Federal action on online harms is now a political no brainer

February 26, 2026

The most casual observer of public opinion on Ottawa taking action against harmful online content will have long concluded, this ain’t no battle.

Canadians categorically support government action against online harms.

The leading policy proposals focus on harms to kids with the prescribed remedies of bans on youth accounts and regulatory take-down laws to shield tweens and teens from porn, self-harm content and predators.

The only roadblocks to federal action in Canada —and they should not be underestimated— are the potential for Trump-induced trade chaos and on the other hand the possibility that the Official Opposition will keep a Liberal online harms bill, once tabled, bottled up in Parliamentary committee.

The Safer Online Spaces Coalition, a Canadian campaign group headed by the mother of the late Amanda Todd, just released a Léger poll making it clear how popular federal action on online harms will be. The thirst for government action is even higher than similar poll results from two years ago.

The poll shows extremely high levels of concern about addictive and otherwise harmful content, and similarly high support for regulation (90%) delivered by an independent regulator (79%). Significantly the support for regulating AI tools, in addition to social apps, is also strong (75%).

Broken down by the genre of harmful content, the Léger poll suggests Canadians are “very concerned” about fake news (76%), harms to kids (74%), incitement to violence (67%), and hate speech (66%). The responses by parents versus non-parents were not very different.

There is a high degree of support for core of online harms policy contemplated in the Liberals’ earlier draft of online harms Bill C-63, which is the legal expectation that platforms will design safer algorithms and content controls and effectively take legal responsibility for content.

Perhaps counterintuitively, polled support for mandatory safety controls prescribed by government ran at a much lower level of approval, a narrow majority. As well, 65% agreed with the statement that “parents, not government, should make decisions about their children’s social media or online activity.” 

The Liberal vs Conservative disagreement over how to deliver enforcement of online safety —through a civil regulation scheme versus judges sitting in criminal courts— may be resolved in the Liberals’ favour: 76% of Canadians are good with federal regulation and even 61% of Conservative voters support it.

The poll didn’t solicit opinions on the wisdom of relying more heavily upon criminal charges, but demonstrated a high support (87%) for government launching criminal investigations and prosecutions of corporate executives in “severe cases” of online harm.

The poll was conducted before the tragic shootings in Tumbler Ridge and the revelation that OpenAI flagged concerning Internet activity by the shooter but elected not to notify the police.

And in a final point of opinion punctuation, the Léger poll also demonstrated high public support for the general notion that some level of collateral damage to freedom of expression was acceptable.

While 85% agreed to the statement that “my right to freedom of expression be maintained,” the principle of “freedom of expression online should not come at the expense of other people’s safety” won the same 85% level of high support.

As for joining the budding global movement to ban youth accounts, the support for different age cut-offs ranged from 12 to 17: but only 3% supported no minimum age at all.

As for the scenario of the US President coming to the rescue of Big Tech platforms in some kind of trade-related intimidation of Canadian government, 53% supported the federal government going ahead anyway with another 27% saying “it depends on the situation.” Those figures were heavily skewed by political allegiances, with Conservative voters more likely to be doing the hedging.

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This blog post is copyrighted by Howard Law, all rights reserved. 2026.