The Attorney General of British Columbia, Niki Sharma said that  she is seeking urgent clarification from Ottawa on when the guidelines to be of Safe Social Media Act (C-34) will be drafted, approved and how the compliance will be enforced. 

Commenting on the Act, the Attorney General said, "The federal government's safe social media act (Bill C-34), tabled in parliament earlier this month, is a promising step to addressing some of these harms, including through safe, age-appropriate design standards. However, Bill C-34 does leave some important areas unaddressed as well as uncertainty about how quickly these proposed regulations will be implemented, if they will work in the real world and how they will be enforced."

"I'm urgently seeking further clarification from Ottawa on when we can expect those guidelines to be drafted, approved and enacted, as well as how compliance with them will be enforced." she added. 

Niki Sharma, Attorney General, and Chelsey Whittingham, mother of Maddy Croswell, spoke  about the need for further regulation of social media and AI chatbots to protect children online:

Whittingham said, "Last September, my family and I suffered the worst trauma we could ever imagine when Maddy, my beautiful, deeply loved, vibrant 13-year-old daughter, lost her life after repeated exposure to harmful content that was pushed on her by a social media platform. We believed we were doing everything we could to protect our child. We had parental controls on her phone. We monitored screen time. We had open communication and a safe, loving home environment. We had no reason to believe the extent of what Maddy was being exposed to by the social media platform.

"What many parents may not realize is that parental controls alone are no match for powerful recommendation systems that can continuously expose vulnerable children to emotionally harmful and dangerous content without their families' knowledge.

"I was encouraged to see the federal social media bill proposed earlier this month, but I would like to see more. Families cannot fight billion-dollar technology systems alone. Canada needs greater transparency around age verification, recommendation algorithms directed at children, regulation of self-harm and suicide-promoting content targeting minors, independent oversight of platforms and faster intervention mechanisms for youth.