Perry Mason
Restorative Justice Consultant, As an Individual
Opening remarks
I'm keeping your chair warm.
Meeting 19 · December 8, 2025 · 15:45–17:39 (1h 54m)
45-16 witnesses · 105 interventions · 15,454 words
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage met to study the influence of social media on young people, hearing from six witnesses: Perry Mason, Tiana Sharifi, Dimitri Pavlounis, Ève Tessier-Bouchard, Stacy Hanson, and André Côté.
Perry Mason, a restorative justice consultant, argued that adults misunderstand the digital generation, whom he called "digital sovereigns" living in a separate culture with its own language and economy. He warned that children are uniquely vulnerable to predators in this space because real-world consequences do not apply, and he urged the committee to approach youth with curiosity rather than judgment, stating that static legislation will quickly become outdated in a fast-moving digital environment.
Tiana Sharifi, CEO of the Center for Exploitation Education, identified influencer culture, misogynistic content targeting boys, and rising grooming and sextortion as the main threats to children online. She recommended monetary penalties for non-compliant platforms, mandated minimum age requirements with enforced age verification, algorithm protections for minors, a ban on targeted advertising to minors, and default prevention of adult contact with minors, arguing that platforms like Meta do not prioritize child safety.
Dimitri Pavlounis, research director at Civix, emphasized that media literacy is already in curricula across Canada but is often taught using ineffective methods, and that education must address the social-emotional factors that make youth susceptible to harmful messaging. He cautioned that no amount of media literacy can compensate for a degraded information ecosystem and urged the committee to include young people's voices in decision-making, noting that age restrictions alone will not solve underlying issues with algorithmic personalization.
Ève Tessier-Bouchard, editor of Les As de l'info, described her platform as a moderated, ad-free news site for children aged 8 to 12 that teaches digital citizenship and critical thinking. She argued that education and support are more effective than outright bans, as children will find ways around restrictions, and she called for greater investment in digital literacy and for media to collaborate on youth content, noting that French-language media from France are dominating the Quebec market due to a lack of local funding.
Stacy Hanson, a high school counsellor from Saskatoon Public Schools, detailed cases of online harassment, sexual exploitation, sextortion, harmful online communities, and dangerous social media trends, including students forming emotional relationships with AI chatbots. She recommended platform accountability with rapid response to remove harmful content, age verification, regulation of algorithmic exposure, stronger protection against image-based abuse, and mandated detection and reporting of adult-minor contact to law enforcement.
André Côté, interim executive director of The Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University, presented survey data showing that young Canadians are more likely to experience online harms and that social media threatens their civic health. He urged the government to table and quickly pass a new online safety bill based on the core of Bill C-63, including a duty of care, an independent regulator, age-appropriate design standards, the right to opt out of algorithmic feeds, and new provisions for AI chatbots and deepfakes, adding that students, parents, and teachers are demanding government intervention.
The committee did not debate any motions or procedural matters during this meeting.
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Perry Mason
Restorative Justice Consultant, As an Individual
Opening remarks
I'm keeping your chair warm.
Tiana Sharifi
Chief Executive Officer, Center for Exploitation Education
Opening remarks
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Tiana Sharifi. I'm the founder and CEO of the Center for Exploitation Education, specializing in child and youth sexual exploitation prevention. I've been a subject matter expert for over a decade. I'm a mother and I come in with a unique angle: I am in many ways an influencer myself. I've built a large online following on social media, where my educational content has reached millions of families it wouldn't have otherwise, and it has saved the lives of young people who have directly reached out for help. Not all social media platforms are created equal, because they vary in different levels of risk. Some are proactive about child safety and want their platforms to be used for good, and others have no intention other than to monetize off of their users and consumers. For those of us working in the anti-sexual exploitation field, the largest threats to the well-being of children online are unmistakably clear. First, influencer culture is feeding the sexualization and exploitation of youth. Second, boys are being pulled into harmful gender beliefs that normalize violence and predation. Third, grooming, sextortion and child…
Dimitri Pavlounis
Director, Research, Civix
Opening remarks
Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Dimitri Pavlounis. I'm the research director at Civix. We are a national civic education charity dedicated to building the habits and skills of citizenship. We work primarily with K-to-12 teachers from every province and territory, providing free programs in both English and French. We are best known for our flagship student vote program, but we provide many other programs around civic engagement, civic discourse and digital media literacy. Over the last while, you've heard about many different social challenges, each intersecting with social media in distinct ways. Some of these challenges might be best addressed through regulation; others might require support or education frameworks. Many likely need both. While I will focus today on the need for media literacy education, I want to be clear that we don't see this as the only or even the best solution to all of these challenges. Rather, we see it as an essential part of a broader national strategy to help young Canadians navigate their online lives. Media literacy is of course a large umbrella term, encapsulating many different concepts and competencies, but at…
Ève Tessier-Bouchard
Editor, Les As de l'info, Les Coops de l'information
Opening remarks
Madam Chair, honourable members of this important committee, thank you very much for inviting me to speak with you today. I currently run Canada's only French-language daily newspaper for children, called Les As de l'info. This media outlet is aimed specifically at children aged 8 to 12 and explains the news to them every day on a web site. To date, there are exactly 26,291 children registered on our web site, which is free of charge. We are not a social media network like the ones we are talking about today, but rather a secure community where children are protected by a username and an avatar, and where they can engage, learn, interact with each other, comment and give their opinions in all kinds of ways. Les As de l'info is a small social media network for information that is moderated seven days a week. We ask for parental consent upon registration and foster an atmosphere of respect on the site, while encouraging the children, most of whom are still in elementary school, to express their critical thinking skills. Our site is free, so it takes a lot of effort to finance it. However, we are determined to keep it that way because it opens the door to all curious children…
Stacy Hanson
High School Counsellor, Saskatoon Public Schools
Opening remarks
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Stacy Hanson. I'm a high school counsellor. The concerns I'm sharing today are from counsellors and restorative action program facilitators across Saskatoon public secondary schools. They reflect patterns we see regularly, not isolated incidents. Our first concern is around targeted online harassment. In one case, a group of students manipulated a video in which they provoked a conflict, edited out their role and posted only the victim's retaliation to frame him as a racist. The online hate became so severe that he feared for his safety, carried a weapon to school and ultimately transferred schools and changed his name. Targeted harassment also includes coordinated social exclusion. Group chats and Snapchat stories are used to incite entire peer groups against a single person or student. Students create warning pages about socially vulnerable peers, spreading accusations without evidence. The speed, reach and public nature of these attacks magnify the harm far beyond what was possible before social media. In one case, the victim of this harassment took his own life. We also see teens impersonating other students and even…
André Côté
Interim Executive Director, The Dais, Toronto Metropolitan University
Opening remarks
Thank you very much, Chair. Thanks, committee. It's an honour to be here speaking with the other witnesses, with alarming but amazing perspectives on these issues. My name is André Côté. I'm the executive director of The Dais. We are a think tank at Toronto Metropolitan University. We are focused on public policy and leadership developments at the intersection of technology, education and democracy. We have been doing work on social media in Canada since back around 2018, with a major focus on kids and tech issues. This includes our survey of online harms in Canada, which is the longest-running survey of its kind and looks at social media use, the harms Canadians are experiencing and attitudes about what government should do about it. We have a national screen break project that's focused on mobilizing for effective phone-free school policies across the country, and we have other research in areas like digital literacy, AI and children's privacy, social media labelling and AI deepfakes, misinformation and disinformation. I'll pull from some of this in my remarks. Our survey of online harms reinforces that Canadian youth are the most significant users of social media, which…