“If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the [poker] table, then you are the sucker!”, Rounders, 1998.
Canada is talking seriously about AI again. That’s a very good thing. International politics are leading to a surge in national pride. That too is a very good thing. When discussing how technology is reshaping the world, these two considerations are intertwined.
AI for All
For decades, Canadian researchers helped shape the AI field. The Turing Award, the so-called “Nobel Prize” of computer science, validates Canada’s leading role with recent awardees Geoffrey Hinton (2018 – and a real Nobel Prize in 2024), Yoshua Bengio (2018), Richard Sutton (2025) and Gilles Brassard (2026). Given our relatively small population, this is impressive recognition that our country should be proud of.
Given our international stature in AI, Canada has a strong role to play in what comes next. AI will affect literally every aspect of our lives, including businesses, public services, schools, research and daily life. The government of Canada recognizes this with a multi-year total investment of $2.4 billion in their AI for All strategy. It’s welcome and appreciated, but we shouldn’t see this as the solution but, rather, a step forward. It represents table stakes for a small country like ours trying to play a leadership role and assert our independence against heavyweight titans.
The easiest AI strategy is to call for more: more computing power, more business adoption, more support for startups and more research. This year alone, multiple US companies are spending over $100 billion in research, development, infrastructure and corporate adoption of AI technology. Every country – not just Canada – will be challenged to keep pace.
Digital Sovereignty
In the digital world, we are especially vulnerable. Where do many people store their digital files? In the cloud, almost all hosted by US companies. Where’s our email? Ditto. What about many of the online services we take for granted? And shopping? You get the point. Further, all this data can be used to help train AI models. The leading-edge AI programs have a voracious appetite for data of all kinds. Your online habits help feed the AI beast.
There have been recent calls for Canada to assert digital sovereignty – Canada owning its critical digital infrastructure. This is an important issue, and one that needs urgent attention. Why don’t we, for example, have a national email system that uses Canadian software, is run on Canadian equipment, and is entirely located in Canada? The same question can be asked about cloud storage and a host of other important services.
The AI for All strategy calls for putting in place more AI infrastructure in Canada, but the issue is bigger than just serving AI needs. It must be part of a larger vision that puts all important information technology within Canadian control.
Privacy
Canadians, by and large, are being monetized by (mostly) US companies. We are data sources to be exploited. Non-Canadian companies have access to our data (in the cloud), know what questions are of interest to us (through search and AI queries), build models of our online shopping habits (the major online stores are not Canadian), know about our social interactions (through social media platforms) and so on. All of this is data that companies can use and abuse. Try reading the user agreement for a major online platform that you frequent. You’ll probably be surprised at the rights that you give up when you click “Accept”. There’s some truth to the cliché that there are online companies that know you better than you know yourself. We have no online privacy.
Canada Should Build for Real Needs
A Canadian strategy should not be measured only by how quickly organizations adopt new tools, how much infrastructure gets added, or how many press releases use the word “innovation.” It should be measured by whether Canadians gain more control over the computing software, infrastructure, and business/personal data shaping their work and lives. For AI, that means supporting the creation of tools that are effective, accurate and respectful of the individual’s right of privacy. That means keeping data local when possible and limiting what must be shared when outside resources are needed. It means treating privacy as a priority, not just part of the terms of service.
For Canadian businesses, this is not abstract. Many organizations already have years of knowledge sitting in documents, presentations, recordings, images, spreadsheets and internal files. The value is there. The challenge is accessing it safely and intelligently. AI can help, but not if the price is a new dependency problem.
The point is not to slow AI down. The point is to steer it better.
In the rapidly evolving field of AI and international politics, status quo ensures we’re the sucker at the poker table.
Jonathan Schaeffer is an AI pioneer, computer scientist, and entrepreneur. He is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Computing Science at the University of Alberta and one of the four co-founders of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). He is the founder of Synsira Software Solutions and creator of Kind, a desktop application that provides users with private, accurate, and safe AI experience. His current work focuses on practical, responsible uses of AI and the long-term implications of how intelligent systems are built and deployed.
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Canada, AI, and Digital Sovereignty was first posted on July 1, 2026 at 5:00 am.
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