After years of false starts, Ottawa is again preparing to introduce an online harms bill. Like its previous bill, this one will also focus on protecting children.
“Canada’s new government is moving forward with legislation to protect children from online sexual exploitation and extortion, tighten child-luring laws, and increase penalties for the distribution of intimate images without consent,” a Canadian Heritage spokesperson told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement.
“It will also make the non-consensual distribution of sexual deepfakes a criminal offence.”
Canadian Heritage and the Department of Justice both declined to say whether the government is also planning to introduce hate offence provisions, which mired its prior online harms bill in controversy.
Digital fears
Canadian Heritage first began conducting consultations on a framework for an online harms bill in 2021.
A fraught consultation process — marred by accusations that the government was not being transparent about public support for the bill — delayed introduction of a bill until February 2024.
That bill, Bill C-63, would have required social media platforms to address harmful content on their platforms and would have established a new regulatory body to enforce the law.
More controversially, it also proposed a new hate offence with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. And it would have enabled individuals assessed as likely to commit online hate offences to be subject to restrictive conditions.
Civil liberties groups including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association denounced it as overly broad, warning it risked chilling lawful speech.
In December 2024, then-justice minister Arif Virani announced the government would split Bill C-63 into two bills to facilitate the passage of the child-protection measures while deferring the hate offence elements. But the bill ultimately died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued a month later.
Evolving threats
In its statements to Canadian Affairs, Ottawa said its new bill will include the child protection elements that commanded broad support, and will also include new offences relating to child exploitation and sexual deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated or manipulated audio and video that realistically alter a person’s appearance or voice to make it seem like they said or did something they did not in fact do.
“The world changes and governments would be remiss if they didn’t recognize that policy needs to shift,” Justice Minister Sean Fraser said in a June 29 interview with The Canadian Press, referring to the rapid rise of generative AI and its potential for abuse.
A 2023 briefing by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and outside reporting have documented how deepfake videos can reach millions before being taken down by online platforms.
At the same time, law enforcement has been slow to mount a response. Statistics Canada data show fewer than one-quarter of police-reported online sexual offences against children in 2023 resulted in a charge being laid or recommended; where police did take action, more than two-thirds of cases were not resolved.
Other Western governments have moved more swiftly than Canada to address online harms.
The U.K.’s Online Safety Act became law in October 2023 and set out sweeping duties on platforms to tackle illegal online content.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act, passed in 2022, obliges platforms to remove harmful content quickly or face heavy fines.
Also since 2022, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has been able to order the removal of abusive material within 24 hours.
Missing pieces
Canadian Heritage and the Department of Justice both declined to comment on whether the government’s new online harms bill will include the hate offence provisions that made Bill C-63 so controversial.
“Our government will have more to say as we finalize the legislation and move to introduce it, and we expect all parties to work together to keep our children safe,” the Canadian Heritage spokesperson said.
“We intend to advance the seven priorities outlined in the government mandate letter and to implement the initiatives set out in the 2025 Liberal platform,” the spokesperson added.
Those priorities, which Prime Minister Mark Carney gave to all cabinet ministers, focus on issues such as security, trade and affordability, and do not mention online harms or safety.
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