What to watch as Ottawa plans to release AI strategy

Ottawa will release its AI strategy this week, outlining how the federal government will balance the fast-growing industry along with safety and data sovereignty concerns.

The strategy is based on six pillars: protecting Canadians; empowering Canadians; powering AI adoption; building sovereign AI; scaling Canadian AI business, and building trusted partnerships.

Technology analyst Daniel Bader told CTV Your Morning on Monday that tackling the AI industry with a coherent plan will be balancing act.

“This is one of the most difficult challenges the Carney’s government has faced to date,” he said. “The concerns are that these six pillars are very offensive in that they are trying to grow the Canadian economy using AI, while keeping a little bit on the defensive, with protecting Canadian democracy. That will be the really big challenge here.”

Bader points to the Tumbler Ridge shooting, and the fact that the shooter had used ChatGPT to discuss violence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went so far as to apologize for not alerting police of the shooter’s ChatGPT use.

“This has become a national debate about how can Canadians be better protected from the dangers of errant AI,” Bader said. “These (AI) companies are incentivized to grow, and like social media companies and other big companies before them, grow at scale. We want to adopt AI, but in a way that is safe and protects Canadian democracy and Canadian privacy as well.”

While Prime Minister Mark Carney recently told Pope Leo XIV that he wants Canada to take a leadership role in the responsible development of artificial intelligence, Bader said that will introduce additional challenges, since many Canadians are still skeptical about its uses.

A recent protest against two planned AI data centres in Vancouver drew hundreds of people in the city.

“We have to be okay with having AI in our workplaces, in our schools, in our homes,” he said. “And there’s also going to be many companies that are appealing to the government to get funding for data centres, and for many other projects, like in the life sciences, where AI can make a big difference.”

With files from The Canadian Press and CTV News Vancouver’s Ian Holliday