Canadians have long used cutting-edge technologies to connect with one another and with the world across vast distances. But over the past decade, digital innovations including high-speed internet, smart phones, and social media have dramatically changed the pace, intensity, and reach of our communications.

Today, Canadians spend an average of 3 to 4 hours each day communicating digitally and consuming or creating content on the internet. We rely on digital services provided by companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to interact with others and share photos, videos, and text.

However, the same technologies that create opportunity, convenience, community, and wealth can also be platforms for hatred, exploitation, and misinformation.

The institutions and regulations that safeguarded people and the public interest throughout the era of print media, landlines, cinema, and broadcast TV are less equipped to deal with this new era of digital technologies.

This is why the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression was created: to better understand, anticipate, and respond to the effects of new digital technologies on public life and Canadian democracy.

Each year, the Commission will examine a new topic and convene a national Citizens' Assembly made up of 42 randomly selected and representative residents from across Canada. Working on behalf of Canadians, the Assembly will learn about issues, deliberate potential solutions, and provide recommendations to the Commission, the federal government, and the Canadian public.

This year’s Assembly was mandated to provide consensus recommendations on whether there should be legal penalties or other consequences for individuals and organizations that knowingly spread disinformation online with the intent to cause harm. The previous year’s assembly considered how to reduce the impact and prevalence of harmful speech online.

Why examine these issues now?

Canadians use digital technologies to communicate with friends and loved ones, pursue education, and participate in the economy. However, despite the many ways they broaden our horizons, digital media and technologies also pose systemic challenges to democratic institutions and public life.

Disinformation circulating on social media can influence behaviour, often posing a direct and immediate threat to society. The COVID-19 pandemic has further underscored the importance of addressing misleading and harmful speech on the internet.

Today, algorithms embedded in social media platforms shape our public and private lives. These technologies can compromise the quality of publicly available information and increase the prevalence of hate speech and identity-based discrimination both online and off.

The Citizens’ Assembly on Democratic Expression was created to make recommendations on how to maximize and safeguard the democratic potential of the digital public sphere while mitigating threats that pose significant harms.

Structure

A citizens’ assembly of randomly selected Canadian residents came together in the fall of 2021 to consider whether there should be legal penalties or other consequences for individuals and organizations that knowingly spread disinformation online with the intent to cause harm. Their recommendations will inform the work of a small group of eminent Commissioners in developing guidelines to address how to make online platforms more transparent and accountable to users. This initiative is the second of three annual Assemblies that will address democratic expression on digital media.

Both the Commission’s and the Assembly’s work is being supported by research managed by the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.

Citizens’ Assemblies and similar processes have been used across Canada and Europe to provide detailed guidance to governments and decision-makers concerning complex public policies. These assemblies are typically made up of several dozen randomly selected participants who together represent a range of perspectives as well as the demographic profile of a specific jurisdiction. People are invited through a special process called a civic lottery and participation is voluntary.

The 2021 Citizens’ Assembly mandate:

• Learn about the principles of democratic expression and the social impact of digital technologies;

• Examine existing institutions and regulations that safeguard both democratic speech and the public interest;

• Consider the effectiveness of existing Canadian laws;

• Explore how other countries are responding to this challenge; and

• Issue a series of consensus recommendations concerning the measures the federal government and industry should take.

Both the 2020 and 2021 Assemblies have issued public reports containing their recommendations, which were shared with the Commission on Democratic Expression, the federal heritage minister, their provincial and territorial counterparts, and other parliamentarians, researchers, and stakeholders.

The Assemblies’ recommendations are a welcome and useful contribution to the work being done by governments to ensure that existing regulations and institutions are fit for purpose in an era of widespread digital platforms and other technologies.

Learn more about the Commission and Assembly process