The federal government tabled legislation on June 10, 2026 that would prohibit children under 16 from holding accounts on social media services and establish new safety obligations for AI chatbots accessible to minors, according to Canadian Heritage.

The bill extends Ottawa's now multi-year effort to regulate online spaces for young Canadians. In February 2024, the government introduced Bill C-63, which targeted harmful content online — including child sexual exploitation — and proposed a statutory duty of care framework for regulated platforms. That bill did not clear Parliament before the subsequent election. The June 2026 legislation picks up that unfinished work and pushes the policy envelope further, adding the hard age threshold and the AI chatbot provisions.

What the Legislation Would Do

The age-restriction mechanism sits at the centre of the bill. Social media services operating in Canada would be prohibited from allowing users under 16 to create accounts, placing the compliance obligation squarely on platforms rather than on parents or children. The precise verification regime — how platforms establish age, and what liability attaches to failures — will be scrutinised closely during committee study; those details typically determine whether an age-gate is enforceable in practice or largely symbolic.

The AI chatbot provisions mark genuinely new ground in Canadian law. While the Consumer Privacy Protection Act — itself framed as the most consequential overhaul of private-sector privacy law in two decades — contains provisions relevant to automated decision systems, it does not address the conversational AI products that have proliferated since Bill C-27 was first drafted. Bringing AI chatbots explicitly within a child-safety framework reflects how quickly that product category has moved from novelty to mass adoption among young users.

Jurisdiction and Enforcement Mechanics

Child online safety sits in contested constitutional terrain. Broadcasting and telecommunications fall under federal authority; child welfare and privacy enforcement involve a patchwork of federal and provincial jurisdiction. How Ottawa proposes to enforce platform bans and chatbot obligations — whether through the CRTC, a new regulatory body, or an expanded Privacy Commissioner mandate — will be a central question when the bill receives its first reading debate and heads to committee.

Provinces have not been passive here. Several have signalled interest in their own age-restriction measures, and Quebec's distinctive approach to youth data under its Law 25 framework already creates a layered compliance environment for platforms. A federal floor standard could rationalise that patchwork or produce new conflicts depending on how paramountcy plays out.

Legislative History and What Comes Next

The trajectory of online-harms legislation in Canada has been long and complicated. Bill C-63, introduced in February 2024, generated substantial debate over its hate-speech provisions — specifically the proposed restoration of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act and a civil complaints mechanism — which overshadowed the child-safety elements and contributed to its parliamentary death. The June 2026 bill appears to have shed, or at least restructured, those more contested elements, focusing the frame tightly on minors and AI. Whether that narrowing is enough to build durable cross-party support will become clear at second reading.

For practitioners in platform policy and regulatory compliance, the immediate priorities are threefold: the definition of "social media service" and whether it captures messaging apps, gaming platforms and community forums alongside conventional social networks; the standard of care expected of AI chatbot operators when a user is, or may be, under 16; and the transitional timeline platforms will have to come into compliance once the bill receives Royal Assent.

The government has a majority and the political incentives around child online safety are strong across party lines. Whether the bill moves quickly or bogs down in technical amendments depends largely on how stakeholders — platforms, privacy advocates, child welfare organisations and provincial attorneys general — engage during committee. That engagement is already underway.