Online harms bill should cover AI chatbots, say some on Ottawa’s advisory group

Some of the experts Ottawa has tasked with giving it direction on the upcoming online harms bill say the legislation should cover AI chatbots, while opinion on the idea of age restrictions for access to social media is more varied.

Emily Laidlaw, a law professor at the University of Calgary and a member of Ottawa’s online harms advisory panel, said she doesn’t see how the government can reintroduce online harms legislation and not address a technology that is “facilitating some of the most harm to vulnerable adults and children.”

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In March, the government reconvened an expert group it previously consulted on an earlier iteration of that bill, which did not become law before last year’s election was called.

Since then, safety issues linked to artificial intelligence-based chatbots and the idea of age restrictions for social media have both emerged as global political issues.

Culture Minister Marc Miller said last week the government is “very seriously” considering a social media ban for kids, and would leave it to the expert group to weigh in on whether the bill should cover AI chatbots.

Other members of the expert panel — including Taylor Owen, founding director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University — agreed the new bill should cover AI chatbots.

Lianna McDonald, panel member and executive director for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said in a media statement it would be “short-sighted” not to account for AI chatbots in a future online safety regime.

But opinions about the idea of age-restricting access to social media are more varied among the experts the government is consulting.

McDonald said the Canadian Centre for Child Protection “unequivocally supports a social media delay for children.”

“There is endless evidence showing the developmental harm to children — and Canadian parents echo this same sentiment,” she added in the statement.

Owen said the government should consider a temporary age restriction on access to social media that would remain in place until a regulator is set up and companies show they are in compliance.

“And if they do that, then they can get access to that market again. That’s sort of a more balanced approach to this, rather than an outright ban forever,” he said.

Laidlaw said that the popular consensus is in favour of social media bans “and so I think, realistically, that ship might have sailed, right?”

Social media interaction is important for youth and there is a big difference between banning access for kids under 13 and extending the ban to cover all kids under 16, she said.

“I’m not against some form of kind of age-gating for much younger kids, but only if it’s done carefully,” Laidlaw said.

Panel member Vivek Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado and an associate member of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society, said an age restriction is the wrong approach.

Kids and teenagers are able to get around restrictions, he said — and the harms that social media causes affect adults as well.

“My argument is that we should be regulating the design characteristics of these platforms that are harmful, such as … algorithmic curation that is designed to maximize engagement and time spent on the platform,” he said.

“We should make social media a better place for all of us.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2026.