Q&A: Liberal MP Michael Coteau wants Canadians to own their likeness in the era of AI deepfakes

Liberal MP Michael Coteau (Scarborough—Woburn, Ont.) has introduced a private member’s bill that aims to protect Canadians from the harms caused by deepfakes. Coteau tabled the Regulating the Online Use of Deepfakes Act on May 6, but had been thinking about it since last summer. In an exclusive interview with The Wire Report, Coteau said Bill C-277 was inspired by Denmark’s proposal to amend its copyright law to give citizens the right to their face, voice, and likeness. Coteau’s bill does not propose amending Canada’s Copyright Act, but would require online operators to clearly label any deepfakes shared, prevent users from sharing deepfakes that would cause “significant harm,” and remove any harmful deepfakes shared on their sites. What are you trying to achieve with this bill? The main purpose of this bill is just to ensure that you own your likeness, your face, your voice, that’s your property. That’s what it really comes down to at the end of the day. We know deepfakes are being used more and more. They can be used for bad reasons. It is often very difficult for people to fight against those images, except going through a lengthy court case. So, I want to put in place a process in Canada where the law does acknowledge that you own your likeness. What motivated you to take action with a private member’s bill? Did you get the sense these issues wouldn’t be scoped into forthcoming online harms or AI legislation? There are some things that are happening. For example, we have a bill that’s connected to the new legislation for election reforms, so there is a component there. In redefining what sexual violence is, there is a piece that spoke to deepfakes. I know that the minister of AI will bring something forward to speak to some of these issues. But I wanted to make a statement that was very simple and very clear that really repositions the entire argument. And that is, you own your voice, you own your face. The likeness, everything that you are, is yours. I think that’s a very powerful point that sometimes is missed throughout this entire narrative. It comes down to ownership. The bill references responsibilities for operators when a deepfake is ‘shared via its products or services.’ Does this mean the onus is on sites like Instagram and Facebook, and not on the operators of the AI systems creating these deepfakes? The platforms, the actual distributors of content, the onus would be on them to use any reasonable means, because obviously there are going to be cases where it may not necessarily be detectable, and there is so much stuff floating around. But if you’re a big platform, if you’re a distributor of this content, they have so much ability to do things today, including the creation of so many different types of AI generated material. I think they have a duty to, to the best of their ability, put in place a process that allows them to identify what has been created by AI and to put in some type of disclaimer. It could be a small little symbol, it could be words at the bottom of the page. But they should come up with some type of indicator so people understand what they’re actually watching is not real. So what you’re saying is, if I’m scrolling through Instagram, for example and I come across a deepfake, it should have some sort of indicator, but it’s not necessarily putting the onus on the platform creating the deepfake, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT? Right. I mean, for public consumption, right? When it goes out there into the world I think people have a responsibility. When TV was the main distributor of content, could you imagine a fake Ronald Reagan doing an eight o’clock televised broadcast with everything looking like Ronald Reagan and him saying that the world is being invaded? Can you imagine someone going on the radio and pretending they were the prime minister and saying this is happening in real time and causing public hysteria? We wouldn’t allow for that to happen. But we allow for that to happen when it comes to digital content. We need to put in place some responsibility guidelines when it comes to the use of this technology. The second part of it is you, as the owner of your image or your voice, should have the ability to put in place some type of request for that information to be withdrawn. I think the big platforms would have the ability to do that. The preamble of the bill notes that deepfakes are increasingly being used for fraud and identity theft. Are you trying to combat those two things specifically with this bill? You cannot misrepresent a person and defraud people. That’s a criminal charge and those types of charges will be dealt with through a court process. So, no. I’m not trying to put in place some type of system that prevents that necessarily, because this bill does not go into the deep legal aspects of fraud. But what it does do, is say you own your image. You’re the person in charge. That is the central, single most important piece. Creating a culture where we understand what deepfakes are and how powerful they are, I think moving forward in a direction that is captured through a bill like this has a huge opportunity to change the trajectory of how they are used and viewed, and how people engage the products as well. The bill leaves all the decisions around administrative monetary penalties (AMP) up to regulation, and doesn’t include a standard, like ‘X’ per cent of global revenue. Why did you choose to do that? To be honest, because I don’t have the expertise and the backing of a department to help me formulate what that should look like based on international standards, based on legal advice. What I can do though is put in place a piece that resorts back to regulation that gives the minister or the department the ability to make that judgement call. Do you think that opens the door for criticisms that there is too much left up to regulation or that AMP enforcement could end up being unequal? When you’re building private member’s bills, it’s not through a large government department that specializes in these areas. One of the functions you can do as a private member is identify an issue, and create a structure in which it can help mitigate the problem. But the penalties would have to be based on an expert level that goes beyond the average member. I can just pick a number and say if a major platform violates the removal of that content then it should pay $100, or $50,000, or $10. To me, I would not know what the right penalties would be because I don’t know to what extent the violations would flow in. You can create more bottlenecking of an issue without the expertise. I do expect there would be criticism, but that’s part of my job. I know you just tabled this bill on Wednesday, but what response have you been hearing? Is there a sense of support in your caucus? The cool thing about introducing a bill is you get people talking. You get people making suggestions, criticisms. If it goes past second reading and goes to committee it has politicians and experts focusing on the issue. I really wanted to get a conversation going because I think, not only Canada, but the world is not prepared in the best way possible for the impact of AI on our everyday lives. Five to 10 years from now, AI is not just going to be a thing we talk about, it’s going to be integrated into everything we do. Just like when electricity was introduced, everyone asked the question what can electricity do to anything that existed at that point. It revolutionized the whole world. Now we don’t talk about it the same way. We depend on it. I think it’s fundamental that we put in place some etiquette, some rules, some ethics that speak to the potential harm that can come. One of them is the potential for misuse of people’s images. It’s almost like a fundamental right. If we were writing a charter for AI today, I think one of the top 10 rules would be that people own themselves. The bill puts this in the file of the industry minister, but it also kind of touches on the heritage minister’s file and the AI minister's file. Have you had any conversations with any of those ministers about it? I didn’t go into deep conversation with anyone. I did speak to some of my colleagues. But I wanted to just put this out there as a conversation. I didn't want it blurred. AI is such a massive issue. I wanted to take one fundamental issue and focus on it without 10 other things interfering. This is such a simple bill. It has two or three things that make up what it is. I didn’t want to have a conversation about AI as a whole, because it is a very complex and sophisticated conversation. I want to talk about one simple principle: it is a citizen’s right to own themselves. And AI is compromising that. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. mcollins@thewirereport.ca

Q&A: Liberal MP Michael Coteau wants Canadians to own their likeness in the era of AI deepfakes

Regulatory |
By Maria Collins
|May 8, 2026

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Q&A: Liberal MP Michael Coteau wants Canadians to own their likeness in the era of AI deepfakes

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