The stakes for youth online safety in Canada are rising fast. Chatbots and AI companions are becoming everyday fixtures for young people, while social media platforms and policymakers grapple with harmful content, addictive design, and the limits of existing safeguards.
At the same time, Canada’s legislative response remains unfinished: two years after the previous Liberal government introduced its first major online safety framework (efforts that stalled when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025) the country is again at a pivotal moment. What should the next iteration of Canada’s online safety agenda include?
Proposals now under active debate range from phone bans in schools, social media restrictions for teens and new accountability rules for AI systems that perform social and companionship roles. But these choices raise hard governance questions: what protections are effective, enforceable, and rights-respecting, and what new risks do they create?
On April 30, we brought together youth advocates, policy experts, and leading researchers to assess the current online harms policy landscape and chart potential legislative and regulatory pathways. With a focus on chatbot safety, age assurance, and youth-focused platform governance, the discussion aimed to help define a practical next playbook for securing Canada’s digital governance while protecting young people online.
Event Program:
4:30 PM - Registration
5:00 PM - Welcome Address
Host, Peter MacLeod, MASS LBP
5:05 PM - Lightning Talks
Age Assurance, Bans, and Infrastructures of Youth Online Safety
Age assurance is increasingly treated as a technical fix for complex social harms, underpinning proposals for global social media bans and restrictions. This lightning talk examines what international policy debates reveal about the risks of over-relying on age verification, and what a more proportionate approach could look like for Canada.
Helen A. Hayes, Associate Director (Policy), Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy
The Online Safety conversation
Everyone agrees kids need to be safer online but there is real disagreement over how to make that happen. This lightning talk draws on the online conversation about online harms from parliamentarians, journalists, and influencers as well as survey findings on public attitudes for mandatory AI chatbot regulation.
Aengus Bridgman, Associate Director of Research, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy and Media Ecosystem Observatory, McGill University
5:25 PM - Panel 1: How do youths actually use chatbots
Moderator: Sally Guy, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Mila
Speakers:
Ava Smithing, Youth Fellow, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy and Host, Left to their Own Devices Podcast
Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in Youth Mental Health and Violence Prevention and Professor, University of Ottawa
Youth advocates and researchers cut through assumptions to examine how young people are really engaging with AI companions, and what that means for regulation.
5:55 PM - Panel 2: Should Canada ban social media for kids?
Legal and policy experts debate whether age-based restrictions are effective and rights-respecting, or whether Canada needs a different accountability framework entirely.
Moderator: Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications and the founding director of The Center for Media, Technology and Democracy
Speakers:
Emily Laidlaw, Professor of Law, University of Calgary and Canada Research Chair - Cybersecurity Law
Ethan Zuckerman, Professor of Public Policy, Communication and Information, University of Massachusetts and Founder, Initiative on Digital Public Infrastructure
6:25 PM - Concluding Remarks
Taylor Owen, Founding Director, Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy, McGill University
6:35 PM Reception
Photographer: Lindsay Ralph. Download the event photos here.
