Online dangers keep claiming the lives of Canadian children. Five years on, advocates are still waiting for Ottawa to act

How many kids in Canada need to die before the federal government treats online harms as a crisis? That’s the question child protection advocate Sara Austin asks herself about the absence of legislation that protects young people online. In 2008, 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji died by suicide after exchanges she had with a man online. In 2011, Jenna Bowers-Bryanton, 15, took her own life after she fell victim to vicious cyberbullying and harassment at school. In 2012, it was Amanda Todd, also 15, who was sexually extorted by an anonymous attacker, while, the following year, it was 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons, a year and a half after an image of her being allegedly sexually assaulted circulated among her classmates, leading to unrelenting bullying. More recently, it was 17-year-old Daniel Lints, who died in 2022 after being coerced into sharing an intimate image with someone on Snapchat. In 2023, two more boys died by suicide, 12-year-old Carson Cleland and an unnamed 14-year-old, after both fell victim to online sextortion schemes. During the 2021 election, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals promised to implement legislation to combat harmful online content within the new government’s first 100 days. Ultimately, it would take another two years for the government to introduce the Online Harms Act, as Bill C-63 was tabled on Feb. 26, 2024. It was then stalled at second reading in the House of Commons up until it died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025, nearly a year after being tabled. This month marked four years since Trudeau’s self-imposed deadline — and the federal government has still not passed online harms legislation. “As each day rolls on, more children are put in harm’s way,” said Austin, founder and CEO of the advocacy group Children First Canada. “And these are not issues that can just be sort of fluffed off and dismissed.” “Kids' lives are on the line.” Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 15-24 in Canada. As of 2022, 49 per cent of Canadians reported being exposed to content online that could incite violence or hate, according to government data. Young people aged 15 to 24 were disproportionately (71 per cent) exposed to such content. From 2018 to 2022, nearly one quarter of cyber-related hate crime victims were aged 12 to 17. In 2018, 11 per cent of women aged 15 to 24 reported being pressured into sending, sharing, or posting explicit material, and 25 per cent of women the same age reported receiving unsolicited sexually explicit material. Ex-Attorney General Arif Virani speaks with reporters before the Liberal cabinet meeting in West Block on Oct. 22, 2024. Virani introduced Bill C-63, the Liberal government's previous attempt of addressing online harms. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade The three pillars of a holistic approach A new online harms bill is expected to be introduced by the Liberals, likely spearheaded by Canadian Identity Minister Marc Miller (Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Sœurs, Que.), but what can be expected in the strategy is unclear, as Miller has been tight-lipped about both the bill’s content and timeline. But any strategy the government adopts will have to take a holistic approach, Austin told The Wire Report in a January interview, which she said consists of three main pillars. First, legislation must be robust and enforceable, Austin said, because legislation with no teeth “is not worth the paper it’s written on.” For her, that means establishing a clear duty of care and ensuring strong oversight in the form of an independent regulator. Bill C-63 proposed establishing a Digital Safety Commission, to regulate platforms and allow an independent regulator to order content reported by users to be removed within 24 hours. This regulator could also issue substantial fines for breaking the rules – up to 6 per cent of a company’s global revenue or $10 million, whichever was greater. The second pillar, she said, is adopting shared responsibility. Sara Austin, founder and CEO of Children First Canada. LinkedIn photograph She said everyone has a role to play in the fight against online harms, including children, parents, educators, all levels of government, and business leaders. But, she also said the lead needs to come from the feds implementing strong legislation that holds digital hosts accountable and mandates that keep users safe from harm. Finally, Austin’s third pillar is implementing prevention and wellbeing supports. Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, was tabled in December and proposes to criminalize the distribution of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, add an offence prohibiting threatening to distribute child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as well as other online harms provisions. While Austin said it is important to criminalize what is outlined in C-16, the government needs to put special emphasis on preventing online harms from occurring, not just prosecuting after the fact. The same way seat belts hope to prevent injury in car accidents, the digital world needs guardrails to protect against irreversible harm, she added “All the other things that touch children's lives are heavily regulated,” Austin said. “But when it comes to the digital environment that they are immersed in from birth onwards, and from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep, there’s zero regulation.” As for wellbeing supports, she argued improving the digital environment involves changing human behaviour, meaning the government needs to support instilling positive change in peoples’ lives through education initiatives and public safety efforts. She said these efforts must include evidence-based tools that meet parents and kids where they are at, like school campaigns and resources within their communities. Austin argues that those tools are not a foreign concept, because when it comes to other harms, like smoking and drinking, there is a recognition that public health and education resources are essential. Monique St. Germain, general counsel for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, agrees that an online harms approach must be multi-faceted. “We can’t criminalize everything,” she told The Wire Report in January. “So, we have to take an approach that is measured, that is appropriate, and that takes into account the fact that young people are at a vulnerable stage of their brain development.” Monique St. Germain, general counsel at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. Handout photograph When it comes to education, St. Germain said it will help parents and educators better understand the dangers kids face online, and how to protect them. She said that is especially important “because technology is evolving at a break-neck pace everyone is struggling to keep up with what is happening.” She also encourages assisting parents in deciding which platforms are suitable for their children at certain ages. “Just like we do with alcohol . . . you can’t let your child become an alcoholic,” she said, adding that some of the responsibility is on the parents to make educated decisions for the wellbeing of their children. But she also warned against putting that onus solely on parents, and allowing lawmakers and tech companies to hide behind education as an excuse to do nothing. She said education has been the only approach for years, and it is time for the government to do its part, as well. “Education is absolutely important and critical,” she said. “ it can’t do all the heavy lifting, either.” What are we protecting against? When considering the bill, St. Germain said it is important for the government to establish what harms it is trying to protect against, be it just pornography and CSAM, algorithms pushing harmful content or other digital dangers. Crimes against children, like sexploitation and grooming, have been at the forefront of that discussion. Dr. Wanda Polzin Holman, CEO of Little Warriors, an organization focused on the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse, said “there’s enormous risk” for children online. She said groomers target vulnerable teens who are seeking connection and friendship with others. She also took issue with how easy children have access to adult content online, as anyone can easily google a pornography website and access it without any enforceable age verification methods. Adult content can also be easily accessed through sites like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit. Bill S-209, the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, is currently being reviewed in committee and proposes age verification or estimation mechanisms to prevent young people from accessing pornography. Polzin Holman also warned that cyberbullying, grooming, and sextortion happens on platforms parents might not expect, flagging Roblox, an online gaming site popular with children, as particularly dangerous. Dr. Wanda Polzin Holman, CEO of Little Warriors. Handout photograph But it is not just sexual abuse and adult content that is a concern. Polzin Holman said, like adults, children can be exposed to hate speech, incitements of violence, and terrorism. She said the increasing popularity of AI adds another layer to the issue as well, like the recent incident with X’s Grok creating non-consensual sexual deepfakes of users. She said the government needs to act swiftly and look at how it can rein in that type of sexual abuse. C-16 would criminalize the distribution of non-consensual sexual deepfakes at the individual level, but would not help regulate it at a platform level. There have also been multiple reports of OpenAI’s ChatGPT coaching young people into suicide. The company also recently informed the RCMP that the shooter who killed eight people and then herself in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. earlier this month was banned from ChatGPT in June for messages related to gun violence, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. While St. Germain said protecting children from pornography and CSAM is a “no brainer,” she wants the government to consider the other, less-talked-about ways children are harmed online. She said content being served up to young people on algorithms, like anorexia content, is harmful to their mental health, and she would also like to see the addictive design features removed from social media sites Feds must be wary of letting perfect be the enemy of the good St. Germain said for vulnerable children, the digital space has been left unregulated for far too long. “We have essentially unleashed technology on them without really thinking through the consequences, and we’re seeing the damage that is coming now,” she said. Because of the absence of regulation, Austin said there has been an expectation that social media operators will fall in line and implement safeguards themselves, which has not happened. “We have spent two decades trusting the private sector to do the right thing and they have clearly shown us they are not willing to do so,” she says. The only way to bring tech companies into the regulation tent and force them to make their platforms safer, some say, is by imposing steep fines that affect companies’ bottom lines. Austin thinks the government has spent too many years worrying about drafting legislation that is flawless, and it has stopped it from acting at all. The feds cannot let perfect be the enemy of the good, she said. “I don’t want to see more studies. I don’t want to see more consultations,” she said. “I want to see action.” St. Germain echoed the same concern, saying countless children have been hurt by the “status quo” of doing nothing. “We need to attack this from a number of angles. But what we don’t want to see is that in our zeal to have sort of the perfect approach, we do nothing,” she said. “Which is what’s been happening.” “We have to start doing something.” St. Germain said the government can build on its strategy as it learns what works and what does not. She said it is more important that legislation is flexible rather than perfect, saying the Grok incident is an example of why. When something new like that comes up, she continued, “are we going to take three years to do something about it?” Compared to other countries, Canada is behind in its online harms legislation, which could give them a development edge, St. Germain said. She pointed out strong actions coming out of the U.K., Australia, and Europe. Canada can look to those countries, she said, to see what is working, and figure out how to adapt it for Canadians. “We’re not going to get it perfect the first try around. I’m sure we’re not,” she said. “We’re going to have all sorts of things we’ll need to improve upon, but we do need to get started.” Bill C-63 checked boxes for some, left too much to policy for others St. Germain said C-63 checked a lot of boxes. She liked that it included provisions to enable and facilitate more research into online harms, but it also required companies to be more transparent about the way their services were set up, mandating they establish safety features that St. Germain said should already be expected. She also liked that it sought to set up infrastructure that would monitor and develop with the different types of threats coming at Canadians. St. Germain said leaving certain things to be developed by the independent regulator allowed the bill to adapt to changing technology. But not everyone supported the regulator, as some argued it left too much up to policy, would slow things down by creating an entirely new bureaucracy, and could tread into speech-policing territory. On top of the regulator, the large-scale bill proposed amending the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to penalize people for hate-related offenses. It proposed returning provisions to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which was repealed in 2013 under Stephen Harper, that would make hate speech online a discriminatory practice. Advocates called for months to have the bill split in two to limit privacy threats and avoid encroaching on freedom of expression. They also worried about the power the regulator would hold, and called for mandates to ensure it acted within the parameters of its mission. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner speaks with reporters in the House of Commons foyer on Jan. 16, 2026. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Among the most vocal critics were federal Conservative MPs. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary – Nose Hill, Alta.) told The Wire Report in January the Liberals have consistently conflated online harms with a desire to restrict speech. It is not the first time Conservatives took issue with the Liberals’ approach to online harms. Before Parliament was prorogued for the 2021 election, the Liberals introduced the short-lived Bill C-36, which aimed to tackle hate speech and hate crimes, but similarly provoked controversy about infringing on freedom of expression. “They put poison pills in almost all of their bills,” said Rempel Garner. “And that has to stop.” While appearing before the House finance committee on Feb. 10, Miller was asked by Tory MP Andrew Lawton (Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, Ont.) if those provisions would appear in the new online harms bill. Miller would not discuss deliberations in front of cabinet, but said, in his opinion, there are issues around freedom of expression when it comes to any online harms legislation, and “I don’t think it’s necessary to have a private recourse regime under the Canadian Human Rights Act.” Working together on a non-partisan issue Despite her criticism of the government’s previous approach, Rempel Garner said establishing protections for Canadians online is a non-partisan issue, and encouraged the Liberals to focus on common-ground areas in Parliament to establish those measures. If the Liberals want to look at more contentious provisions around freedom of expression, Rempel Garner said it should be discussed separately from online harms. She said the Conservatives would work with the government on common-ground issues, but will not entertain another iteration of the two failed bills where she said the government’s core intent was to stifle speech. The government needs to be asking, “how can we give more tools to law enforcement to protect Canadians against the real baddies, not a mean tweet,” she said. St. Germain agreed with Rempel Garner that the government should start somewhere it can get a broad sense of support, not just from the opposition, but from Canadians. By taking this route, the feds might not touch on every aspect they aspire to, but it could be a way to quickly establish safety regulations that are long overdue. “Just take the win on the stuff where we all agree,” Rempel Garner said. “And there’s a lot of it.” Another option on the docket If the Liberals cannot garner support for their own bill, there is another option on the docket. Rempel Garner has twice tabled the Promotion of Safety in the Digital Age Act, a private member’s effort that took her about nine months to compose. She said Bill C-216 is such “a no-brainer” that she hoped the Liberals would steal it to put into their own bill. But, as of this writing, it has not made it past first reading in the House of Commons. “It’s probably not perfect, but it’s a starting point for debate,” she said, adding that it is “ludicrous” that the government has not moved on the bill, and that she would love to have it reviewed in committee. In his finance committee appearance, Miller said he is “not unsupportive” of Rempel Garner’s bill. Miller said he thinks the motive and purpose behind the bill is “laudable,” and that in its articulation it “properly should be introduced by the government and supported by one,” but that he is willing to work with her on the details. Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller arrives for the Liberal party caucus meeting in West Block on Dec. 10, 2025. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade The bill includes criminalizing the distribution of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, which Rempel Garner thinks would “sail through Parliament.” A similar criminalization of such images has since been introduced in the proposed Bill C-16, and was also included in the former Online Harms Act. Rempel Garner’s bill also asks for harsher penalties for non-consensual intimate images that depict sexual assault, and establishing a duty of care for online operators. She said the ideal duty of care would ensure parents have tools to be more active participants in their children’s online lives. She emphasized there are ways to future-proof legislation without creating an independent regulator, which her bill does not include. She tried to define the duty of care in a way that would include new digital hosts as they come up, making the bill malleable enough to keep pace with changes in technology and not outpace the speed of Parliament. Her bill also proposes establishing privacy-preserving age verification methods to restrict young peoples’ access to inappropriate content. Alongside legislation, Rempel Garner also believes in the importance of education for law enforcement. She said there needs to be tools and resources allocated for education on online crimes since they are not traditional types of violence. This would involve updating the Criminal Code, to clearly include digital crimes like online stalking and harassment, and creating a digital restraining order. “The reality is, stalking online should be considered the same as stalking or criminal harassment physically.” No silver bullet for online protections, social media ban not the ‘most effective’ option Miller says Standalone strategies like age-verification at an app store or platform level, or sweeping social media bans are not the solution to the problem, Austin said. These strategies do nothing but pass the blame between companies, some say, and Austin said they give tech companies an “easy out” because they do not require them to remove harms from their site. Michael Cooper, vice president of data and partnerships for Mental Health Research Canada, added that a ban will not protect teens because social media does not suddenly become safe when they turn 16. “There’s no magical break between 15 and 16 that fundamentally changes this,” he said. He also said there can be challenges from immediately cutting something off that has been an integral part of a teenager’s life. St. Germain, however, is supportive of a ban, at least as part of a larger strategy. She said because of the way things are right now, “these platforms are not safe for young people under 16.” She said they are not necessarily safe for teens over 16, either, but understands allowing access at a certain age. On Feb. 12, following an appearance before the House heritage committee, Miller told The Wire Report that a social media ban is part of a “suite of options” his department is considering. “But it’s not the only option, nor the most effective one, to be honest,” he said. We may never have a silver bullet, but we still have a lot of tools in the toolbox to make the online experience safer, St. Germain said. But first, she added, it requires a framework. “They’re never going to be 100 per cent safe,” said St. Germain. “Let’s try at least to make them safer.” There have been two decades of kids growing up in this unregulated space, and Austin said parents have been put in an “impossible position” where they are fighting against a multi-billion-dollar industry that is doing everything in its power to hook their children into an algorithm. Austin argued the government has a legal responsibility to ensure the safety of Canadians and their children. She said there is no greater example of how it is falling short than when it comes to online harms. “The buck stops with the Prime Minister," she said, adding it is up to him to make sure the government grabs the online harms bull by its horns. “Every day matters in the life of a kid,” she says. “How many years does this need to go on for?” mcollins@thewirereport.ca *Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Bill C-63 proposed criminalizing non-consensual sexual deepfake imagery.

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Online dangers keep claiming the lives of Canadian children. Five years on, advocates are still waiting for Ottawa to act

Regulatory | By Maria Collins |February 26, 2026

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|February 26, 2026