To address your point about how Canada can affect other countries—because ultimately, yes, the technology is being developed in multiple countries—I do think that the nuclear and cloning examples are still fairly similar, as they did have a global effect. One country developing nuclear weapons endangers all others. One country potentially obtaining access to cloning their most competent soldiers or their greatest geniuses can endanger others, yet we did manage to challenge them with a combination of a few countries taking the lead, like Japan and the U.K., followed by France, Canada and others, and with others following.
With national legislation as well as an effort by these initial first movers to bring together an international coalition of the willing to make this not just regulated at home but also enforced and monitored abroad, I believe the same can be done here with AI.