{"id":289921,"date":"2025-11-18T00:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T00:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/289921\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T00:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T00:02:11","slug":"is-canada-strong-actually-weak-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/289921\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Canada Strong actually weak on AI?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s Liberal government has tabled its first official budget, entitled Canada Strong<\/a>. It frames itself as a road map of investments being made to strengthen national sovereignty via economic productivity and national defence. Central to those efforts is artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

AI-heavy technologies have been identified by eight federal agencies in the 2025 budget as a way to reduce operational expenditures while fuelling productivity.<\/p>\n

Many of the investments in the budget are aimed at developing the defence industry through the creation and commercialization of what\u2019s known as dual-use technology<\/a> \u2014 goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications \u2014 which can also include AI. <\/p>\n

But is Canada Strong actually weak on AI?<\/p>\n

Given the current legislative landscape and the new budget, we argue that Canada Strong\u2019s AI plan downplays regulation and guardrail development, since funding is geared chiefly toward adoption. It overlooks the risks, impacts and potential weaknesses that come with an over-reliance on these technologies.<\/p>\n

Past budgets<\/p>\n

Indirectly, the Canadian government has consistently supported AI research through the Federal Granting Agency<\/a>, the Canada Foundation for Innovation<\/a> and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Between 2006 and 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s government invested more than $13 billion<\/a> in science, technology and innovation during its mandate.<\/p>\n

Justin Trudeau\u2019s government changed how AI was marketed to Canadians and how it was funded. The 2017 budget, entitled Building a Strong Middle Class<\/a>, made the first explicit references to AI in a federal budget, describing it as representing a transformative force for the Canadian economy. <\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Bill Morneau shakes hands with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he arrives in the House of Commons prior to tabling the federal budget in Ottawa in February 2017.
\n THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Sean Kilpatrick<\/p>\n

The government emphasized \u201cCanada\u2019s advantage in artificial intelligence,\u201d which it said could translate into \u201ca more innovative economy, stronger economic growth, and an improved quality of life for Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill Morneau, the finance minister at the time, proposed funding AI superclusters<\/a> and allocating $125 million to establish the first Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This commitment to AI was reaffirmed in the 2021 budget<\/a>, when the technology was presented as \u201cone of the most significant technological transformations of our time.\u201d The federal government\u2019s investments in the sector were portrayed as essential to ensure the economy benefited, and that Canada\u2019s position of strength enabled the \u201cintegration of Canadian values into global platforms.\u201d <\/p>\n

The government renewed the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy with another $368 million. An additional $2.4 billion was committed in the 2024 budget<\/a>, which emphasized the \u201csafe and responsible use\u201d of AI, notably through the creation of new standards and the establishment of a Canadian AI Safety Institute<\/a> <\/p>\n

Sovereignty focus<\/p>\n

The 2025 budget marks another substantial shift in Canada\u2019s approach to AI. This third phase of funding focuses on adoption, productivity, sovereignty and the fundamental principle of dual use, both civilian and military.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t believe it fosters research and projects addressing the key issues tied to AI, and instead amplifies promotional language.<\/p>\n

We believe the large-scale adoption of AI across federal departments and agencies (like the Canada Revenue Agency<\/a>, Employment and Social Development Canada<\/a>, Fisheries and Oceans Canada<\/a>, Public Services and Procurement Canada<\/a>, Statistics Canada<\/a>, Natural Resources Canada<\/a> and Canadian Heritage<\/a>) will actually reduce the capacity to pursue regulatory development, guardrail design, ethical deliberation and meaningful civil-society input because its widespread integration will permeate the entire bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

AI presented as an economic driver through cost reduction and dual-use applications has become the new promotional narrative for the government.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n What are Canada’s governing Liberals going to do about AI?<\/a><\/p>\n

The AI weakness in Canada Strong<\/p>\n

What vulnerabilities arise when AI is aggressively deployed within the public service? Since the abandonment of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act in 2025<\/a>, Canada\u2019s approach to AI governance has relied more on norms and standards than on the rule of law<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This environment could risk overturning a perceived AI advantage into one of weakness. This is especially true given an over-reliance by the government on foreign software (such as Microsoft CoPilot) and hardware (NVIDIA chips needed for super computers), a lack of comprehensive understanding of the technologies already in use by different agencies<\/a> and no guidelines on lethal autonomous weapons<\/a> \u2014 weapons systems that can independently search for, identify and attack targets without direct human intervention.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n How Russian and Iranian drone strikes further dehumanize warfare<\/a><\/p>\n

Promoting rapid regulatory design and AI adoption<\/a> within a budget focused on stimulating dual-use research, development, commercialization and implementation risks overlooking many of AI\u2019s pitfalls, including:<\/p>\n

Promotion AI as an economic boon \u2014 through public administration automation and military dual use \u2014 within an unregulated environment, and without dedicated funding for oversight, risks disrupting key sectors and services that sustain Canadian democracy, the very foundation of \u201cCanada Strong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s Liberal government has tabled its first official budget, entitled Canada Strong. It frames itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-289921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289921","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=289921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}