Bill S-209, An Act to restrict young persons’ online access to pornographic material, is a private member’s bill introduced by Senator Miville-Dechêne on May 28, 2025.
This bill would make it a criminal offence to make pornographic material available, for commercial purposes, to minors online.
Mainstream pornography frequently depicts violent, degrading and dehumanizing sexual content. This content is freely and easily accessible by children and youth. Children are being exposed to this abusive content at increasingly younger ages, when they lack the ability to understand or process what they are seeing.
A growing body of research indicates that widespread use of online pornography contributes to a broad range of harms, particularly to minors. Its impact on child psychosocial and sexual development and the way it is shaping sexual attitudes, behaviours and preferences, as well as the increase in compulsive behaviour and addiction related to viewing online pornography, constitute a public health crisis.
Bill S-209 would require crucial protection for minors from the harms of exposure to online pornography.
Earlier versions of this bill, Bill S-210 and Bill S-203, died at election calls in 2025 and 2021.
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