Bill S-210

Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material

This enactment makes it an offence for organizations to make sexually explicit material available to young persons on the Internet. It also enables a designated enforcement authority to take steps to prevent sexually explicit material from being made available to young persons on the Internet in Canada.

Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

moved that Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, it is truly an honour to rise in the House and talk about such an important bill.

Bill S-210 is the protecting young persons from exposure to pornography act. This bill would restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material.

Tonight I am honoured to speak to this bill. We have talked about pornography in this place before, and we recognize the impact of pornography, the impact on our youth, and why it is important that we sit down and actually talk about this.

I want to talk about why we need to do this. A lot has to do with unintentional viewing of pornography by our youth. We are here today to talk about what we can put in place to ensure that when our children are turning on their laptops, when they are looking at videos that the next thing that comes on is not pornography, that it is not something that is sexually explicit.

I recall, back in the 42nd Parliament, having the opportunity to speak to Motion No. 47, which looked at pornography. That was studied at committee. I spoke to Motion No. 47 because I had had my own experience with my son. It was following a commercial that I had watched on an Air Canada flight. I shared this story back in 2016-17, but I think it is worth sharing again. It has a lot to do with something so simple turning into something so wrong.

It started off with a simple underwear commercial on an Air Canada flight. As I was flying home, I watched a commercial with two men talking to one another about how cosy they were and how life was so good. Then it zoomed back, and it is two men talking inside a pair of underwear. They represented testicles. To me, that is just what it is. They were talking about how comfortable they were. To me, it was not pornographic, and it was not sexually exploitive. It was just a really great way of selling a pair of underwear.

I thought I would show my son and my husband. At home I turned on the TV and went to one of the sites. After showing my family this video that I thought was so hilarious, it turned into soft porn. That is when I personally subjected my own child to it, without knowing. That is me as an adult user, and please do not hold that against me.

We have to look at how simple something like this could happen. It happened to me as a mom, and we know that it happens to children. Sixty-three per cent of children who have seen pornography reported that their first encounter with pornography was unintentional. Sixty-three per cent. Why is that important?

It is important because of what pornography does to a child. They looked at what the issue was. It was children having access to pornography. When surveyed, 83% of parents have suggested there should be robust age verification. That is why I am going to put on my status of women's hat now.

I have had the honour of working on really important files since 2015, working with the status of women, working as the shadow minister for women and gender equality. I understand the correlation between pornography and sexually violent acts.

A lot has to do with understanding that 41% of these children who have seen pornography have indicated that it has had a negative impact on their own relationships and their views of the opposite sex. We know that when it comes to misogyny, patriarchy and sexual violence, a lot of it is a power imbalance. That is exactly what we see in pornography.

What children are seeing is something that is not reality. Instead, they are seeing something very fictitious, very fantasy-like. With their level of maturity and processing the information in their brains, it becomes a reality. In time, they find that this sexualness, the things that they do become okay. It becomes normalized. These are things that we should really care about.

I watched an incredible documentary called Over 18. We also saw it here. It focused on a young boy, and different things about a family that was dealing with a child and other children who had come into contact with pornography. In the documentary, it was showing this young boy. The parents talked about the fact that they were sitting in the same room while he was watching pornography. Children become addicted to this kind of stuff. We know what happens with addiction, what happens to the brain. We have to know what happens when we are dealing with young children and when their brain development is being messed up.

Eighty-seven per cent of the scenes that people see in pornography are scenes of violence against women. I am not saying anything about pornography and what we should do about adults. I am talking about children and the fact is that what children would see is 87% of these acts are ones of violence against women. This is the stuff that is going into these kids' brains. Is this what our children deserve and need?

According to many researchers and studies, children and adolescents may become more vulnerable to the effects of pornographic content. In turn, with their lack of experience and development, they develop an idea of what sex is. It becomes inappropriate, violent and selfish. Women are considered tools for men's pleasure. Pornography provides violent aggression, where they believe that this becomes acceptable. Pornography becomes a role model which leads to unhealthy relationships.

When we talk about violence against women, one of the biggest things we talk about is prevention, so let us start young. Why are we not starting with our young children? We should ensure from the time they are young that they understand consent. Things like pornography should not be put into their brains until they are adults, when they can make right decisions and right choices and understand relationships and understand who to touch, when to touch, how to touch and understand that consent. Pornography does none of this. It is not something that we can say is a way of sexually educating our children. It is a way of educating our children to something that is extremely dismissive of women.

This leads into teen dating. This is where we are talking about a child who watches this information and then we have to see what happens. How do they process that information? How do they react in their relationships? There have been so many studies done on teen dating showing the correlation between pornography and violence and specifically young women who are being forced into sexual acts. It leads to unsafe sex. We know there is this obsession with sexual fantasy and aggressive behaviour. Unfortunately, young women become victims of those acts.

Pornography, once again, is not sex education. It does not provide real-life sexual experience on relationships. That is why it is so important that our children should not see this by accident.

I want to read from a passage which has the heading, “Pornography and Its Impact on Sexual Activities and Overall Behaviour”. The authors state:

Pornography use and aggressive behavior in the classroom was found to be significantly correlated, with higher consumption levels being associated with more aggressive behavior. Exposure at a younger age makes individuals receptive to watching coercive or violent porn. Watching more hardcore pornography containing abuse, rape, and child sex is associated with the normalizing of this behaviors. Exposure to sexually explicit content has a strong influence on adolescents’ sexually permissive attitudes.

Over time, the embarrassment that may follow from having a pornographic interest or engaging in pornographic behaviors may internalize itself, resulting in a decline in mental health and general life satisfaction. Pornography can excite the brain’s reward system, which can lead to severe brain alterations akin to those found in drug addictions. Compulsive sexual behaviors are also linked to early pornography exposure. By showing an absence of emotional connection between consensual couples, unprotected sexual contact, and, occasionally, violence and rape, pornography normalizes sexual harm. Male adolescents may learn that it is okay and even desired to act violently and aggressively toward and degrade their female partners from the aggressive and violent depictions of women that are prevalent in much of today’s popular pornography.

I read this because it is something that we all have to be aware of. We hear of sexual violence all the time. There are statistics and I wish I could provide an exact statistic, but it is in the range of a 70% to 80% increase in sexual violence. We need to do something about this. Prevention is one piece and this is what this bill would do. It works on prevention. It is just one of the multiple tools that we can use.

An article from the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation states, “Aggressive acts against women in pornography occur in roughly 87% of the scenes”. This is something I brought up earlier. It goes on to say, “Pornography acts as a form of sexual education, teaching the lesson that female sexual partners ought to enjoy physical acts such as hitting, gagging, slapping, or non-consensual sex.”

I do not think there is a single member of Parliament who would agree that is what we want for Canadian children. That is why I am here today to say it to everybody, and to ask for their support of this really important bill.

Now I will actually get into the bill. I have talked about why we need this bill, but what is the bill? I will let the member for Avalon know that I am about to fill him in.

This bill ensures we have age verification. We already know that some countries are using this. Germany, France and the U.K. are three that I can cite. There are also a number of states that are putting in these types of age verifications. In Germany, there are three different ways to do this with, I think, 100 different providers.

There are all these incredible things we can do. Technology will lead our way. We know that, with age verification, we need to ensure that privacy is protected. When using a third party provider to verify, for privacy reasons, we need to ensure that information is not passed on. There are a multitude of ISP providers or third party providers that can provide this type of verification. It is all about the safety of our children. It is about the safety of their brains and their development and, in turn, having healthy relationships.

In Germany, as I said, there is some great work being done. In France, they have also passed different pieces of legislation. Some of the principles put in place there are in order to reconcile the protection of privacy and youth protection through the implementation of online age verification systems for pornographic sites. They take into account certain details. I want to put this in here too because, for many people, privacy is probably what they are most concerned about. I think everybody understands saying no to pornography and children; however, privacy is sometimes what we have to look at.

We must focus on some principles when we are talking about how we ensure that age verification can be done. There should be no direct collection of identity documentation by the site publisher from the pornographic site, no age estimates based on the user's web browser history and no processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying or authenticating a natural person. There are all sorts of different things that can be done.

I think if we look at technology today, we can even look at the fact that, when COVID came, in March 2020, we were all online and using Zoom within weeks. This is all about technology. There are people out there who can do this work. I am asking everybody to get onside so that people will be able to do it.

I have more in here, but I think what I want to do is end it off with a very simple piece on how this started in the United States. This is really important. I do not know if everyone knows who Billie Eilish is in here, but I am sure anyone under the age of 30 has probably listened to a Billie Eilish song. All I know is that she is a Grammy award-winning person who has some blue hair once in a while, but she has spoken the truth. What I really appreciate is that she has talked about her own experience. This reads, “It was December 2021 and Schlegel was on her ‘daily news scroll’ through Apple news when she saw an article describing popstar Billie Eilish's appearance on the infamous shock jock's show.” That was the Howard Stern Show that she had appeared on. Eilish told Stern, “I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was like 11.... I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to porn so early.”

This is important, because we are just talking about a normal individual, somebody who so many young people can relate to. So many people look at somebody like Billie Eilish and wonder about what that young woman has done with her life. What an incredible artist. These are her words. When we look at mentorship, I think that we should, as parliamentarians, think of the words of Billie Eilish and support this legislation, so we can ensure our children are safe.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for her words. I think this is an issue that deserves our attention in the House. I have two daughters, so I know who Billie Eilish is.

In all seriousness, I remember reading a book called Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges, a professor at the University of Toronto. There was a whole chapter that talked about this exact subject, what it does to young men and how it exploits young women. I think it was called “The Illusion of Love”.

I think that all members in the House would agree that we need to do more. You talked a lot about age verification. Can you give us an example of how that actually works?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am certain that the hon. member does not want me to give him an example, but I want to remind him that he is to address all questions and comments through the chair and not directly to the members.

The hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, there are different systems being used in different countries. A lot of times, a third party uses age verification and provides a token just to verify that person is of age. People have talked about using their Mastercard because a person cannot get a Mastercard, Visa or whatever charge card, until they are older. However, we also recognize that children do use our charge cards, so we have to figure out something that is a little bit better.

What is the best method? I would like to say to the member that, to be honest, I do not know what the best method is. That is why it is so important that we take this to committee, so we can look at it. I believe that if this token system is the best, as we have talked about, then we have to put it in there, so that these measures can protect children now.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think our colleague knows that we support Bill S‑210. That being said, I have two questions.

First of all, control seems harder today because servers can be installed almost anywhere. That seems to be making it more challenging to impose laws within a set of borders on anything Internet-related. I would like to ask my colleague to say a few words on that topic.

My other question is this: Why did it take so long? The MindGeek case was in Montreal.

Why did it take so long to introduce this bill and start discussing it here, in the House?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will start with part two. This bill was originally brought forward by a senator in November 2021. We have been working on this bill to make sure it could get into this place. It is a good question. As technology changes, we become much more aware of those holes in the system, those gaps in protecting our children.

Can I ask the member what part one of the question was?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will allow him to respond very briefly, but it does eat into the time for questions.

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot can repeat the first part of his question.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was just wondering how we can ensure adequate control, because for anything Internet-related, the servers can be located anywhere.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, sometimes I need a reminder. We know VPNs are a concern. If someone is using a VPN, they can go in any country, so it is going to be bypassing some of that. This is exactly why we need to take this to committee, so we can talk about the technology and all these gaps in our systems. We can then find ways to find the solutions.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am 43 with two kids, and I am a fan of Billie Eilish.

In particular, the member spoke about the prevention side and the tools to protect children from access to online pornography. Could the member share a bit more of her thoughts around the importance of children having access to comprehensive sexual health education, delivered by a responsible adult, in both our schools and communities?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, for me it depends, and I believe sexual education is really important, but we also have to recognize the maturity of the child and at what time we start introducing different things. When it comes to consent, children should be taught from the time they are aged zero when to touch a person and when not to touch a person. That is simple kindness and the simple rules of respect. I believe it is something we should be incorporating into our children's lives, specifically at home, from the very beginning. When it comes to school, we will continue to work on that, but that is a provincial issue.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the bill's sponsor in the House, the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London, for bringing this important issue to the floor. The bill we are discussing today is closely linked to the government's ongoing work to ensure a safer online experience for all Canadians, particularly children and youth. It is also worth noting that we need to work together to ensure that Canadians' freedom of expression and right to privacy are protected. This is a complex conversation, and we are all trying to find the appropriate balance with regard to these protections.

It may sound trite, but we are all acutely aware that the world is interconnected as never before. Society as a whole and individuals are constantly influenced by the content they see on the Internet. Reliable access to the Internet is so important that, in many areas, it is considered a human right. That is how fundamental it is to our daily lives and our interactions with the rest of the world.

Thanks to various platforms and other tools available to the public, we can access services online, participate in community events, access information, express opinions and just have fun. This is how many of us participate in community life. Online content is also a priceless educational resource that enables lifelong learning, engagement and personal and social development.

Let us be clear, though: The digital world has grown, and it is self-regulated. That has raised many new challenges that call for serious debate. Surfing the Internet can expose users to potentially harmful content that may not be suitable for children and youth. Young Canadians need adequate protection from online content so their experience can be as safe as possible and so they can take full advantage of the benefits of digital platforms. We see that a lot.

In our interconnected society, we know that ongoing efforts must be made to ensure that children and youth do not have access to online pornography. Bill S‑210 recognizes this challenge and addresses this important public policy issue. As a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that our children can safely browse online and do not have unlimited access to inappropriate content. At the same time, we must be aware of the need to strike a healthy balance by ensuring that the solutions are effective and minimize unintended consequences. Respect for human rights, including the right to privacy and freedom of expression, while guaranteeing adequate protections, resources and recourse for those exposed to harmful content, should be paramount in our considerations.

Let me be clear. Creating a safer online environment for Canadians is a key priority for our government. That is why we committed to introducing legislation to combat online harm and to hold social media platforms and other online services accountable for content that causes harm. As part of the development of an online safety act, the government undertook extensive consultations that began in 2021 in order to better understand the concerns of Canadians. We are committed to taking action on this fundamental issue, and we welcome stakeholder engagement in this important debate.

In the summer of 2021, the government sought public input on an initial proposal to combat harmful content online. Canadians told us they wanted platforms to be held accountable for the content they promote. They also shared their concerns about freedom of expression, proactive monitoring and the risk of platforms removing legal and legitimate content in order to avoid potential sanctions. Following our initial consultations and the important information we were given, we went back to the drawing board.

We want to hear from Canadians and experts on this to ensure that the legislation will protect children and young people, that it will support the victims of online harm and reduce the harm that may have unintended consequences, including that which affects racialized and ethnocultural communities, the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, indigenous peoples and victims of harm such as the sexual exploitation of children.

Over the past year, we have gathered more information on what might be an effective and productive legislative framework. The first step consisted in creating an expert panel on online safety made up of experts and practitioners from various backgrounds. They made important comments on the initial approaches and the improvements that are being made.

Then, the government expanded its consultations among Canadians. During summer and fall 2022, the government organized a series of roundtables across Canada to hear directly from citizens, victims groups and organizations that support them, indigenous peoples and industry. We heard from one group of citizens, whose members were chosen at random, who represented the general public and who spent years gathering information and reflecting on these types of issues.

In all of these phases, there was a clear consensus on the specific need to protect children online. They are extremely vulnerable online, and it is clear that the government needs to look at the big picture. Similarly, the dialogue must include members of various communities, business leaders and elected officials to find the best solutions and the best response.

Online content poses many challenges for parents and children. Children are spending more and more time online, and we need to recognize that that also increases the risk that young Canadians will be exposed to harmful content. The government heard the testimony of victims of harassment, bullying and other forms of hateful content. Many participants were worried about the impact that exposure to such content can have on children's mental health, self-image and personal and social development.

The impact of this harm is not limited to the online environment. One thing that we kept hearing at our interviews and meetings is that online harm can have consequences in the real world. Every aspect of a child's life is affected when they are the victim of online sexual exploitation. Online harm has real-life consequences.

Another important consideration that we also heard about is that overly rigid and specific measures can have unintended consequences, and that ways to correct this situation, although perhaps imperfect, already exist.

We heard that Canadians want their children to be protected, but they are also wary about invasions of their privacy. Canadians have very little trust in the ability of the web giants to manage their information and private data. They are also fearful of bad actors who could get around the rules and deliberately violate their privacy or breach their data security. Furthermore, online content controls that limit access to selected and harmful content are built into the software that run our many electronic devices, including smart phones, tablets and personal computers.

Clearly, it is essential that we move on this. Our government has committed to moving forward. As the government drafts legislation, protecting children and making platforms accountable remain central to our approach. We recognize that this is a complex issue and that we must strive to strike a balance between respect for privacy rights, freedom of expression and the need for adequate protection against content, including and especially for children, youth and other vulnerable individuals.

Protecting Canadians is a complex and important issue. It is essential that we get there.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill S‑210. Before I begin, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. We are in favour of it being studied at committee so that we can have a more in-depth discussion to ensure that we protect minors, which is a major public safety challenge. The Bloc Québécois's position is consistent with initiatives to strengthen protection of the public, particularly for minors.

Introduced by Julie Miville‑Dechêne, the independent senator with whom I co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group to End Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Bill S‑210 seeks to put in place safeguards to restrict minors' access to sexually explicit material on the Internet. I will begin with an overview of the issue, then I will further explain the Bloc Québécois's position, and finally I will close with examples of other support for Bill S‑210.

First, let us note that making sexually explicit material available to minors for commercial purposes is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to $250,000. This makes it a criminal offence for organizations to make this type of content available to young people. The term “organization” echoes the definition in section 2 of the Criminal Code. Furthermore, the Federal Court could order that websites contravening the law be blocked. The definition of “organization” includes any public body, body corporate, society, company, firm, partnership or association of persons that is created for a common purpose, has an operational structure and holds itself out to the public as an association of persons. This makes it possible to directly target commercial pornography distributors.

The bill is motivated by a concern to better supervise access to sexually explicit material online, as age verification is currently limited to a simple declaration. Under Bill S‑210, pornographic sites will be required to verify the age of their users. The bill essentially replicates Bill S‑203, which was sponsored by the same senator. That bill died on the Order Paper at the end of the 43rd Parliament, and now the senator is trying again.

The digital landscape our young people have grown up with makes it easy to view degrading and even extreme content that normalizes the objectification of women and dominant relationships. This type of video and image content is available on platforms owned by companies that do not fulfill any meaningful requirement to ensure that the people viewing it are adults. It would be unrealistic to entrust companies that disseminate pornographic content with verifying the age of the individuals accessing it. Bill S‑210 would assign that responsibility to a third party, an intermediary designated by regulations.

With the emergence of computer technology that enables parties to disseminate and access sexually explicit content, the government has a responsibility to prevent minors from accessing it, as much as possible. Given the obscene nature of this material and the harmful impact on young people's brain development, things cannot be kept in check by self-regulation alone. Bill S‑210 lays out broad principles for verifying the age of people accessing pornographic content in order to prevent those under 18 from accessing it. Once this bill is passed, it will provide authority to make regulations prescribing the specific methods to achieve that.

Bill S-210 will also have consequences for pornographic sites, whether hosted on Canadian soil or not, that might contravene it. The government will be able to block sites that fail to comply with future regulations on age verification. Let us not forget that the minimum age to view pornographic films is 18.

Obviously, I am not a magician and I do not have a magic wand. No one can ignore the fact that this bill is not a silver bullet. A minor who wants to view pornography illegally could resort to circumvention methods like virtual private networks and so on to get around the age validation mechanisms. I remain realistic and I am not naive. However, even if Bill S-210 does not turn out to be the silver bullet that completely eradicates this scourge, there is a good chance that it will have beneficial effects and further restrict access for minors. In that respect, the objective will be met.

Second, I would like to remind the House that the Bloc Québécois will always support measures that seek to protect the public and promote a healthy lifestyle. Bill S-210 responds to a real concern in our communities. The Bloc Québécois reacted when disturbing revelations were made about MindGeek's Internet Pornhub, which is one of the most popular pornographic sites in Canada and well-known in Quebec, since the company is based in Montreal. We knew that data was being collected on the most popular video categories, common themes in video titles and the best-known actors in the adult film industry. While the United States held an inquiry and other parts of the world, including Europe, are considering this issue and taking action, Canada has been slow to act.

There is data confirming that access to explicit material is harmful if it ends up in the hands of minors, particularly young girls. With femicide and violence against women on the rise, our society has a duty to restrict access—to the greatest extent possible—to explicit content that is said to promote such violence.

In fact, we are just a few days away from the sad commemoration of the Polytechnique femicide, which occurred on December 6, 1989. I recently heard on the radio that there are still people today who worship Marc Lépine and wish women dead. It is chilling. Misogyny still exists. Keep in mind that many cities are passing motions to declare gender-based violence an epidemic and to pressure legislators to act on it within their respective jurisdictions.

Third, other groups also support this bill. Many stakeholders and civil society groups, including the Association des pédiatres du Québec, support the initiative embodied by Bill S-210. Allowing young minors to be exposed to pornography has consequences. Viewing pornography early in life has extremely negative effects, including the inability to develop healthy relationships. These young people can also develop a misconception that women and girls are sexual objects, available for sex 24-7, with no consent required. Worse still, it can create a dependency on pornography. In some cases, this can even lead to financial problems that can ruin lives, because pornography is not free. In fact, the industry is highly lucrative.

This proposal therefore crosses party lines and will likely receive support from all political parties represented in the House of Commons. This is no trivial matter.

It is also important to know that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women is currently studying the trafficking of women, girls and gender-diverse people. Although we may not be able to comment yet on the committee's eventual findings, many stakeholders pointed out in their briefs that human trafficking is closely linked to pornography and the coercive relationships that pimps maintain with their victims in order to get them to perform sex acts.

In the studies that follow our committee, from the study on intimate partner violence to the one on change of culture in sport, the concept of educating young men and women constantly comes up when we talk about preventing all forms of violence. In particular, this includes the need to offer an education on healthy sexuality.

For young girls, mental health problems are exacerbated by the pressure they feel from seeing manipulated, even degrading, images of the female body and sexuality that are projected by pornography. They may even end up being subjected to unwanted sexual acts that are dangerous to their health and unsafe for their body. By its very nature, Bill S‑210 will help curb the dissemination of pornography on the Internet and protect the victims from the humiliating exposure of illegal material.

The bill will make organizations accountable and subject them to a new offence if they make such content available. This will give victims an additional tool to help them reclaim their dignity and punish their abusers. We have also been hearing that young women are often filmed without their knowledge and that those images are being posted when the young women are not even aware that they have been filmed. It is really worrisome to see so many images that were taken without consent being freely shared on the Internet.

In closing, Bill S-210 is important to create tools to ensure that women, children and girls are protected from the negative effects of early exposure to pornographic images online. As a new mother, I must admit that I worry about the future of my daughter, and I truly hope that, unlike me, she will never have to say “me too”. We need to do something about the femicides that the Secretary General of the United Nations described as a shadow pandemic. This problem was exacerbated by overexposure to the Internet during the pandemic. It created all sorts of problems, including these ones. We need to take action so that we can say collectively, “not one more”.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Bill S-210, an act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material. As we know, the bill is intended to protect children from access to sexually explicit materials. This is a very important bill, and I am happy we are speaking to it today.

One thing I want to address from the outset is that an important consideration of this bill is not only ensuring that we look at protecting children from access to sexually explicit material, but also ensuring that mechanisms are in place to protect the personal information of Canadians when developing what is required to protect children. Witnesses testified at the Senate on this exact issue, speaking in favour of using a responsible third party service provider, as an example, to conduct age verification rather than sites. Many Canadians, of course rightly so, do not want their personal information to be provided to those who are seeking profit, so we need a responsible third party provider.

I want to quote Kevin Honeycutt, an educator. He said, “Kids are growing up in a digital playground and no one is on recess duty.” I thought that was a really powerful way to show what is happening online right now. I am a former educator who worked in the school system, and I can say there are always many eyes on the playground to ensure that children are playing respectfully with one another and to identify any concerns. Now we have children accessing online content without any such supervision and it is highly problematic.

Kerri Isham is a constituent in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith. She is an educator, author and award-winning presenter with 25 years of experience in the field of sexual health education. She is also the founder of a company called Power Up Education. I wanted to bring her up because she has dedicated her professional career to the safety of children and responding to the needs of communities. I want to highlight the work of people like Kerri Isham and so many across our country who are working tirelessly to make sure that children and youth have access to the education they need around sexual health.

Kerri Isham was so kind to provide me with the wealth of information she uses when she is in the community and in our schools educating parents and children on the importance of not only having the appropriate information and safety mechanisms in place around online access, but also having the information and tools needed to know what it looks like to be safe among this wealth of information.

One interesting point Kerri Isham pointed out to me is that 30% of all Internet traffic is pornography-related. That is a huge number. Tragically, 10% of visitors to pornography sites are under the age of 10. I found it interesting to hear my colleague talk earlier about whether the people accessing it intended to or not. A large portion of people are accessing these sites from a very young age. The average age when boys first view pornography is nine years old, so at nine, boys are seeing this information online. This content is made for adults, not children.

Pornography is shaping sexual imaginations, expectations and practices. It is designed for what is called “adult fantasy”, which is an abstract concept. Teens are concrete learners at a stage of development when they are learning and when their brain is in a much different state. When they watch pornography, they are learning that this is what sex should look like, which is highly problematic. We know that what pornography often showcases is not at all what a healthy sexual relationship looks like, and our children are learning through pornography that this is the way a healthy sexual relationship should look. It is not realistic what children are seeing, and they need to be presented with healthy images and access to the information they need.

We know that pornography has steadily increased. There is violent pornography, horror pornography, child pornography and racist pornography. We are seeing an increase in pornography that, tragically, supports or promotes racial inequality and an increase in revenge pornography, which too many youth right now are experiencing and seeing the impacts of. Misogyny is deeply embedded in so much of what we are seeing, with violence against women, and many are profiting from abuse through the pornography available. The National Child Exploitation Crime Centre, in 2020-21, received 52,306 complaints, which represents a 510% increase from 2013-14. That is a huge increase.

Neurologists have found that brain activity among heavy pornography users showed a behavioural addiction similar to what we would see in substance and gambling addictions. The study, which was conducted in 2017, showed that similar brain activity was present in people who are heavy pornography users, which is highly problematic.

Dr. Megan Harrison, with the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, testified before the Senate legal committee that developing brains are affected by images it sees. The process is called neuroplasticity, which is something many of us are familiar with. However, to ensure we are all on the same page, I will note that it is the forming of new neural networks and pathways when the brain is optimizing itself. That is probably not the best descriptor, but the point is that through neuroplasticity, when the brain sees pornography repeatedly, it adjusts and determines that this is normal content to see. The exposure of pornography can create a distorted view of sexuality that can damage children's and teens' understanding of sexual relationships and their self-image as they mature.

The result of the excess viewing of pornography, which is often misogynistic and violent, is an increase in violence against women, one of the many symptoms. Violence against women is a global public health crisis, and pornography contributes to cultural conditions in which violence against women is tolerated, acceptable and even desirable. It unfortunately creates a sense of entitlement to have sex at any time, in any way, with whomever a person wished, and it regularly depicts sexualized aggression toward women. We know that 44% of women have experienced abuse from a partner in Canada. This is a statistic from 2018, and we know that these numbers have increased since then.

I want to highlight the work of my colleague, the member for Victoria, who recently brought forward a private member's bill, Bill C-332, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding controlling or coercive conduct. This work was carried on by the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. The reason we are seeing support in the House for this bill to move forward is that we know, given the science surrounding the development of adolescent brains, graphic sexual images and how they affect an adolescent's understanding of sexual relationships when they are older, that protections and preventions need to be in place from the outset. Instead of us having to create bills that would criminalize behaviour of controlling, coercive and abusive behaviour, I would like us to put in place more preventive tools to ensure that children are accessing appropriate, healthy information from the outset.

We know that key to this work, in addition to having mechanisms in place to control online access to pornography, is prevention so that we do not always have to react to abusive and coercive behaviour after it happens. Sexual health education promotes, among other things, consent, safety and respect, both for ourselves and within our relationships.

Overall, I am happy to support this bill and clearly have a lot to say on it. I hope it gets through committee quickly, as we have a lot of information and want to see it move forward.

[Dominique Vien, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak. I am in a good mood because, so far, we have heard speeches from colleagues from various political parties who have decided to support Bill S-210, an act to restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material.

It is important to mention that the sponsor of this bill is Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, who is very well known in Quebec. She is a former Radio-Canada journalist who had a lot of credibility in that profession, just as she still does today.

I am pleased to speak today because Saturday, November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Unfortunately, we know that violence against women and girls still exists around the world. The UN is calling on us to show how much we care about violence against women on November 25.

First of all, I would like to point out that none of my colleagues in the House wants to pass judgment on pornography, whether to support or oppose it. That is not the point. That is not what Bill S‑210 is about. Many of us are parents. Many of us are now grandparents. What matters to us as parliamentarians is protecting the mental health of young people by limiting their access to sexually explicit material. What we also want, and what most of our colleagues have said, is to dissuade all organizations that make sexually explicit material available on the Internet for commercial purposes from allowing young people to access that material. We really need to have some means of verification before users enter these site, in order to have screen out our young people and protect them.

Why are we doing this? Let me put this into context. I will read out some information and statistics that will give my colleagues a better idea of how easy it is for young people under the age of 18 to access pornography.

There are nearly 4.5 million pornography sites around the world. Most operate on the model of content uploaded by individuals, completely for free and with no access restrictions. We know that our young people are very adept at using the Internet, much more so than many of my colleagues. Young people are knowledgeable, they are agile, and they are far more interested in technology. Knowing how adept young people are at using the Internet, we should not be surprised at how easy it is for them to get into pornography sites. Of course they know more than their parents.

In 2021, pornography sites got more traffic in the United States than Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix, Pinterest and Zoom combined. Studies show that most young people are exposed to pornography starting at age 13. More than half of these minors see explicit sexual material without even wanting to. That is exactly what we heard earlier from my colleague from Elgin—Middlesex—London, who, I would remind the House, is also the sponsor of this bill. There is a false sense of security.

Research commissioned by the British Board of Film Classification revealed a discrepancy between parents' views and what children were actually experiencing. Three-quarters of parents, or 75%, felt that their child would not have seen pornography online, but more than half of their children, or 53%, said they had in fact seen it. This shows that we cannot simply fall back on parental supervision or rely exclusively on parental responsibility. We have to go one step further and push a little harder, because parents are living with a false sense of security, as these statistics show.

On average, children have their first encounter with pornography at age 11. Here in Canada, 40% of high school boys have seen pornography online, 28% seek it out at least once a day or once a week, and 7% of girls also watch it. According to the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, 87% of scenes in pornography depict acts of violence against women. That is a lot of figures and a lot of information, but I think that we need them to do our work and to understand the issue properly, because it is so important. Here is some more information, and I quote:

Scientific research is making more and more worrisome connections between the consumption of pornography and the health or behaviour of young people. When adolescents frequently view pornography, it can lead to compulsive consumption, create unrealistic expectations about expected activities, generate fear and anxiety, damage their self-esteem by distorting their perception of their own bodies, cause symptoms of depression and impair social functioning.

What do young people, boys in particular, absorb from what they see? Repeated consumption of pornography by adolescents reinforces gender stereotypes and perpetuates sexist beliefs and the objectification of women.

I want to take this issue a little further. Pornography is not reality. Pornography contains a lot of violence. As I said, 87% of pornographic scenes depict acts of violence. Boys who view pornography see behaviour that they will consider to be normal. Teenagers or young people may want to copy some of those behaviours because that is what they have as a model, these gender stereotypes. Everyone here knows very well that that is not reality. I do not think that I have time to give some of the quotes from experts that I wanted to share with the House, but I think that my colleagues have already talked a lot about that.

This week, the newspaper La Presse published a very interesting series of articles about a paradigm shift in what boys think of girls. Right now, there is a trend of sorts happening that is being led by a very influential and important man who is very present on the Internet. He is the subject of one of the articles in that series, entitled “Becoming a fan of Andrew Tate at age 15”. This man, Andrew Tate, is spreading a negative image of women and girls. He says that a woman's place is in the kitchen and that women should not be working. He says that, even if women do work outside the home, they are not smart enough or talented enough to do so.

I read that this week in La Presse and I took it as a warning. It is high time that the House of Commons supported a bill like the one before us today to protect our young people when they go on the Internet, to block their access to pornography and to ensure that companies conduct age verification checks as they should.

The bill is sure to be referred to a parliamentary committee. The format and process remain to be determined. I have neither the skills nor the knowledge today to say what process should be chosen, but I think we have reached the point where this is necessary, and we need to take care of our young people.