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Just when you thought Canada’s digital misadventures couldn’t get more chaotic, it appears they could be about to.
First, let’s take a quick look at the record. Then we’ll take a peek at the problems.
It was three years ago this month when Meta responded to the Online News Act by banning posts to news links on Facebook and Instagram. It did this because the legislation, which was based on the false premise that by allowing news producers to post their content for free on its platforms, Meta was “stealing” their content. The act, which was promoted by its backers as world-leading, demanded that Meta pay, in exchange for giving publishers free access to billions of eyeballs, what would have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Conscious of the global implications of compliance, Meta chose to ban news links. In the end, Canada became an object lesson in what not to do.
At roughly the same time, the Online Streaming Act came into force. It declared the internet to be broadcasting with the intent of forcing offshore streaming companies to contribute hundreds of millions to support the production of official Canadian content (Cancon), promote it and subsidize broadcast newsrooms. After three years of grinding through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications regulatory process, the government kiboshed the idea of getting money from streamers in order to mollify U.S. President Donald Trump’s American trade negotiators. While the money lost there was, at least temporarily, replaced with a $600 million cash infusion from the treasury, the Canadian Media Producers Association and other groups have expressed their great alarm at this current, uncertain state of affairs.
And then there was the Digital Services Tax. Just as it was about to come into force last summer, Prime Minister Mark Carney spiked it, again at the behest of Trump.
Which brings us to the Safe Social Media Act, introduced but not yet passed by the Carney administration in June with the laudable goal of protecting children from online harm and addiction.
As with all legislation, it has problematic aspects such as how to implement a ban on access to social media for all those less than 16 years of age without violating the privacy and other rights of those 16 years of age and older.
Australia got its legislation through in late 2025 and pushed the responsibility for implementation onto Meta, TikiTok et al. That hasn’t gone particularly smoothly, with studies showing that an overwhelming proportion of the underage population still maintains access through a variety of creative means (as teenagers are prone to discover). Meta, meanwhile, announced it had removed 750,000 accounts on Facebook and Instagram. Canada can probably look forward to similar chaos.
Meanwhile, France’s attempt to impose similar restrictions has gone awry thanks to a decision by that country’s Constitutional Council, which ruled last week that the legislation infringed on freedom of expression and other rights accorded to its citizens.
“The Council holds that the contested provisions, on the one hand, disproportionately infringe upon the freedom of expression and communication and, on the other, fail to provide the legal safeguards necessary to ensure the right to respect for private life,” the ruling stated.
Canadian internet expert, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, summarized the situation succinctly in a social media post of his own when he stated:
“The court ruled that a blanket ban was a disproportionate limit on expression and that it forces everyone, including adults, to verify their age, thereby violating privacy without legislated safeguards. These are exactly the concerns I raised in my post arguing that Canada’s social media ban is unconstitutional.”
In other words, Canada can probably look forward to similar chaos.
Restrictions on freedom are almost always created in the name of safety. That doesn’t mean they are always bad; stop signs, reasonable speed limits, and school zones are excellent examples.
What are more ominous are restrictions made to advance social purposes as was the case last month in Hong Kong where police executed another round of arrests of bookstore owners for making “seditious” literature available.
According to the Guardian, Hong King security chief Chris Tang explained:
“If you are a bookseller, you have a responsibility to ensure that the books you sell do not endanger national security” which is, of course, there to ensure everyone’s safety.
Canada, meanwhile, has raised a few eyebrows by looking to the UK for advice on how to better manage the information ecosphere to advance the cause of “social cohesion.”
Laws are important things and all societies depend upon a balance of liberty and order. It is the job of politicians within liberal democracies to ensure countries’ and citizens’ affairs can be conducted in a safe and orderly fashion—with the caveat, of course, that we remain as free as possible.
As Canada continues to stumble into the digital age, its leaders would be well-advised to keep that in mind.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an award winning journalist, and former vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
