Information & Ethics Committee on Jan. 26th, 2026

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Liability has to be with those who understand best how these systems work, and I think that's where the top talent is at Google and Meta and the rest. They should be responsible for the behaviour of their models, even after deployment, because you can't ask a teenager or somebody who doesn't know anything about AI to know what its harms are and how to use it.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Tessari L'Allié, you wrote in your paper that, at its core, the governance of general artificial intelligence poses a challenge of human coordination and technical skill. Anthropic's CEO recently said that we understand maybe 3% of the inner workings of these systems.

If we don't understand how it works, why not focus on negotiating a global ban?

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

If we see the crisis coming and we don't know how to avoid it from a technical standpoint, we have no option but to try to ensure that the technology isn't created in the first place. For example, if a number of companies in downtown Montreal or Toronto were creating and developing a nuclear technology that places everyone around them at risk, we wouldn't be wondering how to balance safety and other aspects. We would be sending in the police to stop them.

In this situation, if companies are creating a technology that will place everyone at risk, and they themselves admit that they don't know how to control the systems that will be created, the government must take responsibility for protecting the public and for putting these developments on hold, at least until we know how these systems can be set up safely.

The government's main role is to protect the public. If technologists are doing something too dangerous, the government's role is to stop them. To do this, we need every country in the world to participate. If someone, somewhere in the world, is creating these systems, we're in great danger.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

As you said in your paper, a responsible solution for the future of artificial intelligence requires a global agreement. Yet this global agreement could quickly become a global ban. Is this accurate?

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Yes. It could at least provide a break.

I'm well aware of the current geopolitical dynamics. However, as I said before, the United States and China are in the same boat as us. They don't want to create systems that will cause them to lose power, place people at risk and generate large‑scale unemployment.

Even though they don't want to work together, they need to. Since we play a role of power within the group, our best course of action is to try to keep the talks going and to implement the treaties. That way, when the world is ready to sign them, everything will be in place to do so.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have two minutes left.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Tessari L'Allié, your paper states that laboratories could succeed in implementing a global solution in one to three years. Yet we may have less than 18 months before that happens.

Given what we just said, can you elaborate on this?

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

The future is hard to predict. If we're lucky, we'll have 10 to 20 years to prepare for it. We can take our time with the rest.

If we're unlucky, a cutting‑edge laboratory could unveil a new model tomorrow that would basically amount to superintelligence. It probably won't happen, but maybe it will. For this reason, a responsible government will have no choice but to prepare for the closest scenarios.

If we're lucky, we'll have more time to improve our solutions. However, we need to get started. We must tell ourselves that we don't have time. We really need to act now and lay the foundations. We need to either take a break or implement other solutions to ensure that we don't end up in a world where we lose control.

Then, in terms of the number of years involved, the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind are talking about two to five years. Other experts say one to three years. We don't know. However, if these are smart people who are keeping a close eye on developments and telling us that we must be ready—and I hope that they're wrong and I strongly hope that we'll have 20 years to figure this out—as a precautionary measure, we need to prepare ourselves for short‑term scenarios. After that, we'll take our time.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Ultimately, we need to take precautionary measures.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Exactly.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you. You have 20 seconds left.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I thought that I had one minute left. I figured that I had gone over the minute. Very well. I'll pick it up later.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

There are 14 seconds left.

Mr. Hardy, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to acknowledge our witnesses and welcome them to the committee.

When we talk about artificial intelligence here, we often picture it a bit like in the film The Terminator. We see the end of the world coming. It seems that, for some people who follow our work, or even for decision‑makers, the situation appears unlikely and we shouldn't worry too much. We heard earlier that we might have only a year and a half to prepare, but maybe 20 years. We don't know.

I would like to focus on a practical matter concerning day‑to‑day life. We're experiencing it. Right now, inflation is quite high in Canada. Fifty per cent of Canadians are within $200 of insolvency. There are 2.2 million people lining up for food every day.

Furthermore, some companies see the potential of artificial intelligence to reduce their workforce, given that artificial intelligence can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Do you think that we should be looking at this issue from a government perspective? Shouldn't the government feel compelled to exercise caution given this possibility?

Using artificial intelligence instead of hiring a Canadian will cost money. All the people who lose their jobs will inevitably end up needing food banks, which are already overwhelmed.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

For example, only a year or two ago, Spotify told its employees not to hire anyone until they were sure that they couldn't use artificial intelligence.

Companies have already given clear instructions in this area. They know perfectly well that, to remain competitive, they'll need to cut spending. Yet salaries are the biggest expense. If we end up in a world with soaring unemployment rates, the reduction in income tax revenue will take a huge toll on the government.

We can currently see that the impact on employment is concentrated in certain sectors, such as information technology and the creative industries. This phenomenon will ripple throughout the economy. We don't know whether it will happen quickly or slowly. We'll see.

However, without a plan in place to support these people who will lose their jobs and to ensure that the government generates enough revenue to maintain operations—if it's so dependent on income tax revenue—the current situation is really a harbinger of things to come.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Okay.

I'll now move on to another topic.

As you know, Canada has one‑fifth of the world's drinking water. Moreover, I recently read that generating an email using artificial intelligence consumes about 500 millilitres of water. If we paint a picture, it's even more. According to my notes, a ChatGPT search consumes ten times more electricity than a Google search.

Shouldn't we start legislating on something as tangible as drinking water? Obviously, if artificial intelligence starts to take more and more of our drinking water, perhaps humans will be the first to suffer the consequences. Agriculture will be next. I imagine that we're already interacting to some extent with data centres, given that we increasingly need them because of artificial intelligence. These centres consume water and they're actually harming human life.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Yes. The major difficulty with water and electricity consumption figures is that we don't know the exact numbers. The companies don't disclose them. Certainly, in some municipalities experiencing water restrictions, data centres make a big impact. I heard other figures suggesting that the impact is almost the same for a golf course, for example. In other words, yes, there has already been an impact in this area. The first step is really to force companies to tell us how much water they use.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Clearly, we increasingly need data centres. Yet the more we use artificial intelligence, the more data centres we need. The more data centres we need, the more water we need. In terms of the golf comparison, not everyone with a phone is playing on a golf course. If we contrast this with the use of artificial intelligence, everyone has this feature on their phone. If we consider that a quick search costs one 500‑millilitre bottle of water, we can imagine that we consume quite a lot every day.

[Wyatt Tessari L'Allié]

Yes. In terms of global consumption figures, the United States is talking about increasing electricity consumption across the country by 20%, just for artificial intelligence, in the next 10 years. This means billions and billions of dollars of investment. Nuclear power plants are being reopened to supply the electricity for this.

It's certainly happening on a massive scale. Again, I would say that the first step is really to ask the companies to provide the exact figures for their consumption. Right now, there's a great deal of misinformation about this. We know that the consumption takes place, but we don't know the exact numbers.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

I won't have time to ask my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Hardy.

Mr. Saini, you have five minutes, sir. Go ahead, please.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Tessari L'Allié, for coming.

Some argue that AI regulation will limit innovation and competitiveness, while others say regulatory certainty is essential for responsible scaling. Based on your experience, does effective AI governance ultimately enable or constrain innovation?