CP NewsAlert: New AI strategy looks to close 'adoption gap,' build public trust

OTTAWA — Ottawa wants to increase use of AI in Canada — and it plans to do so through free AI training for all Canadians and legislation to tackle concerns like surveillance pricing and chatbot safety.

The federal government’s long-awaited national AI strategy, released Thursday, says Canada has "a major adoption gap."

It says less than 15 per cent of Canadian businesses use AI to produce goods or services, while Canada ranks behind many other countries in both AI training and literacy and in public trust in AI systems.

Closing the gap in training and literacy "is the foundation on which everything else depends," the strategy says.

It says a new literacy initiative will offer entry-level AI training to all Canadians and the government will ensure "all post-secondary students have access to trusted AI agents."

The strategy focuses on trust in AI as a key factor.

The government has promised already to introduce privacy and online harms bills to tackle some of Canadians’ fears about technology.

The strategy promises new legal tools to "ensure interactions with chatbots are safe." It also says legislation will "ensure that Canadians’ personal information is not used inappropriately, including for surveillance pricing."

The government says it will invest an additional $50 million in Canada’s AI safety institute, create a certification program for trustworthy AI and "work on AI transparency, including capabilities like watermarking of AI-generated content."

The strategy promises to create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and pledges a "pro-worker" approach.

"This means technology is designed to augment human expertise rather than displace it, helping workers move into higher-value roles while delivering the productivity gains that strengthen Canadian competitiveness," the strategy says.

The strategy says the government will put $500 million toward expanding and enhancing the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative "to accelerate adoption and commercialization of AI across the country."

While the strategy talks a lot about sovereignty, it does not include new funding for compute infrastructure and instead leans on $2 billion in previously announced investments.

"Canadian researchers train models on foreign cloud platforms. Canadian companies store sensitive data in foreign jurisdictions. Government operations rely on infrastructure Canada does not own. And the country's best AI talent faces constant recruitment pressure from abroad. The risks are not abstract," the strategy says.