Bill C-34 (Safe Social Media Act):
Building Safer Digital Spaces for Children
Bill C-34 represents a significant step in Canada’s approach to online safety and the protection of children and youth in digital spaces.
As technology continues to shape how young people connect, communicate, and learn, we believe child safety must be part of the design — not an afterthought.
Daughter Project Canada is following this legislation closely, with a focus on what it means for prevention, child safety, and the shared responsibility to create safer digital spaces.
What is Bill C-34?Bill C-34, also known as the Safe Social Media Act, is a federal bill that would enact two new laws: the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act.
These laws would include:
A “Duty to Protect Children” requiring safer design, age-appropriate protections, and measures to keep minors under 16 off social media and away from pornographic content.
A 24-hour takedown requirement for CSAM and non-consensually shared intimate images.
New obligations on AI chatbot services, including crisis-intervention requirements.
Mandatory transparency in the forms of public Digital Safety Plans and reporting obligations for platforms.
A new enforcement body (Digital Safety Commission of Canada) with actual penalties attached for violations.
This bill creates a framework requiring social media platforms and AI chatbot services to identify and address risks of harm, meet child-safety design requirements, and answer to a new regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada.
This Bill was tabled in June. The House returns this fall and PM Mark Carney has mentioned the Safe Social Media Act in his opening remarks, which signals that it is a priority.
Why Bill C-34 mattersGender-based and intimate partner violence affects individuals, families, and entire communities.
Bill C-16 recognizes that harm does not begin with a single incident — it often develops over time through patterns of control, coercion, and escalating risk. By strengthening criminal law responses and improving how the justice system functions, the bill aims to reduce harm, increase accountability, and lessen the burden placed on victims who must navigate long and complex legal processes.
Why this advocacy is importantLaws shape how communities understand safety, responsibility, and care.
Engaging in the Bill C-16 process matters because it helps ensure that legislation reflects real-world experiences and long-term solutions; not just short-term fixes.
When advocacy organizations are included in lawmaking, policies are more likely to protect children, support families, and contribute to healthier, safer communities.
“If Parliament recognizes new harms, it must also invest in stopping those harms before a child becomes a victim. Prevention reduces victimization upstream of the judicial system.”
Kristin Szabo
Advocacy Lead - Daughter Project Canada
What Daughter Project Canada will bring to Parliament:
Push for the age-verification and design regulations to be survivor-informed and prevention-first, not just compliance checkboxes for platforms.
Ensure the AI chatbot duties explicitly cover grooming and exploitation risk, not only generic “harmful content.”
Advocate that the Commission’s consultation process includes frontline prevention organizations, not just industry/legal experts.
Call for mandatory public reporting data the Commission collects to include exploitation-specific metrics Daughter Project can use in future advocacy.
Flag that 24-hour CSAM takedown is necessary but not sufficient. We will reinforce the same “harm reduction over technical thresholds” framing we used for Bill C-16.
Daughter Project Canada’s recommendations are grounded in a harm-reduction and prevention-first framework.
While Bill C-16 strengthens criminal responses to exploitation and violence, our brief emphasizes that criminal law alone cannot be protective unless it is paired with upstream prevention, shared accountability, and systemic supports.
Together, these recommendations reflect Daughter Project’s core mandate of awareness, prevention, and advocacy, and our position that meaningful protection for children and youth must begin before harm escalates into lifelong trauma.
We are committed to continuing this work and to advocating for policies that put prevention, compassion, and community well-being at the centre of Canada’s response to violence.