The federal government needs to act swiftly to protect children from the harmful impacts of social media, a parliamentary committee heard Feb. 3.
“If we don’t do something, we are going to lose more Canadian kids, more Canadian youth and more Canadian young adults to online harms,” Carol Todd, an educator and online safety advocate, told the House of Commons Canadian heritage committee.
Todd knows those harms too well.
In 2012, her daughter Amanda died by suicide at the age of 15. A month before her death, Amanda posted a video to YouTube to tell of the sexual exploitation and bullying she experienced online.
“I am a mother who buried her child because of what began on a screen,” Carol Todd told the committee.
The committee’s current study on social media harms began in November; it will start drafting its report later this week.
The topic of online harms has increased in urgency since last month, when government sources told the Globe and Mail the federal government is considering a social media ban for children under.
But researchers, advocates and youth say it will take more than a social media ban to protect young people online.
‘Shelved’ testimony
For nearly half a decade, Parliament has been exploring measures to protect children from online harm. The Trudeau Liberals finally introduced an online harms bill in February 2024 that included controversial hate-offence provisions. The bill never made it past second reading and died when the 2025 federal election was called.
Elsewhere, numerous countries have enacted or are considering social media bans. An Australian ban on social media for those under 16 came into effect in December. Denmark, France, Greece, Spain and New Zealand are considering similar bans.
In Canada, the time for action is now, witnesses told the committee.
“We do not need more studies and we do not need to debate whether social media is a problem for children. We already know the answer,” said Sara Austin, founder and CEO of Children First Canada, a national charity.
Austin was not alone in her frustration at the government’s lack of action.
Kevin Waugh, a Conservative member of Parliament who sits on the committee, said that after five years studying this issue, nothing has changed.
“Let’s be honest with this. We’ve made absolutely no progress at all.”
Todd agreed. “I don’t want our testimony to be shelved,” she said.
In the meantime, children and youth are consistently being exposed to more harmful content online, and it is leading to harm offline, said Karen Orser, CEO of Luna Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, an Alberta-based charity.
Orser is also the board co-chair of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres of Canada, an organization that supports child and youth advocacy centres across Canada.
The organization is seeing significant growth in the number of abusive incidents that involve problematic sexual behaviour, Orser told the committee. Many incidents of abuse that begin online involve some form of sexual exploitation, she said.
Legislation needs to be part of the solution, many witnesses said.
“We do need to bring in legislation. We can no longer allow companies to continue behaving as they are,” said Maude Bonenfant, a professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal and Canada Research Chair in gaming, technologies and society.
Legislation needs to address social media’s addictive design features, Bonenfant said. It also needs to address how online images are stored.
Others agreed that social media companies will not change unless they are forced to do so.
“We have spent two decades hoping that the tech industry would do the right thing and they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy,” said Austin.
“It is clear the tech industry will not do this voluntarily.”
Managing habits
But witnesses were clear that laws alone — including a social media ban — will not be enough to protect children from harmful social media content.
“We need to work out healthy lifestyles involving screens,” said Guy Desrosiers, CEO of Capsana, a company that has created resources to help people decrease the time they spend on screens.
The company works with families to make individual plans about their screen time use.
The teenagers he speaks to say they know that social media can be harmful, he told the committee. But they also say not using it can hamper their future job prospects.
Screens and social media are going to be part of everyone’s life, he said. “What counts is learning together how to manage this part of our lives.”
Canada needs to work with other jurisdictions that have social media bans, he said. “We need to work together because we won’t be able to face down these giants on our own.”
Rockets in your hand
The committee also heard from Canadian youth about the difficulties of growing up online.
Zachary Fathally, 12, told the committee he had doubts about the effectiveness of a social media ban.
“Kids will find workarounds,” he said. “If you ban, they will probably protest.”
Rarely do adults ask children and teenagers what it is like to grow up online, he told the committee. He and his peers play and learn online. It is also where they could “make mistakes that follow them forever,” he said.
Adults tell them to use the internet and social media safely, he says, but that is hard when the social media platforms are designed to keep their attention.
Josephine Maharaj, 17, said her parents often compared using the internet to holding a rocket in her hands. It needs to be used wisely, because it can be harmful.
Legislation about social media and online harms will only be successful if youth are involved in the process, she said. The goal is not to “abandon the internet,” she said. Instead, success means using the internet thoughtfully.
When it comes to responding to social media harms, “logging off is no longer a viable option.”
But still, there needs to be limits, she said.
“It’s a tool at the end of the day, and tools are meant to be put down.”
