Achi news desk-
Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are nothing less than “virtual pushers”, according to Prime Minister François Legault.
“The way social media works is to make readers dependent,” Legault said Saturday at the opening of the Quebec Coalition (CAQ) general conference in Saint-Hyaquinthe.
“It’s a bit like they’re pushing virtual ones, like drugs, like other substances.”
“It’s worrying,” he added. “It scares me. It creates big mental health problems for young people… I’m open to taking big steps.”
Around 700 CAQ members gathered in Saint-Hyacinthe to take part in a general conference with the theme “Québec in change”.
At the heart of the discussions was the proposal of the CAQ youth wing to set the minimum age for access to social networks to 16.
On May 2, Legault scoffed at the idea put forward by Parti québécois (PQ) leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon to ban certain young people from accessing social networks.
On Saturday, Isabel Lecours, the MNA for Lotbinière-Frontenac, took to the microphone to point out that young people up to the age of 14 can consult a doctor without parental permission.
“So why can’t 16-year-olds open a Facebook account?” she asked the audience.
In the end, the youth wing’s proposal was greatly revised: the General Council voted in favor of the question of the digital majority “at an age to be determined” to be examined by a “parliamentary committee”.
Legault immediately sent a letter to opposition party leaders proposing the creation of a special cross-party committee to investigate the impact of screen time and social media on young people.
The special committee could also look into a possible ban on cell phones anywhere in schools, Education Minister Bernard Drainville added during a press briefing.
A deadline for this work has not yet been set.
The role of parents
On the other hand, CAQ supporters argued that the state should not take the place of parents. “Will today’s parents let the government decide how to raise a child? The first education should take place in the kitchen and at home,” Roche told Violet.
Emmanuel Hora, director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence Online, was invited by the CAQ to comment on the “effects of social media”, parents to look in the mirror.
“In one of the classes, it was super touching, I left so excited, a young man asked me: ‘Ma’am, what’s your trick to get my parents off the screens?'” she said.
“The 10- and 11-year-old children said: ‘I come to my parent in a concrete activity.’
“Among teenagers, we hear: ‘He uses it [the screen] At dinner, I use it at dinner,” she added.
For her part, visiting professor and psychologist Magali Dufour said she hopes that social networks, which she compared to a “new toy”, will eventually “stabilize” and “correct itself”.
“We saw it, for example, in Amsterdam with cannabis… we also saw it with poker,” she said
artificial intelligence
The CAQ also discussed artificial intelligence (AI), which offers “extraordinary opportunities” but which “risks … producing unexpected side effects,” the decision booklet said.
In particular, it was proposed to “use artificial intelligence to reduce the time and administrative burden on businesses and citizens in their interactions with the state.”
This proposal appears to have worried some CAQ members and has been amended to provide for the right of Quebecers to address their questions directly to a government employee.
A general meeting is an opportunity for members of a political party to come together to take stock and discuss ideas. The last such event held by CAQ was in May 2023.
The CAQ met in Saint-Hyacinthe at a time when their party was 10 points behind the PQ, with just over two years until the next election, according to the latest Léger poll.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 25, 2024.
