Sources

The bill and official documents

• Bill C-34, An Act to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act — First Reading, June 10, 2026. Parliament of Canada. The primary source for every section reference on this site.
• LEGISinfo — Bill C-34 status tracker. Parliament of Canada.
• Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act — overview; and news release, June 10, 2026. Canadian Heritage. The government's own framing — read it; we want you to see both cases.
• "Ottawa moves to restrict social media for kids under 16". CBC News, June 10, 2026.

Canadian legal and civil-society analysis

• CCLA warns against risks to freedom of expression and privacy posed by Bill C-34. Canadian Civil Liberties Association, June 11, 2026. Source of the "blank check," "highly invasive," and over-compliance quotations.
• The Safe Social Media Act needs major fixes. OpenMedia, June 10, 2026. Source of the Matt Hatfield quotations.
• "The Law to Be Named Later: Bill C-34 Punts 50 Key Decisions to Cabinet…" and "Everything All At Once…". Michael Geist, June 2026. Source of the 19 + 31 = 50 deferred-decisions count.
• Canada's Safe Social Media Act is a promising start, but how will young people be consulted? UNICEF Canada, June 2026.
• Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, Explained. Canadian Constitution Foundation, June 2026.

Charter jurisprudence

• Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec (Attorney General), [1989] 1 S.C.R. 927 — breadth of s. 2(b).
• R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103 — the s. 1 justification framework.
• R. v. Sharpe, 2001 SCC 2 — child-protection limits upheld; we cite it against ourselves.
• R. v. Spencer, 2014 SCC 43 — anonymity as a foundation of the privacy interest.
• A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46 — minors' privacy and expression interests.

International law

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 19. Canada acceded 1976.
• UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 34 (2011) — paras. 22, 34 and 43 quoted on this site verbatim.
• Convention on the Rights of the Child, arts. 12, 13, 15, 17. Canada ratified 1991.
• UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 25 (2021) — children's rights in the digital environment.

Internet shutdowns and the Iran record

• 2025 Internet blackout in Iran — overview with links to NetBlocks, Cloudflare Radar and IODA measurements; includes the communications ministry's "special conditions" justification.
• Iran: Internet Shutdown Violates Rights, Escalates Risks to Civilians. Human Rights Watch, March 6, 2026. Source of the Tomiwa Ilori quotation and the UN experts' "kill switches" declaration.
• Freedom Online Coalition Joint Statement on Internet Shutdowns in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Global Affairs Canada, February 2026. Canada's signature on the principle this site asks it to honour at home.
• Iran: Internet shutdown hides violations in escalating deadly crackdown on protesters. Amnesty International, January 2026.
• #KeepItOn coalition against internet shutdowns. Access Now.

Age verification and scanning mandates

• Age Verification and Age Gating: Resource Hub; Age Verification is a Privacy Nightmare (May 2026); Age Verification Mandates Would Undermine Anonymity Online (2023); Who's Harmed by Age Verification Mandates? Electronic Frontier Foundation.
• Standing firm against threats to private and safe communication. Signal Foundation, 2023. Signal's commitment to leave markets rather than build scanning into its service.
• Whittaker: breaking encryption while preserving privacy is "magical thinking". CyberScoop. Source of the client-side scanning quotation.

Australia's under-16 ban

• Social media age restrictions. eSafety Commissioner (Australia) — the official implementation page.
• Social media ban for children under 16 starts in Australia. NPR, December 10, 2025.
• Most Australian teens admit the social media ban isn't working… Fortune, April 25, 2026. Source of the Molly Rose Foundation survey figure (60%+ retain access) and circumvention reporting.
• Australia social media ban… an "ineffective quick fix". Amnesty International, December 2025; see also the November 2024 statement.
• Keeping kids safe shouldn't mean a loss of privacy for everyone. Australian Human Rights Commission; see also the Commission's ban explainer.
• Australia's disproportionate response to online harms. Index on Censorship, December 2025.
• Implications of Australia's under-16 social media ban. Nature Human Behaviour, 2025.

The Prime Minister at Davos

• "Principled and Pragmatic: Canada's Path" — official transcript. Prime Minister of Canada, January 20, 2026. All Carney quotations on this site are from this transcript (French: version française).
• "'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in provocative speech at Davos". CBC News, January 2026.

A note on method

This site was built with AI research assistance; every quotation was verified against the linked source document before publication, and the bill analysis was done from the First Reading text directly. Quotations are reproduced exactly; where we paraphrase, we link the original so you can judge the paraphrase. We cite sources that disagree with us — the government's backgrounder, R. v. Sharpe, the polling on public support — because an argument that needs a one-sided record isn't an argument worth your signature.