The Canadian government plans to introduce legislation this year to regulate social media companies, with a focus on online hate and harassment. After nine months of study and deliberations, the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression has settled on a series of principles and recommendations that are aimed at influencing legislation.

The Canadian government plans to introduce legislation this year to regulate social media companies, with a focus on online hate and harassment. After nine months of study and deliberations, the Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression has settled on a series of principles and recommendations that are aimed at influencing legislation.

In November 2020, Canada introduced new federal privacy legislation that, if adopted, will create one of the strictest data protection regimes in the world, accompanied by some of the most severe financial penalties, rivalling the standards in Europe and California. Companies with a connection to Canada will need to build the new federal law, and applicable provincial laws, into their global compliance strategy.

On 12 June 2020, the government of Quebec introduced Bill 64, “An Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information” (Bill). The Bill proposes to modernize the existing framework applicable to the protection of personal information by amending various public, and private sector Quebec laws, to align closer with the requirements under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and the European General Data Protection Regulation. The Act respecting the protection of personal information in the privacy sector, which is Quebec’s private sector privacy law, is one of the laws that will be significantly impacted by Bill 64.