 2024Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02150441-02150 (Health)EricDuncanStormont—Dundas—South GlengarryConservativeONFebruary 12, 2024March 22, 2024February 12, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks. 
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02118441-02118 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 19, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02117441-02117 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 19, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02116441-02116 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 19, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02115441-02115 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 19, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02114441-02114 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 19, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02113441-02113 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024January 26, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 22, 2024441-02112441-02112 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 8, 2024March 22, 2024February 6, 2024Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 18, 2024441-02065441-02065 (Health)AlexRuffBruce—Grey—Owen SoundConservativeONFebruary 2, 2024March 18, 2024January 19, 2024Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content.The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMarch 18, 2024441-02016441-02016 (Health)AlexRuffBruce—Grey—Owen SoundConservativeONJanuary 29, 2024March 18, 2024January 23, 2024Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is an important issue. The Government recently tabled online harms legislation (Bill C-63), which recognizes the need to better protect children online.Bill C-63 proposes to create the Online Harms Act, whichaims to promote online safety by reducing exposure to harmful content on social media services, with a special emphasis on protecting children.The Online Harms Act imposes three statutory duties that establish minimum standards that services must meet to ensure the safety of Canadians online:
  1. Duty to Act Responsibly
  2. Duty to Protect Children
  3. Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible
The Duty to Act Responsibly establishes a standard of conduct that social media services must follow to ensure the safety of users on their platforms and to create more transparency and accountability about how they deal with harmful content. The Duty to Protect Children requires social media services to provide protections for children online including the integration of age-appropriate design features on their platforms and to be more transparent by reporting on the specific measures that they are taking to protect children. Design features could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.The Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible requires social media services to expeditiously remove two categories of content from their services: 
  1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, and 
  2. Intimate content communicated without consent. 
The Act also creates a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada to oversee and enforce the Act; a Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada to advocate for and support victims and a Digital Safety Office of Canada which supports both administratively. Part of the Digital Safety Commission’s mandate would be to enforce the removal of content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent; and to promote societal resilience to harms online and set new standards for online safety by providing guidance to services on how to mitigate risk, perform research, work with stakeholders, and develop educational resources for the public, including children and parents. Overall, the Digital Safety Commission would be able to enact guidelines and regulations under the three duties, which would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.The Government has also looked at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.The Online Harms legislation was developed following extensive consultations by the Government of Canada since 2021, including public consultations, an Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety, a Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression focused on online safety, and 22 online and virtual roundtables across Canada, as well as consultations held in 2020 by the Minister of Justice, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. During these engagements there was strong consensus for protecting children and youth from online harm. Summaries of consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlOverall, the Government believes Bill C-63 would create stronger online protections for children and better safeguard everyone in Canada from online hate and other types of harmful content. It would hold online platforms, including livestreaming and user-uploaded adult content services, accountable for reducing users’ exposure to harmful content on their platforms and help prevent its spread.Despite its important policy objective, we do not believe that Bill S-210 is the best way to achieve the goal of protecting children online. It is a partial, piecemeal solution that ignores many of the most harmful forms of content that affect children online, including cyberbullying, incitement to self-harm, and child-sexual-abuse material. Furthermore, the bill has a broad scope and would regulate more websites than just adult websites and more content than pornographic content, it imposes unrealistic timelines for implementation and compliance, it raises a range of potential privacy risks, and it relies on website blocking which is a contentious enforcement mechanism with freedom of expression risks. 
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsFebruary 27, 2024441-02215441-02215 (Health)BrendaShanahanChâteauguay—LacolleLiberalQCFebruary 27, 2024February 16, 2024PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsFebruary 26, 2024441-02205441-02205 (Health)CathayWagantallYorkton—MelvilleConservativeSKFebruary 26, 2024December 14, 2023Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people44th Parliament222Presented to the House of CommonsFebruary 14, 2024441-02168441-02168 (Health)TedFalkProvencherConservativeMBFebruary 14, 2024May 26, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people44th Parliament223Government response tabledJanuary 29, 2024441-01972441-01972 (Health)MarilynGladuSarnia—LambtonConservativeONDecember 6, 2023January 29, 2024November 28, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. The Government of Canada has held extensive consultations on the design of a legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. This includes a consultation in the summer of 2021; the advice from an Expert Advisory Group on online safety; direct perspectives from Canadians who participated in a Citizen’s Assembly; and engagement in roundtables with the Minister of Canadian Heritage in every province, as well as on a series of thematic issues in online safety.All of this engagement and consultation has been undertaken in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along, and can be found here: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Government intends to introduce legislation reflecting its consultations and engagement soon.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJanuary 29, 2024441-01953441-01953 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABNovember 22, 2023January 29, 2024May 26, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 12, 2023441-01919441-01919 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABNovember 9, 2023December 12, 2023March 2, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is a very important issue, and the Government is currently developing its approach to protecting children to ensure they can engage safely online.As stated in the 2021 mandate letters to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Justice, the Government is committed to developing and introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians, and hold online platforms accountable for the content they host. The Government is working hard to meet these commitments and aims to introduce legislation as soon as possible. The Government has conducted extensive consultations with experts, citizens, civil society, and other stakeholders to this end. It has heard from a diverse set of views and intends to draw on those insights when drafting legislation. It has heard a strong consensus for protecting children and youth from harm online– and that this needs to be balanced against other priorities, like protections for freedom of expression and privacy rights. The Government has also heard support for a risk-based approach to online safety; the need to hold online platforms accountable to a standard for responsible action; the need for more transparency; and the need for better tools to empower users on these platforms. Finally, it has heard that there is a need to confront child sexual abuse material content, and to mitigate the risks associated with exposing children and youth to such content.                                                                                                                                                                               The Government has also been looking at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.Lessons learned from other jurisdictions as well as the advice received from each stream of engagement are contributing to the development online safety legislation in Canada. Summaries for consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.html Overall, the Government is committed to putting in place a legislative and regulatory framework that will hold large online platforms accountable for protecting their users, including children and youth, from the risk of exposure to a range of harmful content. People in Canada, especially children and youth, deserve safer and more inclusive online experiences.   
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 11, 2023441-01839441-01839 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 26, 2023December 11, 2023March 2, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS:Sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;The consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andOnline age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is a very important issue, and the Government is currently developing its approach to protecting children to ensure they can engage safely online.As stated in the 2021 mandate letters to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Justice, the Government is committed to developing and introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians, and hold online platforms accountable for the content they host. The Government is working hard to meet these commitments and aims to introduce legislation as soon as possible. The Government has conducted extensive consultations with experts, citizens, civil society, and other stakeholders to this end. It has heard from a diverse set of views and intends to draw on those insights when drafting legislation. It has heard a strong consensus for protecting children and youth from harm online– and that this needs to be balanced against other priorities, like protections for freedom of expression and privacy rights. The Government has also heard support for a risk-based approach to online safety; the need to hold online platforms accountable to a standard for responsible action; the need for more transparency; and the need for better tools to empower users on these platforms. Finally, it has heard that there is a need to confront child sexual abuse material content, and to mitigate the risks associated with exposing children and youth to such content.The Government has also been looking at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.Lessons learned from other jurisdictions as well as the advice received from each stream of engagement are contributing to the development online safety legislation in Canada. Summaries for consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.html Overall, the Government is committed to putting in place a legislative and regulatory framework that will hold large online platforms accountable for protecting their users, including children and youth, from the risk of exposure to a range of harmful content. People in Canada, especially children and youth, deserve safer and more inclusive online experiences.   
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 11, 2023441-01836441-01836 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 26, 2023December 11, 2023May 26, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 11, 2023441-01833441-01833 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 25, 2023December 11, 2023May 26, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 11, 2023441-01830441-01830 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 25, 2023December 11, 2023May 30, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 11, 2023441-01829441-01829 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 25, 2023December 11, 2023May 30, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 7, 2023441-01814441-01814 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 24, 2023December 7, 2023March 14, 2023Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is a very important issue, and the Government is currently developing its approach to protecting children to ensure they can engage safely online.As stated in the 2021 mandate letters to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Justice, the Government is committed to developing and introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians, and hold online platforms accountable for the content they host. The Government is working hard to meet these commitments and aims to introduce legislation as soon as possible. The Government has conducted extensive consultations with experts, citizens, civil society, and other stakeholders to this end. It has heard from a diverse set of views and intends to draw on those insights when drafting legislation. It has heard a strong consensus for protecting children and youth from harm online– and that this needs to be balanced against other priorities, like protections for freedom of expression and privacy rights. The Government has also heard support for a risk-based approach to online safety; the need to hold online platforms accountable to a standard for responsible action; the need for more transparency; and the need for better tools to empower users on these platforms. Finally, it has heard that there is a need to confront child sexual abuse material content, and to mitigate the risks associated with exposing children and youth to such content.                                                                                                                                               The Government has also been looking at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.Lessons learned from other jurisdictions as well as the advice received from each stream of engagement are contributing to the development online safety legislation in Canada. Summaries for consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.html Overall, the Government is committed to putting in place a legislative and regulatory framework that will hold large online platforms accountable for protecting their users, including children and youth, from the risk of exposure to a range of harmful content. People in Canada, especially children and youth, deserve safer and more inclusive online experiences.   
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledNovember 29, 2023441-01759441-01759 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 16, 2023November 29, 2023March 14, 2023Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Taleeb NoormohamedThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online, especially with regard to the consumption of sexually explicit material. This is a very important issue, and the Government is currently developing its approach to protecting children to ensure they can engage safely online.As stated in the 2021 mandate letters to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Justice, the Government is committed to developing and introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content to protect Canadians, and hold online platforms accountable for the content they host. The Government is working hard to meet these commitments and aims to introduce legislation as soon as possible. The Government has conducted extensive consultations with experts, citizens, civil society, and other stakeholders to this end. It has heard from a diverse set of views and intends to draw on those insights when drafting legislation. It has heard a strong consensus for protecting children and youth from harm online– and that this needs to be balanced against other priorities, like protections for freedom of expression and privacy rights. The Government has also heard support for a risk-based approach to online safety; the need to hold online platforms accountable to a standard for responsible action; the need for more transparency; and the need for better tools to empower users on these platforms. Finally, it has heard that there is a need to confront child sexual abuse material content, and to mitigate the risks associated with exposing children and youth to such content.                                                                                                                                                                                                  The Government has also been looking at efforts in other jurisdictions to protect children from explicit sexual content and other harmful content online. It has reviewed the United Kingdom’s 'Age-Appropriate Design Code' that requires regulated services to develop age assurance tools and other measures to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content by children. And it has watched with interest as Australia has indicated it will prioritize industry codes over mandatory age verification to address children’s access to online pornography.Lessons learned from other jurisdictions as well as the advice received from each stream of engagement are contributing to the development online safety legislation in Canada. Summaries for consultations can be found online https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.html Overall, the Government is committed to putting in place a legislative and regulatory framework that will hold large online platforms accountable for protecting their users, including children and youth, from the risk of exposure to a range of harmful content. People in Canada, especially children and youth, deserve safer and more inclusive online experiences.   
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledNovember 9, 2023441-01681441-01681 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABSeptember 27, 2023November 9, 2023May 26, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThe Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including when they are online. For that reason, the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, reflecting feedback from the Government’s 2021 public consultation. In 2022, further engagement included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which included a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to mitigate the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services must do their part to make the Internet a safer place for Canadians.Furthermore, the Criminal Code of Canada includes a robust framework that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, meaning that prosecutions may occur in Canada for offences allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. As the designated organization under this Act, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) also receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a non-governmental organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which forwards child sexual exploitation leads to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler that detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally.When these service providers are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to make these reports to C3P.Bill C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material), which was introduced on April 28, 2022, would create two new Criminal Code offences that would prohibit making, distributing or advertising pornographic material for commercial purposes without ensuring that the individuals depicted in that material are 18 years or older and consented to being depicted in that material. This Bill will be debated in accordance with the rules of Parliament governing private member’s business. The Government of Canada will follow the debate on this bill in Parliament.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledNovember 1, 2023441-01609441-01609 (Justice)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABSeptember 18, 2023November 1, 2023May 30, 2023PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONSWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas:
  • There are no laws that require makers, distributers or advertisers of commercial pornographic material to ascertain and document the consent and age of those depicted in the material;
  • Recommendation #2 from the 2021 Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Report on MindGeek states: "That the Government of Canada mandate that contenthosting platforms operating in Canada require affirmation from all persons depicted in pornographic content, before it can be uploaded, that they are 18 years old or older and that they consent to its distribution";
  • Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act adds two offences to the Criminal Code: to create pornographic material for a commercial purpose without verifying the age and consent of the individuals shown, and to distribute pornographic material without verifying the age and consent of those depicted and also removing material if in writing, consent has been withdrawn; and
  • Organizations including Defend Dignity, the National Council of Women of Canada, London Abused Women's Shelter, Montreal Council of Women, Parents Aware and the National Centre on Child Exploitation have all expressed support for Bill C-270.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to swiftly adopt Bill C-270, The Stopping Internet Exploitation Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary James MaloneyThere is no room in Canada for sexual exploitation. Our Government is committed to ensuring that all individuals are safe from sexual exploitation, including online. It is for this exact reason that the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s December 2021 mandate letter commits to introducing legislation to combat serious forms of harmful online content, taking into consideration the feedback received from the Canadian public in 2021.In 2022, we took it a step further, which included an expert advisory group, a Citizens’ Assembly, Indigenous engagement, which involved a sharing circle and one-on-one interviews, and 20 Ministerial roundtables across Canada. Our Government is committed to putting in place a regulatory framework to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful content online. Online services have a role to play to make the Internet a safer place for all users in Canada.Furthermore, the Criminal Code includes a strong and comprehensive approach that protects against sexual exploitation, including offences that prohibit non-consensual distribution of intimate images (section 162.1), as well as child-specific sexual offences, including child pornography (section 163.1), making sexually explicit material available to a child (section 171.1) and luring a child (section 172.1). Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, which means that prosecutions can happen in Canada for crimes allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report to police when they have reasonable grounds to believe that their Internet service is being or has been used to commit a child pornography offence, such as making child pornography available, or distributing child pornography. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) is responsible under the Act for another measure to protect the Canadian public. It receives, and processes, reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet from Canadian providers of Internet services. C3P is a registered charitable organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which receives and processes tips from the public about potentially illegal material online related to child sexual exploitation and then refers any potentially actionable reports to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services for those who need it. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler, which scans the internet and automatically detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally. When service providers, subject to the Act, are advised of a location on the Internet where child pornography may be made available to the public, the providers are required under this Act to report to C3P. All of these efforts together make C3P an effective organization that provides tools to protect children and combat child sexual exploitation.
C-270, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (pornographic material)ConsentLegal agePornography
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJanuary 18, 2023441-00868441-00868 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABNovember 24, 2022January 18, 2023June 8, 2022Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage conducted roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection of children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJanuary 18, 2023441-00857441-00857 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABNovember 22, 2022January 18, 2023September 26, 2022Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection of children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 9, 2022441-00815441-00815 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 26, 2022December 9, 2022April 20, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 9, 2022441-00811441-00811 (Health)GlenMotzMedicine Hat—Cardston—WarnerConservativeABOctober 26, 2022December 9, 2022March 16, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledDecember 2, 2022441-00766441-00766 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 19, 2022December 2, 2022April 21, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledNovember 17, 2022441-00729441-00729 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABOctober 4, 2022November 17, 2022September 26, 2022Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament AssembledWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:Whereas sexually explicit material - including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence - can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;Whereas the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence - including sexual harassment and sexual violence - particularly against women;Whereas Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;Whereas online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;Whereas anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; andWhereas online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection of children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.  
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledNovember 14, 2022441-00698441-00698 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABSeptember 26, 2022November 14, 2022March 9, 2022Petition to the House of CommonsWhereas:
  • Sexually explicit material, including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence, can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons;
  • A significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method;
  • The viewing of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence, including sexual harassment and sexual violence, particularly against women;
  • Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern;
  • Online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights;
  • Anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; and
  • The main recommendation made by stakeholders in a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health was for online age verification.
We, the undersigned, residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to pass Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the protection of young people online. This is a very important issue, and the Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians.The Government takes note of the petitioners’ concerns surrounding the volume of sexually explicit material on the Internet, and the harm it presents to young people. Many young people are utilizing these online platforms and can be particularly vulnerable to online harms such as incitements of violence, sexual harassment, physical threats online, and many more other harms. The Government is committed to addressing these concerns.As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content.From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. Subsequently, a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ was released on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways. The Minister also convened an Expert Advisory Group, composed of 12 experts from diverse backgrounds, which met over the course of the spring. The group’s discussions included topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online. The work of the expert advisory group concluded on June 10, 2022, and summaries of their discussions have been posted online. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlThe Minister of Canadian Heritage is currently conducting roundtables on online safety to understand the perspectives of those who would be most impacted by the legislation. Over the last few months, roundtables have taken place in cities across Canada, as well as virtually. Additionally, there have been engagements with international jurisdictions to better understand their approach to online harms and the protection of children and youth. The government sees this as a serious issue and will continue to explore avenues that will best support our youth.The Government will take some time to further engage with civil society, experts, stakeholders and interested groups to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online, especially as it pertains to young persons.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJune 14, 2022441-00422441-00422 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABMay 9, 2022June 14, 2022April 20, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJune 14, 2022441-00419441-00419 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABMay 9, 2022June 14, 2022December 15, 2020PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.  
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMay 16, 2022441-00328441-00328 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABApril 1, 2022May 16, 2022June 4, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMay 12, 2022441-00312441-00312 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABMarch 29, 2022May 12, 2022June 4, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMay 9, 2022441-00271441-00271 (Health)DamienKurekBattle River—CrowfootConservativeABMarch 24, 2022May 9, 2022January 27, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledMay 6, 2022441-00254441-00254 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABMarch 23, 2022May 6, 2022June 4, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding protecting young persons online – a very important issue. The Government is committed to making the Internet a safer and more inclusive place for Canadians. As you know, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been mandated to work with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to develop and introduce legislation as soon as possible to combat serious forms of harmful online content, including child sexual exploitation content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.The Government is committed to getting this right. From July 29 to September 25, 2021, the Government of Canada held a public consultation on a proposed legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The Government subsequently released a report titled ‘The Government’s Proposed Approach to Address Harmful Content Online’ on February 3, 2022, outlining the key takeaways from the consultation. As a next step following the release of the report, on March 30, 2022, the Government announced the creation of an expert advisory group to generate advice on a revised legislative and regulatory framework for harmful content online. The advisory group’s objective is to provide advice to support the Government in developing legislation on online safety. The group’s discussions include topics raised by the petitioners, including perspectives on child protections online, child sexual exploitation, and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.  Engagement with the expert group is done in an open and transparent manner, so that all interested parties can follow along. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/harmful-online-content.htmlAll Canadians should be able to express themselves online without being subject to hateful or threatening attacks. The Government will take some time to further engage with experts, stakeholders and interested parties to develop an effective legislative and regulatory framework to confront harmful content online.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people
44th Parliament223Government response tabledJanuary 31, 2022441-00006441-00006 (Health)ArnoldViersenPeace River—WestlockConservativeABNovember 24, 2021January 31, 2022March 16, 2021PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLEDWE, THE UNDERSIGNED RESIDENTS OF CANADA, draw the attention of the House to the following:WHEREAS sexually explicit material — including demeaning material and material depicting sexual violence — can be easily accessed on the Internet by young persons; Whereas a significant proportion of the sexually explicit material accessed online is made available on the Internet for commercial purposes and is not protected by any effective age-verification method; WHEREAS the consumption of sexually explicit material by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the development of pornography addiction, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and the development of attitudes favourable to harassment and violence — including sexual harassment and sexual violence — particularly against women; WHEREAS Parliament recognizes that the harmful effect of the increasing accessibility of sexually explicit material online for young persons is an important public health and public safety concern; WHEREAS online age-verification technology is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights; WHEREAS anyone making sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes has a responsibility to ensure that it is not accessed by young persons; WHEREAS online age-verification was the primary recommendation made by stakeholders during a 2017 study by the Standing Committee on Health.THEREFORE your petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-203, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.
Response by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): The Parliamentary Secretary Gary AnandasangareeThe Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that children are safe from sexual abuse and exploitation, including when they are online. The Criminal Code of Canada provides a robust framework for protecting children from sexual exploitation, both online and in person. This includes offences such as possessing, making, accessing or distributing child pornography (section 163.1) and making sexually explicit material available to a child for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence (section 171.1), in addition to a range of other child-specific sexual offences. Canada’s laws addressing child sexual offending also apply extra-territorially, meaning that prosecutions may occur in Canada for offences allegedly committed by Canadian citizens or permanent residents abroad.An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide Internet service came into force on December 8, 2011. This Act requires a Canadian provider of Internet services to report child pornography that they find on their servers in the ordinary course of conducting their business to police. As the designated organization under this Act, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) also receives and processes reports of child pornography and child abuse on the Internet. C3P is a non-governmental organization that operates Cybertip.ca, which forwards child sexual exploitation leads to the appropriate authorities. C3P also provides public education and awareness materials, as well as support and referral services. In addition, C3P operates Project Arachnid, an automated web crawler that detects and processes tens of thousands of images per second and sends take down notices to online service providers to remove child sexual abuse material globally.In 2004, the Government of Canada created the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet (National Strategy). The National Strategy focuses on law enforcement, prevention and education, and support for Cybertip.ca, Canada’s national tip-line for reporting online sexual exploitation and abuse. The National Strategy was renewed in 2009, bringing the total investment in fighting CSE online to over $18 million per year for Public Safety Canada, the RCMP and Justice Canada. In 2019, the Government of Canada announced an additional $22.24 million over three years to combat this crime. Public Safety Canada is the lead department on the National Strategy.Senate Public Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material, proposes measures to restrict access to sexually explicit material online, including through a new offence and new powers to compel Internet Service Providers to take steps to prevent access to the sexually explicit material to young persons on the Internet in Canada. This Bill will be debated in accordance with the rules that govern Senate Public Bills.
InternetLegal agePornographyYoung people