Canada’s federal government is once again gearing up to tackle the contentious issue of online harm regulation but Culture Minister Marc Miller is being unusually candid about just how far behind the country has fallen.
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill on April 29, Miller acknowledged that Canada is trailing peer nations by several years in putting guardrails around harmful content on the internet. Pointing to Australia, Britain, and France as examples of countries already taking meaningful action, he said Ottawa has little choice but to follow suit.
“We need to take action as well,” Miller said, making clear that the federal government considers online content regulation squarely within its jurisdiction covering everything from platform moratoriums to addressing what he described as “egregious” online harms.
What Miller wasn’t willing to offer was a timeline. Asked when a new bill might land on the parliamentary floor, his answer was brief: “We’re working on it.”
This will be the Liberal government’s third swing at online harms legislation, and the road to get here hasn’t been smooth. An earlier attempt in 2021 Bill C-36 drew sharp criticism from the opposition over what critics called overly broad definitions of harmful speech and sweeping oversight powers. A second version in 2024, Bill C-63, took a sharper focus on child safety and introduced the idea of a digital safety commissioner and a new ombudsperson role. It also proposed tougher Criminal Code penalties for hate-related offences. But that bill, too, died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued in January of last year.
The government had even floated splitting C-63 into two separate pieces of legislation to fast-track child protections but the prorogation made that moot before any action could be taken.
Now, with a reconvened expert advisory group back at the table the same group that informed C-63 in 2022 the groundwork for a new bill is quietly being laid. The Department of Industry recently told a Senate committee that Ottawa is studying a “future online safety regime” targeting hateful content and cyberbullying on large platforms, with any proposal subject to parliamentary review.
The mixed messaging from within the government hasn’t gone unnoticed. Justice Minister Sean Fraser suggested last fall that any new legislation would look meaningfully different from its predecessors. Former Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, by contrast, said a few months earlier that it would closely resemble the 2021 and 2024 versions. Which vision ultimately prevails remains to be seen.
One new element gaining serious consideration: a social media ban for children. Miller confirmed earlier in April that the government is “seriously” thinking about including such a measure in the upcoming bill though again, no timeline or specifics were provided.
For civil liberties advocates and Conservative critics who fought the previous bills on free expression grounds, the renewed push is likely to reignite familiar debates. For parents and child safety advocates, the wait is already overdue.
The Liberals’ election platform had promised legislation targeting online child exploitation, non-consensual sexual deepfakes, and the distribution of intimate images without consent commitments that now hang on whether this third attempt finally crosses the finish line.
