June 9 2026
The artificial intelligence (AI) strategy announced by the federal government this week fails to address many of the serious problems associated with AI. Unless those problems are addressed, it is likely that AI will be used in ways that harm Canadians. The only winners will be private equity firms—which are based outside of Canada in many cases—looking to make a quick buck and unconcerned about the long-term, well-being of workers, the economy and the environment.
“The strong legislation and regulation needed to protect people and the environment from the potential abuses of AI are missing from the federal government’s strategy,” said NUPGE president Bert Blundon.
“Without effective and enforceable rules and public control over key infrastructure, the AI strategy is like playing short-handed in hockey. You spend the whole game defending in your own end, never getting a chance to actually move things forward.”
No details about the legislation or regulations needed to protect people
Some of the sentiments in the federal government’s AI strategy are ones Canadians share. It says that “Canadians should actively shape how AI is used in their lives, their workplaces, and their communities.” This includes “workers and professionals helping shape how AI is adopted in their workplaces.”
There is an acknowledgement of the need to protect people from the risks and harms of AI.
But giving people the ability to protect themselves from the risks and harms AI can cause and to ensure AI improves people’s lives requires strong laws and regulations—and strong enforcement of both.
The strategy mentions plans for legislation in several areas, but there are no timelines for when legislation will be introduced and no details of what will be in the legislation. Given the delays we’ve already seen, this isn’t good enough.
The federal government’s AI strategy proposes to accelerate the use of AI in some very sensitive areas, including where people’s personal health care data will be used. Without proper protections, people’s personal information could be used in ways that will harm them.
Laws and regulations are needed now to act as guardrails to protect Canadians as new systems and infrastructure are put in place. Not after serious damage has been done.
Need for strong labour laws not mentioned
The most effective way for workers to have a say in how AI will affect their jobs, which the AI strategy says is an objective, is at the bargaining table. If the federal government is serious about giving workers a meaningful voice, making it easier for them to organize into unions and bargain collectively—and to get employers to address concerns like how new technologies are introduced—would help. But there is nothing about strengthening labour legislation in the AI strategy. Similarly, there is no proposal to strengthen employment standards legislation to protect people from employers using AI to spy on them or for other violations of their rights.
Sovereignty requires public control
The AI strategy does a good job of explaining why it is vital that AI systems and data centres used for many purposes, particularly when sensitive personal information is involved, need to be Canadian controlled. It also makes it clear that these systems need to be completely free from foreign interference.
What the strategy fails to recognize is that in many cases this means AI systems and data centres need to be publicly owned and operated. There is a long history of Canadian companies being taken over by foreign-owned multinationals. The only way to guarantee that a Canadian-owned AI system or data centre won’t be controlled by Elon Musk or Google in 10 or 20 years is for it to be publicly owned and operated.
Even if a private-sector owner of Canadian AI infrastructure remains Canadian, its operations could still be subject to foreign interference. For example, the US CLOUD Act allows the US government to force companies with a US presence, even if the companies are Canadian-owned, to produce data stored on servers outside of the United States. That means that, if a Canadian company has a US presence, it could be forced to provide data it is storing in Canada to the Trump administration.
Assumption that AI will live up to the hype
What should also worry Canadians is that the strategy assumes that AI will live up to the hype and be capable of taking on a wide range of tasks and increasing productivity. There are plenty of technologies that did not live up to expectations. There are others where unforeseen problems emerged.
We already know that AI systems are capable of things like hallucinations where they make up information. We know that the use of AI systems without human oversight has resulted in human rights violations, including violations of labour rights. And we know that the energy and water requirements of the data centres AI systems need could cause utility prices to skyrocket and damage the environment.
Other problems we don’t know about could emerge.
The federal government’s AI strategy should be designed to ensure that Canada is prepared for all possible scenarios. That includes being able to deal with the problems as well as the benefits.