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 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 Parliament220CertifiedMarch 22, 2024e-4700e-4700 (Justice)SarahRimbeyHon.MichelleRempel GarnerCalgary Nose HillConservativeABNovember 23, 2023, at 11:20 a.m. (EDT)March 22, 2024, at 11:20 a.m. (EDT)March 22, 2024Petition to the <Addressee type="3" affiliationId="" mp-riding-display="1">Government of Canada</Addressee>Whereas:Measures currently in place to protect Canadians from the dissemination of non-consensual pornography may fall short and be out of pace with technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI);With the rise of programs and applications augmented by AI, images and videos, virtually indistinguishable from reality, can be generated for distribution without consent;Canada’s determination of what constitutes an intimate image may not cover this AI-generated intimate content and may open Canadians to attack without legal protection;Existing criminal laws were enacted to protect vulnerable Canadians, particularly young women, from the distribution of non-consensual digital content;In 2013, Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Nova Scotian, tragically died after an attempted suicide when classmates electronically disseminated photographs of her being allegedly gang raped;In 2012, a 15-year-old British Columbia girl, Amanda Todd, committed suicide after experiencing assault, extreme bullying and blackmail related to the non-consensual online distribution of photos of her breasts; andNow, further protections must be implemented to reduce the gap between technological advances and the outpaced ability of Canadian lawmakers to protect vulnerable Canadians from the dissemination of non-consensual digital content.We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to protect vulnerable Canadians by adequately penalizing the dissemination of non-consensual AI-generated intimate digital content.Artificial intelligenceInternetPrivacy and data protectionVulnerable persons44th 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 27, 2024441-02214441-02214 (Health)BrendaShanahanChâteauguay—LacolleLiberalQCFebruary 27, 2024February 16, 2024PETITION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADAPetition to address online harms to childrenWHEREAS:There is a growing number of reports of Canadian children being exposed to online sexual extortion and as well as other serious harms via unfiltered access to platforms that either directly or indirectly subject children to sexually explicit material and the risk of being targeted by online child predators; andParliamentarians in both the House of Commons and the Senate have studied this issue including the House of Commons Health Committee which reported in 2017 that the committee heard "that parents need greater support to help protect children from unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material" as well as hearing "that technology companies should work to create better online content filters and tools that empower parents to protect children while they are online".WE, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
  • Immediately table comprehensive legislation addressing the issue of online harms to children that will support parents and guardians in protecting children from online predators and unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material as well as holding technology companies accountable for ensuring any online platform accessible to children is safe for children.
InternetPornographyYoung people
44th 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 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 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 tabledJanuary 18, 2023441-00913441-00913 (Media and telecommunications)GarnettGenuisSherwood Park—Fort SaskatchewanConservativeABDecember 1, 2022January 18, 2023June 7, 2021Petition to the House of CommonsWe, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:Whereas, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) already has sweeping regulatory powers over traditional forms of media.Whereas, the original mandate of C-10 was to expand Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulatory powers to include online platforms such as Netflix and Hulu.Whereas, Liberal members of the Heritage Committee voted for an amendment to Bill C-10 that would include social media platforms and other internet platforms within the jurisdiction of CRTC regulation.Therefore we, the undersigned, call on the government of Canada to:1. Respect Canadians' fundamental right to freedom of expression. 2. Prevent internet censorship in Canada.
Response by the Minister of Canadian Heritage Signed by (Minister or Parliamentary Secretary): Chris BittleThe Government, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who is the Minister responsible for Bill C-11 (a revised version of the bill previously introduced in the 43rd Parliament as C-10), would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding issues of freedom of expression and Internet censorship.The Broadcasting Act is about promoting cultural expression, not inhibiting it. It ensures that Canadian cultural expression is fostered and promoted.Canadians’ rights and freedoms under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are of paramount importance. Freedom of expression is already safeguarded in section 2(3) of the Broadcasting Act.The Broadcasting Act needs to reflect today’s digital reality. Canadian broadcasters and streaming services should play by the same rules. The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11) will ensure that streaming services showcase Canadian music and stories, as well as support our creators and producers. Bill C-11 will also ensure that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has the proper tools to put in place a modern and flexible regulatory framework.Bill C-11 clearly excludes users from being considered broadcasters in respect of the programs they post to a social media service. This means that the CRTC could not impose obligations on users of social media services. The ability of users to create online communities and to share information, ideas, personal messages and videos is not put into question by Bill C-11.This law would not control what Canadians can or cannot see online. Canadians will always be able to choose what to listen to and to watch.As it currently stands, Parliamentarians have proposed additional amendments to Bill C-11 to protect Canadians’ freedom of expression. The Government supports these amendments.
BroadcastingC-10, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other ActsFreedom of speechInternet
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