Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2025

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

Okay, so we're still going.

Thank you very much.

I'll quickly ask this: Is there any concern about regulating in the ways we've been talking about? At its core, I am still concerned about the addictiveness of the actual algorithm. We have ads and we have the content on it that is concerning, but there is something to be said about the idea that even without ads, it is designed to pull you in. You aren't choosing those things.

That doesn't go away, even with these regulations. Are people looking at ways to actually address that element of concern for those of us who have kids using these things and are worried about the screen time and even their ability to pay attention for long periods of time? It certainly has affected my ability to pay attention for a long time. I scroll all the time. I'm as guilty as anybody on these things.

[David Morin]

Go ahead, Ms. Paul, please.

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

I'm sorry. I didn't direct the question.

Mr. Morin, you have the floor.

[David Morin]

This is certainly an important issue.

I’m going to make a kind of leap through time. You probably saw this morning, while reading the news, that after 25 years, an article showing the negative impacts of glyphosate was retracted by a scientific journal. It was realized that, 25 years ago, this article was written, not by researchers who claimed to have written it, but by a company that paid researchers.

I’m going to take another leap in time and bring you back to the tobacco industry, which was a bad corporate citizen at the time, and to your role as a member of Parliament. Imagine that you are a member of Parliament from 25 years ago, with the information you have today about the negative effects of tobacco. What would you do?

Today, experts say there are as many negative effects from continuous exposure to social media and harmful online content as there were back in the day with tobacco industry products. It’s therefore extremely important to move forward today, and I think we need to start somewhere.

The tobacco industry began conducting studies. Remember the tobacco industry’s response that doubt was its product. The idea was precisely to make people like us, and politicians, doubt by saying that it was more complicated than it seemed, etc.

In my opinion, we have enough data today to move forward. Mr. Myles, you said that we would need to work on the issue of algorithms and the dependency they create.

To answer the question posed by the member earlier, we must start by defining the most harmful content that we want to remove from the market. Is it child pornography? Is it the sharing of intimate images without consent? Is it the glorification of violence, terrorism and hate speech? Next, companies must be held responsible, obligated to act and be more transparent.

That’s what the former Bill C‑63 was doing. It required that companies submit a report each year with a protocol, verified by a digital safety commissioner. If the commissioner disagreed or found that the report had not been prepared well enough, penalties were imposed.

We have to start somewhere. Child experts will work on the issue of addiction, etc. In my opinion, we no longer have the luxury of waiting.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Morin.

Ms. Paul, I think you want to interject as well.

[Katie Paul]

Yes.

One thing with regard to algorithms—keeping in mind that this hearing has a focus on children—algorithms are not there to help you, me or children. They're there to help advertisers and the companies profiting from the ads. When Facebook first started in 2004, it didn't have algorithms. You followed your friends, and the feed was chronological. It didn't introduce its first algorithm until 2006. The company has increased those algorithms and the kind of content it recommends so that it can maximize profit, not suggest things that are useful to users. We know, from multiple Facebook whistle-blowers, that the company uses algorithms that push toward increasingly divisive and extreme content because they're the most likely to get engagement. Engagement means you're on the platform longer, and that means they can charge more for ads. It gets back to the business model of these platforms and understanding that kids do not need algorithms to operate on a social media platform. The platforms need the algorithms to keep kids' eyeballs on them.

I would encourage your committee to interview the whistle-blowers from Meta, who were speaking before Congress just a couple of months ago, because they specialized on harms to children based on the platform's designs and algorithms, and were directed by the company to investigate only certain things and not things that were going to harm the business model. They detailed this in their testimony, but I think it is important for the MPs to hear this from the Meta whistle-blowers themselves.

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

That's very helpful. Thank you for both those answers. They were tremendous.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

It's so interesting.

I know Mr. Généreux would like another short time. We have another 15 minutes, so we'll do three, three and two minutes. Does that work?

Mr. Généreux, the floor is yours for three minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thought the meeting was over.

I talked with my colleagues and I listened to all the witnesses speak. By the way, your answers have all been excellent. It was very interesting.

Laws have been adopted in some other countries. For example, you mentioned Australia, if I’m not mistaken. Could you tell us which countries, in your opinion, have good laws or are currently applying good regulations? Can you give us some examples?

Also, I would like a follow-up response to the previous questions.

As I just said, you are excellent witnesses. We have added two meetings as part of this study. That said, we would have time to hear from other witnesses, who could potentially be elected officials from other countries or specialists who have made the laws you are familiar with. If possible, I would like you and Ms. Paul to recommend countries we can draw inspiration from or, if you know of any, individuals who have enacted these laws. I don’t know if you’re able to do that.

Mr. Morin, you’re nodding in approval.

[David Morin]

We met with them when we discussed Bill C‑63.

Clearly, I would recommend the president of the United Kingdom Office of Communications, then the Australian eSafety Commissioner, and probably the European Union officials. Those are the three countries that have made the most progress on this issue.

It still took time to implement the Digital Services Act, or DSA. I don’t know what evidence the countries have on the matter.

As for Australia, we won’t have any evidence for several years concerning the positive and negative effects of prohibiting the creation of accounts on certain social media platforms before the age of 16.

That said, I would invite you to meet with these three representatives. Certainly, they have a lot to say, a lot of evidence, and very interesting measures. I could find their names and pass them on to you without any problem.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Ms. Carignan and Mr. Bridgman, would you like to add something?

[Marie-Eve Carignan]

Yes.

I agree with Mr. Morin: England, the European Union and Australia are models we should consider.

Moreover, if we follow an existing model, we would be putting pressure on the platform that has already adopted that model. There would therefore be less pressure on ours if we show that it is already being done elsewhere. In other words, it shows that it can be done.

It’s good to draw on countries that have already implemented policies, because the platforms can no longer absolve themselves and say that they’re unable to do it.

I don’t know if you’ve met my colleague Pierre Trudel, a media rights expert in Quebec. It would be interesting to meet him to see how these measures can be applied in Quebec. In addition, I would recommend different actors, such as As de l’info or representatives from media education initiatives.

Furthermore, another element had already been discussed in relation to the regulation of platforms, namely the importance of establishing an online observatory to monitor what’s happening and proactively prevent issues, misinformation trends, hate content and new movements. It’s about being more proactive. We should look into this area to see how to set up an observatory that monitors and acts a bit more proactively and preventively.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Côte-du-Sud—Rivière-du-Loup—Kataskomiq—Témiscouata, QC]

Mr. Bridgman, what do you think?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux. Your time is up.

Mr. Al Soud, you have three minutes.

[Fares Al Soud, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Cooper, I made reference to parasocial relationships earlier, and I've asked you so many questions that I'm sure this is starting to look like one. I hope you'll forgive me.

You spoke of the harmful impact of excessive screen time. Increasingly, screens are part of everyday life. They are at school and everywhere we go.

How should Canada balance screen time guidelines with the reality that schools, social life and extracurriculars now operate online?

[Michael Cooper]

Thank you for your question.

I want to address that it is an addictive behaviour, as your colleague indicated as well. One thing we know is that one addictive behaviour can be a catalyst for another addictive behaviour. We see, for example, that individuals who spend six-plus hours on screen time are twice as likely to show a high risk for alcohol consumption, cannabis consumption and a host of other addictions. This really does come down to how it can break down your ability to regulate yourself in the face of these addictive sorts of properties.

What I would necessarily work on is that we don't, as your colleague also indicated, have really good social media or even media literacy anymore. In Ontario, I indicated there wasn't any. In Ontario, we have it in grade 10, but it is terribly outdated. We know that youth are consuming this sort of content significantly younger than 14, which is grade 10.

I think the first thing we can do is start introducing literacy at younger ages and explicitly in curricula. I do agree with the comment that it has to be younger. I also believe very strongly that we're not going to beat all these social media companies. We're not going to be successful with the one avenue of simply trying to remove access. We're not going to be successful, because individuals are going to find a way to get access to those sorts of things. It's a combination of reducing access so they don't have the ability to do it six-plus hours a day and supporting digital literacy campaigns.

I do agree with my colleague, especially about trying to find ways to demonetize. I know that the algorithm functions in a way that allows them to have local tweaks to countries, even on a regional level, so there's no reason whatsoever that they couldn't have a Canadian-specific version that would necessarily identify a group of particularly harmful activities. We could identify that it is primarily targeting younger adults.

On a lot of social media platforms, you can't target children, but you can target ages 18 to 24, and that same group would overlap with a lot of youth who would have this content. You could find ways to microtarget it to, say, 18 to 24 on issues around anything that might lead to body dysmorphia such as makeup tutorials. You could create categorizations of things that would necessarily be demonetized in some way in Canada.

If you put a suite of things like that together, that's your best adoption for addressing these things, because you're not going to get it down to zero. From my perspective, it's really about trying to remove that exceptional six-plus hours that individuals and young people are getting, or even three. There are risk factors at over four hours, so we need to get it down below that threshold.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for two minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

We really have an exceptional group of witnesses today.

I have the impression that, for years, our society has allowed hatred in all its forms to spread by not regulating digital platforms, among other things. When we tried to do it, we ran into all sorts of obstacles. We may be at a point where we have to tackle a huge challenge head-on. We can conduct studies like this, each on our own, but I feel that we will not make any progress unless we present a united front.

Don’t you think we’re at the stage where we all need to take a step back as a society and set up an independent commission, similar to what was done for the future of telecommunications and communications with Janet Yale’s report at the end of 2018‑19?

Isn’t it time to take a step back and set up a study group to see how society should position itself with respect to these major issues, which have and will continue to have enormous repercussions on the future?

What do you think, Ms. Carignan, Mr. Morin and Mr. Bridgman?

[Aengus Bridgman]

I think it’s time for you to take action. In fact, there are many studies and tests that have certainly been done in other countries, but also in many states in the United States. The information is out there. It’s true, it’s time to tackle the huge challenge head-on. If that’s the most effective method, go for it.

However, for now, we need to find a way to tackle this issue as quickly as possible, because the rest of the world is moving forward on this issue. Here in Canada, I feel like we’re trying, but not enough. We have reached a point where there is not enough protection for minors.

This is where we are, and we need to take action.

[Marie-Eve Carignan]

I agree.

They say you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time, but maybe you should take big bites. Indeed, inspiration can be drawn from models that exist elsewhere to do better. We may need to collaborate more with other countries, talk to them, see how we can draw inspiration from their practices and show that it’s feasible.

I think we should tackle the problem on two fronts. First, we need to act quickly to protect young people and regulate the hate speech, the violent and extremely harmful content that we discussed today. Next, we need to think more broadly about how to continue monitoring content, implement initiatives that will be preventive and continue to gather evidence, as my colleagues mentioned earlier. Furthermore, there’s a lack of data on the online practices of young people, among other things. I believe we must continue to act on both fronts.

It’s relevant to establish a body that could continue to reflect while acting quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lisa Hepfner]

Thank you again to all of our witnesses today. This has been an excellent and very interesting panel. We've learned a lot.

If there is anything you haven't mentioned, anything you weren't able to get on the record or anything you think of later, please send it to us via the clerk. We can use that as we discuss this study and as our analysts put together a report for us. Thank you again for your time.

This meeting is now adjourned.