Sidewalk Labs has been very secretive or obfuscating with regard to who will own the data they generate within Quayside and whether that data will be shared with Canada or whether, in fact, Sidewalk Labs, by accumulating this data, by commercializing this data, will take it from the country and profit below.
The parliamentary secretary invoked Mr. Balsillie's name, but I think that's behind Mr. Balsillie's statement. He says, “As long as Waterfront” defers to “Sidewalk on all the critical decisions, Canadians will...be treated to glitzy images of pseudo-tech dystopia while foreign companies profit from the IP and data Canadian taxpayers fund and create.” He says:
Sidewalk Toronto is not a smart city. It is a colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism attempting to bulldoze important urban, civic and political issues.
Do you disagree?