Columbia-Kootenay-Southern Rockies MP Rob Morrison has presented a petition in the House of Commons calling on the federal government to protect minors from drug dealers and online criminal exploitation.
Morrison presented the e-petition to the House on April 14. It calls for the establishment of a legal framework to:
- protect minors from predatory drug dealers;
- monitor social media to target online trafficking and require social media companies to implement policies to prevent it;
- enact a federal law against child criminal exploitation, based on the approach of the United Kingdom’s Crime and Policing Bill 2025; and
- empower and require police to thoroughly and effectively investigate all reports of drug trafficking and criminal exploitation involving minors, and to provide witness protection when needed.
The e-petition, which was initiated by a Kaslo woman, was open from Jan. 23 to March 24 and gathered more than 700 signatures.
“Mr. Speaker, 60 per cent of all illicit drug users in Canada are young people aged 15 to 24, and drug dose is a leading cause of death amongst youth ages 10 to 18 in several Canadian provinces,” Morrison said in the House of Commons.
The e-petition highlights how early age of first substance use is a major risk factor for lifelong addiction. It also emphasizes how the developing adolescent brain is “particularly vulnerable” to the long-term effects of regular substance exposure, and how a growing proportion of illicit drug trafficking to minors is occurring online.
Additionally, it said drug traffickers “regularly groom and exploit minors,” luring them into drug trafficking in exchange for “substances and gifts.”
According to the petition, there is currently no Canadian law protecting children from criminal exploitation, so “the justice system treats exploited youth as perpetrators rather than victims.”
“Canadian police investigation policy prevents enforcement of drug trafficking laws involving minors, leaving the onus on affected families to gather evidence, with no protection for witnesses,” reads the e-petition.
