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Many jurisdictions around the world are taking steps to protect children and youth from harmful content online. One of the ways of protecting kids and youth online is by putting in place age restrictions for violent and explicit content. Age assurance systems can be mandated by law or regulation. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) held an exploratory consultation on privacy and age assurance. The OPC takes the position that “it is possible to design and us

The EFC has made a submission to a UN committee reviewing Canada's commitment to eliminate discrimination against women (CEDAW). The EFC's brief outlines the negative impact of Canada’s euthanasia laws on women, particularly women with disabilities. It underscores that prostitution is a system of violence and exploitation, and points to the connection between human trafficking and prostitution. The EFC urges Canada to repeal the law allowing euthanasia for mental illness, to

Ask your MP to protect kids online and support Bill S-210. Write or call your MP. Even a voicemail message left at your MP’s office has an impact. Contact your MP in more than one way for even greater impact, for example, by calling and writing. Follow these simple steps to reach your Member of Parliament (MP): Go to "Find Members of Parliament" Enter your postal code Click on your MPs name Look under the “Contact” tab for your MP's phone number and email address For writing

Bill S-210 died at the 2025 election call. A new iteration of the bill has been introduced in the Senate, Bill S-209.Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to sexually explicit materials, is a private member’s bill introduced by Senator Miville-Dechêne on November 24, 2021. It passed its second of three votes in the House of Commons in December 2023, and advanced to be studied by a parliamentary committee This bill would have made it a criminal offence to

A private member’s bill that would allow advance requests for euthanasia is moving through the Senate. Bill S-248 was introduced by Senator Pamela Wallin and has passed two of three votes in the Senate. The next step is for the bill to be studied by a Senate committee. The Criminal Code requires a person be able to consent to their death at the time their life is ended through MAiD. There is currently a narrow exception for people whose death is “reasonably foreseeable” for t

The EFC submitted a brief to the Heritage Committee in its study of online illegal sexually explicit material. The EFC called attention to the need to protect Canadians, particularly children and youth, from the range of harms associated with illegal content online. Our brief discussed how these images can have significant and harmful impacts on Canadian victims and viewers. There are devastating, lifelong consequences for those whose images are uploaded and distributed. Ill

Two Bloc Québécois MPs have introduced almost identical private member’s bills to remove the religious belief defence from two sections of the Criminal Code. Good-faith religious belief is one of several defences to the offences of the wilful promotion of hatred and wilful promotion of antisemitism, found in Criminal Code sections 319(2) and 319(2.1). Bill C-367 was introduced by Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet on November 28, 2023. The text of the bill and the status of i

The government introduced Bill C-63 on February 26, 2024. The bill has three main sections. The first enacts the Online Harms Act, setting up a new regulatory framework with responsibilities for online platforms and creating a new Digital Safety Commission and a Digital Safety Ombudsperson. This framework is focused on seven categories of online harm: intimate content communicated without consent and content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, bullies

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls issued a call for input on the approaches and actions that states should take to effectively protect women and girls from all forms of violence. The Special Rapporteur wanted the input as part of making a June 2024 report to the UN Human Rights Council on the global phenomenon of prostitution and violence against women and girls. The EFC submitted a six-page brief discussing the violence inherent in pro