I'll preface this by saying that I'm not a lawyer or a legislator.
What we believe, and what we know, is that the expertise does exist in Canada. I would say that how we navigate that fine line is by consulting with the best thinkers we have in our nation and by consulting with civil society organizations about the concerns that may be present.
If we look at some of the legislation that's gone through or was attempted to be passed, we see that there were a lot of critiques that came from academia, from civil society and—for legislation that was directed at youth—from youth themselves. I think it's figuring out a process, when we're drafting this legislation, where we're including those voices up front so that we have an opportunity to look for where the pitfalls are and to learn from other nations where they've encountered those pitfalls—because, without question, we need regulation.
As you said, we all want children to be much safer. Nobody is fighting that fight; everybody believes and supports that. It's about how we get there. Part of that is by finding legislation that will protect privacy. That is critically important. We can't pass legislation that infringes on children's or adults' privacy rights and guarantees of freedom of speech. We absolutely must do that as a democracy—we care about that very deeply—but we can also protect children. We can do all those things.
