Canada’s Culture Minister: Regulating Online Content A Duty Of Federal Government

Authored by Olivia Gomm via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Culture Minister Marc Miller says the federal government has the role of regulating content on the internet and that Canada is years behind other countries when it comes to regulating “online harms.”

Miller told reporters on Parliament Hill April 29 that when it comes to the regulation of online content and social media, that role is “assumed by the federal government, whether we’re talking about moratoriums or the proper regulation of egregious online harms.”

“That’s stuff that we’re, frankly, a couple years behind in regulating, as we see other jurisdictions like Australia, like Britain, like France taking action,” Miller said, as was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. “We need to take action as well.”

Asked to comment on when the government plans on tabling a new online harms bill, Miller said “we’re working on it” and declined to share a timeline.

Miller told reporters earlier this month that a new online harms legislation is in the works and the government is “seriously” thinking about adding a social media ban for children to the bill, but did not provide a status or timeline for the introduction of the legislation then either.

The upcoming legislation will be the government’s third attempt to legislate on “online harms,” following previous proposals in 2021 and 2024, neither of which passed before Parliament was dissolved. Conservatives and civil liberties advocates had criticized both bills as posing a risk to freedom of expression.

In March, the federal government reconvened the same group of experts first formed in 2022 that made recommendations to the government on how to address online content deemed to be harmful, which led to Bill C-63.

The department of industry said in a recent report to the Senate social affairs committee that Ottawa is examining a “future online safety regime” meant to reduce content deemed as being harmful, such as hateful content and cyberbullying on large platforms.

“To advise on this proposal, the government has recently reconvened the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety whose members previously contributed to the development of online harms legislation, to engage on new and emerging issues related to online harms,” the department said.

“Any future legislative proposal would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and details will be made public at the appropriate time.”

In 2021, Bill C-36 proposed a regulatory framework for harmful online content, but faced criticism from the opposition over its scope, including concerns about definitions of harmful speech and the extent of proposed oversight powers.

In 2024, Bill C-63 placed a stronger focus on protecting children and addressing specific categories of harmful content, and proposed the creation of new regulatory bodies such as a digital safety commissioner and ombudsperson. It also included amendments to the Criminal Code and human rights law, with stricter penalties for certain hate-related offences.

After pushback on the 2024 bill, the government said it was open to splitting the bill in two to facilitate the passage of measures protecting children, but the bill lapsed after Parliament was prorogued in January of last year.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser said last November that new legislation regulating online content would be different from the government’s previous proposals. Meanwhile, former Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said a few months earlier that upcoming online harms legislation would be similar to the versions tabled in 2024 and 2021.

The Liberals’ election platform last spring promised to “introduce legislation to protect children from horrific crimes including online sexploitation and extortion and give law enforcement and prosecutors the tools to stop these crimes and bring perpetrators to justice.”

The Liberals also pledged to “make it a criminal offence to distribute non-consensual sexual deepfakes” and to “increase penalties for the distribution of intimate images without consent.”

Jennifer Cowan, Noé Charter, and Paul Rowan Brian contributed to this report.