Put politics aside and act on online harms, mother of sextortion victim tells MPs

OTTAWA — Parents of children who died because of online sexual extortion are urging MPs to act on online harms legislation.

The online harms bill is among the legislation that’s been blocked from moving forward for months due to a parliamentary privilege debate raging between the Liberals and Conservatives.

The bill targets seven categories of online behaviour, from the non-consensual sharing of intimate images to content that can be used to bully a child, and would create a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada.

Justice Minister Arif Virani announced plans to split the bill into two parts this week, heeding calls from critics to separate the more controversial hate speech provisions from the child exploitation components.

But the bill still can’t move forward until the privilege filibuster is over.

Barbie Lavers, whose teenage son died by suicide after being extorted online over intimate images, told a House of Commons committee Thursday that she supports the online harms legislation.

Lavers asked politicians from all parties to come to a temporary alliance and stop using children as political pawns to show “one party is more correct than the other.”

“The longer Bill C-63 remains a political issue, the more children we will lose. We beg you to please stop wasting time and do something to help save our children,” she said.

Carol Todd, whose daughter Amanda died by suicide due to online sextortion, told MPs it is hurtful to watch political arguments after waiting 12 years for legislation.

The Conservatives say they won’t end the filibuster until either the Liberals hand over unredacted documents related to misspending at a now-defunct green technology fund to the RCMP, or the NDP agrees to bring down the government.

The Liberals need the support of an opposition party to end or pause the privilege debate, which the NDP did last week when it allowed the government to pass legislation to enact a temporary federal sales tax holiday. But the New Democrats say they, too, want the documents handed over and will not agree to end the debate entirely.

Virani said the goal of breaking the legislation into two was “to find consensus amongst parliamentarians on the things that we can agree to immediately.”

Conservative justice critic Larry Brock called for Virani to “give up” on the bill and instead adopt a Conservative private member’s bill tackling online harms.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, who introduced that bill, repeatedly put it forward as a superior alternative to the government’s proposed legislation while questioning the witnesses at committee Thursday.

Rempel Garner said her concern with the government bill is that it puts the social media platforms’ responsibilities “into a regulator that hasn’t been built and it gives online platforms the ability to wiggle out of this two, three, four years in the future.”

“I would direct your attention to C-412,” she told Todd.

The first part of the government bill, which Virani plans to prioritize, would create a new regulator to compel social media companies to outline how they plan to reduce the risks their platforms pose to users, particularly minors. It would also update rules around mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse material by internet service providers and some online services.

Rempel Garner’s bill would include measures modernizing the existing law against criminal harassment so a victim can ask a judge to force social media companies to identify someone who has repeatedly harassed them online.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2024.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press