Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 26th, 2025

[Kathryn Ann Hill]

I can talk about it for half an hour. I'm sorry.

Very quickly, I will say that Brazil did it within six months. When the new government was elected and they realized they needed to work really hard and really fast to combat anti-democratic forces, they knew the place they needed to invest in most quickly. Within six months, they had a strategy for the nation. It's not perfect. Brazil is working on it. It's going to take a couple of years to improve and enhance it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

It's not too late.

[Kathryn Ann Hill]

It's not too late, and it's possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I find it very interesting that we are talking about digital literacy. Ms. Wood, you mentioned earlier that governments have a duty to legislate and regulate this, because it is not up to parents to do all the policing. However, even though Ms. Hill is still optimistic and says it is not too late, I feel that we have delayed too long, as we usually do when it comes to regulating new technologies. Some go so far as to say that we may have missed the boat with the current generation.

Many say that we should follow the example of Australia, Finland and Denmark and restrict access to social media for young people under the age of 18, 16 or 14, depending on the case. Shouldn't we instead step up our game in terms of education and digital literacy, and implement programs to ensure that young people are more cautious and informed?

It seems to me that prohibition is not always the right solution. It may be, and that is why we are studying the issue, but I wonder if we should not become more aware and follow the example of countries that have focused on education instead. Even if we are behind, we could redouble efforts and move in that direction.

I would like to hear your opinion on this, Ms. Wood. The data presented to us today is concerning. I also heard your response to Ms. Holland's comments earlier, so I will give you the floor.

[Holly Wood]

Prevention education is absolutely the most important thing, specifically when it's age-appropriate, culturally inclined and ever-changing with the reality of what's happening in the world our children live in.

The barricades to providing that prevention education.... As I believe Ms. Hill said, it's a provincial matter. It's in Ontario, but it's not everywhere and it's taking forever to roll out. This is immediate. This should be implemented immediately.

When I look at social media, do I believe that it needs to be absolutely cut off? No, but I do think that parents struggle to understand parental controls. Therefore, prevention education for parents is as important as it is for students.

The last thing I want to say is that there are phones out there—I believe it's called a Pinwheel phone—that we should be pushing to parents. It's a phone that doesn't have social media. You can buy phones for your kids that don't have everything you can put on an iPhone these days. That should be front and centre on the billboards across Canada.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I have teenagers, and I couldn't imagine giving them a phone without access to social media. It's just not an option. It's part of their world. That's why I find this discussion difficult. I'd like to give them a phone just for texting and calling me, but unfortunately, they also want to use Snapchat, Instagram, etc.

I find today's discussion very interesting. I think it gives us a lot to think about, but I am even more confused and lost than I was at the beginning of the discussion. However, we will sort it all out, and I am sure we will come to some good conclusions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Mr. Berthold, welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the entire committee for allowing me to participate in this important study today.

I agree with my colleague. I too am much more confused than I was when I arrived. Yet this is an extremely important issue.

Today, while preparing, I was reading a 2020 study which stated that in Quebec, 88% of 14-year-old boys and 39% of 14-year-old girls had already viewed pornography. That is incredible. We are talking about 14-year-olds, but I am sure that many younger children have done so too, but perhaps we don't dare ask them. It is shocking to see that our young people have access to this.

Furthermore, from what I know about the school environment, tablets are used as rewards when young people do good deeds. There is currently a contradiction in the school system. On the one hand, we reward those who have had a good week by giving them access to a tablet for an hour. On the other hand, we take no measures to properly educate children on the use of tablets. There will be no content of the sort on the tablet at school, but there will be other things on the tablet at home.

Are there any initiatives in place as part of university training for future teachers to raise their awareness of social media and encourage them to educate children in this area? What do you think is the responsibility during teacher training? We know that a prohibition approach will not work. As for implementing a program, it will take years to get there. How are universities training our future teachers for this new reality?

I would like to hear Ms. Wood's opinion first, followed by Ms. Holland's.

[Holly Wood]

I believe that teachers and parents are one and the same. They juggle a lot of different things.

In Ontario, our curriculum for human trafficking prevention or prevention education is on the shoulders of teachers. They don't have time to learn about human trafficking, build a curriculum and then put it into their daily teaching schedules.

What can we do for teachers now? We can provide them with prevention education. On professional development days, give them access to this training and fund this training and this education, because it's such an important piece. Do it regularly. Have a schedule—once a month or biweekly; I don't know. Have it be part of their professional development, but also understand that the programming we're talking about will take years to build. You have so many organizations that would be happy to build it with you. We're willing to spend a year working to bring that to fruition. Baby steps would be to put it in professional development days right away.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

What do you think, Ms. Holland?

[Naomi Holland]

I would love to address this. I have a real problem with screens in schools.

I don't think teachers are being educated, or at least many of them don't seem to be aware of the problem of screens. I understand that they're stressed and overwhelmed, but too many teachers are giving screens to kids to keep them quiet and asking them to do their homework on a screen when the other tabs could be YouTube and their video game. This is happening in the classroom. It is so ridiculous that kids are pretending, and when the teacher comes, they swipe out of it.

If I were a teacher, I would turn all the desks around so that the screens face inside. The teacher's desk should be right in the middle of that U shape so they're seeing the screens all the time, because kids cannot be held responsible. They do not have the brakes installed in their brains. They cannot do their math on one screen and resist YouTube on the other screen. I think we should definitely be getting screens out of classrooms.

I'd like to address the confusion. In The Anxious Generation, Dr. Haidt says we can turn this mental health epidemic around in two years if we follow just four simple norms: no social media before 16, no smart phones before high school, more free play and get phones out of schools.

It's not that hard. We can do it, but we have to do it collectively so that the one family that does it isn't the weird family on the block, like our family is. My child did not have a smart phone until she was 18. It can be done. My son is 14, and he has a flip phone. He's a pretty cool kid, but I'm biased.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you for those suggestions. I think they are really good.

What do you think, Ms. Hill?

I'd like to hear from MediaSmarts.

[Kathryn Ann Hill]

Do you want to go?

[Matthew Johnson]

We absolutely believe that teachers need support. They need professional development. That's something we provide. We provide a significant number of professional development resources for teachers to help them know how to teach about these—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

I would prefer to know if you are in direct contact with the universities that provide teacher training. I think that this needs to be done at the basic level. Teachers need to arrive at schools having been trained in this regard.

[Matthew Johnson]

Yes, we work with teacher candidates at faculties of education across the country. We've done programs where MediaSmarts staff have travelled around the country to train teacher candidates in person. Just two weeks ago, I was training 300 teacher candidates at Lakehead University on our materials.

This is something we offer for free. We also offer this material as self-directed professional development on our website that teacher candidates or teachers can go through on their own time.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L’Érable—Lotbinière, QC]

Do they do that on their tablets?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Maybe we should legislate that everyone read Jonathan Haidt's book. I think that's a great idea.

Mr. Ntumba, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Personally, I am not so confused; I somewhat understand what this is about. At some point, the state has a responsibility. Parents have a responsibility. Experts like the ones we are hearing from today also have a responsibility. As for children, they have rights, but they also have duties. That is how my parents raised me. There comes a time when we have to turn off our screens.

Tablets exist, and some do not come with applications such as Facebook or YouTube. Schools may also choose to purchase these tablets, give them to children in class, and ensure that these tools are not already installed on the devices or that they can't be downloaded.

Do you think that a solution could be to start with schools only providing children with devices on which these tools have not been installed?

I would like to point out that Quebec has banned mobile phones in schools. Could this measure also help reduce screen time among young people?

What do you think, Mr. Johnson?

[Matthew Johnson]

I don't think there is anyone, young people included, who feels that students should have unlimited access to digital devices during the school day.

There is also a lot of evidence that, particularly for older students, such as teenagers at the secondary level, there is a point where they need to learn how to manage their device use, because this is not something that happens magically when we graduate. When we go on to post-secondary education or when we go on to the work world, all of those distractions will continue to be there, but we will have fewer opportunities to make up for our mistakes.

I do think there's a lot of good evidence that suggests that for older students, the digital devices can be used as a way of learning to manage those distractions. We have to teach them how to make these a healthy part of their lives, how to use them effectively and how to manage the distraction of digital media.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

I will seize the opportunity and address this issue with you, Ms. Wood.

Earlier, you said that you also wanted access to classrooms for prevention activities. I was wondering what legislation the Canadian federal government could introduce to allow this, given that education is a responsibility that falls entirely to the provinces. Will the framework legislation introduced here give you access to classrooms? I don't think so, unless you tell me otherwise.

That said, let me explain the point I want to make.

At 16, I can drive a car with adult supervision. At 18, after having a probationary licence for two years, I can get my full licence to drive my car.

As we have said, having a mobile phone that gives you access to everything can lead to mental health problems. Mental health is very important. We take care of it because it is intangible.

Isn't it more important to protect children and young people by limiting their access to these tools than to teach them how to use them at an early age?

[Holly Wood]

I know that education is a provincial issue, but protecting children is a national issue. That's the way I look at it. While I understand that provincial governments are the ones that put education in place, the federal government should be working with all levels in all provinces across the country to make sure that prevention education is nationwide.

In terms of devices, I understand that children want to be on Snapchat because other kids are. They want to be in the group chat. They want to post photos. I understand that. I understand that you, as the federal government, can't go into a home and tell a child not to be on Snapchat, but you can look at the regulations and the security and parent controls around those apps that are taking away our children.

Legislatively, I believe someone else pointed out that there are so many professionals—Jonathan Haidt is an example—who are out there and saying exactly what we need to do. To look at that from a legislative perspective, look at the research. Talk to the researchers. Put together a committee like this one that can do a deep dive into what sorts of policy and legislation are required to make that happen.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Wood.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, Mr. Ntumba.

Mrs. Thomas, you have the floor now for five minutes.