What the Liberal Social Media Age Debate Actually Means for Canadian Marketers
Canadian marketers should probably be paying closer attention to what happened in Montreal last weekend than most of them are.
At the Liberal Party's national convention, grassroots members voted to adopt two resolutions targeting young Canadians' access to social media and AI. One calls for a minimum age of 16 to create social media accounts, modelled closely on legislation Australia passed late last year. The other would restrict anyone under 16 from accessing AI chatbots, specifically naming tools like ChatGPT.
Neither is law. Cabinet isn't bound by convention resolutions. But Prime Minister Carney has already said publicly that an age of majority for social media is part of the government's active conversations around new online harms legislation. The Online Harms Act is expected to be reintroduced. A recent Angus Reid poll found three in four Canadians support a full ban for under-16s. The political will is there in a way it wasn't even 18 months ago.
So the question for Canadian marketers isn't really "will this happen." It's "are we building strategies that hold up if it does."
Here's what's worth thinking through:
The youth audience math changes. Platforms that skew young lose a real chunk of their verified user base if age checks become mandatory. For brands that rely on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or Snapchat to reach Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z, the addressable audience shrinks. Not eventually. Soon.
Targeting and data signals get messier for everyone. Age verification at scale means new consent flows, different data collection, and modified ad targeting mechanics. Even campaigns with no youth focus will feel the downstream effects.
Chatbot experiences may need a legal review. The resolutions specifically call out AI chatbot tools. If your agency or brand has built interactive chat experiences for customers and those experiences could reach someone under 16, it is worth looping in your legal team now rather than scrambling later.
Owned audiences become the safer long-term bet. Regulated platforms push value toward channels you actually control: your newsletter, your community, your events. Marketers who have invested in those assets are better positioned regardless of where the legislation lands.
There is genuine disagreement about whether age bans are the right approach. McGill's Taylor Owen, who sits on the government's expert panel on online safety, has argued that banning kids doesn't fix the underlying problem. The products were designed to be harmful, he says, and the companies are choosing not to change that. His preferred path is an independent regulator with mandatory risk assessments and public transparency requirements from platforms. That approach would reshape accountability without cutting off access.
Both paths lead to the same place for the industry: a more regulated, more accountable digital environment. The brands and agencies that treat that as a planning assumption now will be better off than the ones waiting to react.
We want to know where Canadian marketers stand on this. Should Canada follow Australia's lead and set a hard age minimum, or is a regulator with real teeth the smarter approach? Email news@socialnext.ca with your stance.
