Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 26th, 2025

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Ms. Wood, one of the things you talk about is the importance of making sure that kids are educated really well in terms of their online use, but also, of course, there are mental health concerns and there are so many social concerns. There are concerns around gender and sexuality, etc. One of the things you talk about is the importance of equipping parents and the importance of entering into classrooms. You've discussed that further here today.

One of the things that I'd love for you to touch on, if you're able to—and if not, that's okay—is to outline how social media channels are used by those who are wishing to lure, groom and exploit young people. What does that look like in terms of how social media is used to accomplish those ends?

[Holly Wood]

Absolutely.

That's a loaded question. There are a lot of different ways to look at it.

One of the biggest things that I look at is the fake profiles or fake accounts on Snapchat. Kids are getting friend requests from people they don't know. They're adding people they don't know. They're snapchatting with people they don't know. They assume that it's just someone from their community or someone whom someone else knows. That is having a deep effect on our children. They are conversing with a lot of strangers.

Then there's the comparison culture piece, where they're watching influencers on social media posting things, and they become popular because they have the most likes. There are so many things on social media that are terrifying our kids into this comparison culture and making it unsafe. They don't feel adequate, and exploiters and predators prey on that. I will follow up with a deeper explanation, but it's mostly that they create a sense of vulnerability, and human traffickers, exploiters and predators prey on that. They know exactly where to find it, based on a child's social media presence or profile.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you for that.

Ms. Holland, when you go into a school system and you teach this.... Of course, I understand that you teach different things at different grade levels. I would imagine there would be a grade level where this would be appropriate to talk about. I would hope that it's actually sooner rather than later. When you do that, what do you teach kids?

[Naomi Holland]

This conversation applies to all levels and, absolutely, it's always age-appropriate, but you have to start now.

They say that one of the first places where children are exposed to pornography is on the school bus. That means you have to be having conversations with children about what to do when they see a naked body. You don't have to tell them about pornography, and you don't have to tell them the stats, but do it before they get on the school bus, which is at five years old. Absolutely, you can have age-appropriate conversations at all ages, including with five- and six-year-olds. My emphasis would be spending as little time on screens as possible, playing outside and just getting together with friends.

We have to change the culture. We can't just accept that kids are going to have screens so therefore let's make sure we can limit and stuff. We absolutely have to change this culture. I think someday we're going to see giving a child a tablet as a form of child abuse, because you are already allowing technology to rewire their brain. At a young age, try to get them off the screen as much as possible, but also ask questions about what they're on, to get a sense of where they're at, and teach them red flags. Red flags are people who are too friendly, people you don't know who all of a sudden think you're amazing and want to know about what you like to do and what your favourite food is, and they want to know everything about you. Those are red flags. When they ask to move the conversation somewhere else, it's a red flag.

Kids are fantastic. They're not scared of all the things that we're scared about. They're hungry for knowledge. They're not getting the knowledge at home. They're not getting it at school. You do need advocates like us who can give them age-appropriate information in a way that doesn't make them fearful of the Internet but does make them rethink how much time they're spending on it. You can talk to them about dopamine as well. They need to know these things. They're already feeling it. They just don't have words for it. We need to help them understand what it is. The eyes cannot see what the brain does not know. We need to talk to them about their brain so that they can identify harmful behaviour when they're feeling it.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Ms. Coulter, did you wish to speak to that?

[Natalie Coulter]

I would love to speak a little bit about the fact that while I think there have been a lot of really interesting things said, I agree exactly that young people are very smart. They're very excited. They want to know a lot.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I'm sorry. I'm just going to hone in on my question. My question is, what is the path that is exploiting young people, luring them in and then ultimately resulting in their exploitation? How is that happening?

[Natalie Coulter]

I'm not exactly sure how it's happening, but I do think that we need to look at the technology itself, at the aspects of each individual platform and the affordances of the platform that allow these things to happen. I think leaving it to parents and even leaving it to kids themselves to circumvent these things is really problematic. I think every platform is designed a little bit differently, but there are a lot of pieces of the platforms themselves that allow for these sorts of things to happen, and I think we need to build.... The platforms were never designed with young people in mind. They were built for adults, and young people were never considered. We need to take a step back and think about how we can include young people in thinking about creating ways so that aspects of these platforms can be designed to meet their needs and keep them safe. We need to implement a lot of discussion with these different platforms and different companies, and they need to be included in part of our policy.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

It's safety by design.

[Natalie Coulter]

Safety by design, that's exactly what I'm trying to say, as well as including young people in those conversations of safety by design, because we're excluding them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you.

Mr. Myles, you have the floor now for five minutes.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thanks, everybody, for this great conversation.

Like Martin, I am more concerned now than I was at the beginning of the study. I have two young kids at home. I'd love to hear some of the positive results. Let's start there. You did mention some of the educational programs that have happened and where they've happened, but we didn't really dig into whether there have been statistical results so we can look at those jurisdictions where this education has actually made a difference in terms of behaviour.

[Matthew Johnson]

We don't have results at the level of jurisdictions. That is one of the reasons why we need a national policy, so that we can establish benchmarks and so that we can more clearly establish what are the best practices. We do have evaluation data on some of our own programs where we've been able to establish how well they do in raising knowledge, raising efficacy and encouraging and making young people feel more confident that they know what to do if they are in a risky situation, or if they encounter inappropriate content or hate content online, to empower them to push back and improve the social norms of their communities.

We already talked about misinformation and disinformation, and we have significant data there. It's not on a jurisdiction level. It's not on a level that we can apply across the country or even across an individual province or territory.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

What about Finland, and what about England? That's what I meant by “jurisdictions”, the other countries that have been doing this for a long time. Are they giving us signs that those programs have led to more responsible use? Are there statistics that suggest that this has been effective?

[Kathryn Ann Hill]

Yes, Finland has some great data about resilience. In particular, they're focused on resilience to misinformation and disinformation, and that really has broad reach in terms of how we understand media, how we understand news and how we understand information. It's all about critical thinking. Finland has great data.

The U.K. is starting to collect some really good data. They're seeing some really good results in terms of the interventions they've identified and the best practices they've identified, and now they're starting to measure the impact of those. They are starting to see some good results.

A few other countries are in the process of starting to identify what the metrics are, because we have to set a baseline. We have to start to measure, and then we get to see the change. We want to know all those things to be sure that what we're measuring is real and we're not just saying, “Well, a lot of people feel this, or a lot of people feel that.” We want to really have some rigour in our research.

In terms of looking for hope, we do a study called “Young Canadians in a Wireless World”. We talked to 5,000 youth. We've been doing this for about 20 years, every five years or so. During the last iteration, we talked to young people about their experiences. They wonderfully answer over 100 questions for us. It's a fairly major study guided by ethics at the university. What they disclosed to us in the area of online harms, for example, was that the young people who are in families or with guardians who are engaged with them in their online use.... If they have a device, it's in the home or in the kitchen where the parents are. The parents aren't looking at everything they're doing on their screen, but it's just that it's open and there's a conversation about it. They were seeing something like 80% less harmful content. Some of them were seeing no harmful content.

From that, we were able to extrapolate that if children are in an environment where the adults are engaged with them around their technology use and where they're setting rules that are age-appropriate, appropriate for the maturity of those children, and they're having those conversations, it makes a huge difference in terms of prevention and experience.

[Matthew Johnson]

That same research showed us that when only technological strategies were being used to manage children's online experience, it was the opposite. They had more negative experiences and engaged in more risky behaviour when only things like surveillance software were being used.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Would abstinence fall into that? Would age restrictions maybe fall into that? When people are rebelling, they're actually more likely...whereas if there's an educational.... The thing that I think we're all struggling with is.... We've identified that the algorithm doesn't have the wellness of our children in mind. We all agree, so now it's about how much exposure, how to expose and at what point. Is it a hard line or is it education? There is a little bit of difference among the witnesses we're hearing today. Some say that it's a hard line and not to touch it. Other people are....

Can you maybe just dig into that a little bit?

[Matthew Johnson]

There is definitely evidence that excessive restriction can backfire and that it pushes youth to take more risks. It takes away positive experiences and positive opportunities and replaces the education, either at the school or at the home level, that young people need.

Again, there's nothing magical about any age. There's no particular point where kids or adults magically become able to manage risks. They have to be given opportunities to make mistakes safely.

Our approach is very much influenced by the approach that's been taken to physical playgrounds over the last decade or so. The approach has changed from making playgrounds as safe as possible to making them as safe as necessary. The approach has changed from removing all possible risks to embracing appropriate risks for children while removing all of the hazards that children either are not ready to deal with or are simply not capable of dealing with because they're not aware of them.

[David Myles, Liberal, Fredericton—Oromocto, NB]

Am I done?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

You're out of time. I'm sorry.

That's a very good point, Mr. Johnson. I'm having flashbacks to the very dangerous playgrounds of my childhood. On the merry-go-round, you'd go flying up.

Mr. Bonin, welcome to the committee. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my pleasure to join the committee today.

My first question is for the people from MediaSmarts.

With regard to radicalization, what are the indicators or signs, or even behaviours, that parents or teachers could detect in order to intervene? Have these already been categorized? Are there tools available to teachers, for example, to help them detect this more easily?

[Matthew Johnson]

Radicalization is not always easy to detect in the early stages. Obviously, young people are more likely to give clear signs of having been radicalized, because they don't necessarily have the experience to be able to conceal it. As we've heard earlier from other witnesses, it has become, unfortunately, common for teachers and parents as well to hear things from young people, indicating they've begun the radicalization process.

Unfortunately, the way radicalization works is that it often begins in ways that are not obvious. It begins with content that is designed not to immediately shock, not to immediately offend, but to seem reasonable at first glance. This can begin a radicalization journey where young people, or anyone in the process of radicalization, are brought in gradually, both by the hate movements and also, frequently, by the algorithms to more and more extreme content.

We also know that radicalization does not happen equally with everyone. This is a seed that will only grow in fertile soil. There are ways of preparing people to recognize it, to resist it and to understand the reasons why these messages are untrue and harmful.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I think you mentioned that some young people who use social media are in control and derive great satisfaction from it, while others who are more vulnerable will have difficulties.

What should be done in the case of those who are not in control and are more vulnerable? How can we tell if our own children are in control or not, for example? It's not easy to determine.

[Matthew Johnson]

This is one of the reasons why we strongly discourage the use of addiction framing, because it makes people feel less in control. It makes it feel as though they are powerless with regard to the device or the app. We embrace what most of the recent research has shown as a more effective framing, which is looking at it in terms of habits. When we become aware of our habits, we can take conscious steps to change them.

This is the basis of programs we've developed, including one recently that's being launched with School Mental Health Ontario. It helps people feel as though they can make a difference. It helps them reflect on their usage, helps them identify what is working and what is not working about their current usage, and helps them take concrete steps to change it.

We do know that the impact of feeling in control or feeling out of control has a positive or a negative effect regardless of how much time people are actually spending or any other impacts it has. Even if you are not spending much time online, even if there are no other negative impacts of your online use, feeling like it's out of your control will have a negative impact on you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Mr. Diotte, it's your turn for five minutes.