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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tResidents hug as they place flowers at a memorial for the victims of a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Christinne Muschi<\/p>\n
Solomon\u2019s statement says they did not discuss details of the shooting as it is still under investigation, but \u201ccredible warning signs\u201d are expected to be reported quickly rather than reviewed internally when public safety is at stake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s handling of the issue came under scrutiny after the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Van Rootselaar\u2019s account was banned over troubling posts, including some that included scenarios of gun violence.<\/p>\n
The Tumbler Ridge shooter\u2019s account had been banned by OpenAI from its ChatGPT platform at least seven months ago, and OpenAI did not inform police about the problematic behaviour of Van Rootselaar until after the Feb. 10 killings.<\/p>\n
Solomon requested the Ottawa meeting, which also included Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Culture Minister Marc Miller, on Tuesday evening to explain its safety procedures and how it makes decisions.<\/p>\n
The company banned Van Rootselaar\u2019s account in June but said the activities didn\u2019t meet the threshold for informing law enforcement at the time because they didn\u2019t identify credible or imminent planning.<\/p>\n
A cybersecurity law expert said Canada could introduce laws requiring artificial intelligence companies to notify police of online threats, but the process would not be a simple one, since reporting every suspicion is \u201cjust not workable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily Laidlaw, a Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary, said every AI company sets its own policy on when to inform police about what happens online. She said Canada considered introducing laws in the past but did not follow through.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters before the Liberal cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Solomon said he does not know details of the shooter\u2019s posts and that he is not seeking that information from the company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not talking about any details of the case. It\u2019s a criminal investigation,\u201d he said on his way into a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill.<\/p>\n
He added that he wants to understand how the company\u2019s safety protocols and technology work. He would not say whether the federal government intended to regulate AI chatbots like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur response is, all options are on the table when it comes to understanding what we can do about AI chatbots,\u201d Solomon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
B.C. Premier David Eby said Tuesday that the federal government needs to create a reporting threshold for when AI companies must report to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be a clear and transparent threshold that protects the companies. They are protected in terms of any privacy concerns. They\u2019re just following the law. But most importantly, it protects Canadians,\u201d said Eby, added that he had asked for his own meeting with OpenAI representatives.<\/p>\n
Asked if he thought the families of the Tumbler Ridge victims had grounds for a class-action lawsuit, Eby said there is an open question about what\u2019s possible, but the families aren\u2019t thinking about that right now.<\/p>\n
He said in the wake of the tragedy he spoke with a father who walked him through the last moments of his child\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want (the company) to know that. I want them to hear that from me. I want them to meet with the families. I want them to look in the eyes of these families and tell them why they made the call they did. And ultimately I want British Columbians to know what they knew,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked how the government can determine if things need to change without knowing details of the case, federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser said law enforcement is gathering that information and \u201cthere may be an opportunity to review what specifically took place\u201d in the Tumbler Ridge case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the kind of systemic information that we need to understand: what conversations are taking place that law enforcement is currently blind to, that would be very informative, that would help us prevent tragedies in the future,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laidlaw said any legislation would have to be drafted narrowly so that it protects the privacy of online users but requires police be informed if there is a deep concern about threats to safety.<\/p>\n
She said it appears OpenAI was concerned about Van Rootselaar, and while there may have been no indication the threat was imminent, it might have been concerned about a general threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what we want to see is, if you have real concerns that there is a threat to the safety and security of people, even if it\u2019s not imminent, that\u2019s something law enforcement should investigate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how do we write that as an appropriate law that doesn\u2019t just open up the floodgates that any possible suspicion is required to be sent to the police? Because that\u2019s just not workable.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2021, when the federal government was considering online safety legislation, some suggested introducing a requirement to report to law enforcement, but after significant pushback it was not acted on, Laidlaw said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have every possible suspicion for any type of behaviour reported to law enforcement. They don\u2019t have the capacity to receive all of that and it also means you start capturing a whole bunch of behaviour that isn\u2019t necessarily problematic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Liberal government confirmed last month that it was working on new legislation to address online harms.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the government introduced rules that would have required social media companies to explain how they plan to reduce the risks their platforms pose to users, and would have imposed on them a duty to protect children. Those rules never became law before the 2025 election was called.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think there is the need to have legislation to make sure that platforms are behaving responsibly, but what that looks like is still to be determined,\u201d said Miller, whose department is leading the development of online harms legislation, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Laidlaw said a reporting provision should be on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what I don\u2019t want is this to be viewed as just something so easy that was overlooked, because in fact it\u2019s really hard to write this appropriately without all kinds of knock-on effects,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2014With files from Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says federal officials expressed \u201cdisappointment\u201d to representatives of OpenAI after a meeting in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-497843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}