Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 5th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

That's wonderful. Thank you.

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

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

It's good to see you after 10 requests to appear before this committee.

Earlier, you mentioned the 11,300 submissions you received, which are informing your strategy. Several experts—160, in fact—signed a letter questioning the basis of your consultation. One of the problems is that, because you accepted anonymous responses, experts were able to use AI to flood the consultation with AI-generated responses. The consultation was conducted in record time, prompting the following comment from Jonathan Roberge, a professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique:

It is frankly problematic to have chosen to process public responses using AI, because certain biases come with that kind of use. Asking AI to produce a report on AI is like a dog chewing its own tail.

How do you respond to the fact that we can't even be sure that the analyzed submissions come from real people and that the basic analysis performed by AI is not skewed by its own biases?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for that good question.

Again, let me just say that I want to thank the task force, the 28 members, who worked quickly. I want to thank the over 11,000 Canadians who took the time to weigh in. That was part of it. Having an open and public consultation of this size is really important. It generated genuine feedback that we have now posted. People can see and get into this conversation to try to create as democratic, open and transparent a process as possible.

I know the honourable member will understand that this technology moves at speed. If we had not deployed some new efficiencies to help us analyze the 11,000 documents, it would have taken eight to 10 months. Instead of eight months, we had help to make sure that we could process in eight days and meet with these task force members.

I think it's very important to realize, if I may, that speed matters, but thoroughness matters.

We will have other consultations, and they will continue.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Did you use AI to conduct those consultations, yes or no?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I just want to differentiate. Regarding the 28 task force reports, we, of course, read those. I read those personally, and my team read those personally. Yes, for the 11,000, we did develop, according to government regulations to make it safe and secure with the help of AI inside government and on a government system, AI to help us understand the data and go through the 11,300 comments from people, absolutely.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Then you confirm the concerns raised by experts, who point to potential preconceived notions in your assessment.

A total of 160 academics, lawyers, experts, civil society organizations and human rights organizations issued the following statement regarding your process:

The current consultation process suggests serious disregard for the Canadian public’s known and wide-ranging concerns about the demonstrated risks and harms of technologies currently classified as AI. This impression arises from the contrived urgency imposed by the short timeline for submitting informed views on a topic as complex and consequential as AI; the leading language, predetermined framing, and prioritization of business and economic interests in the associated survey; and the lack of human rights and civil liberties representatives on the AI Strategy Task Force….

How do you respond to that criticism?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thanks again for the question.

Just to clarify, I think that the public would want the Minister of AI and Digital Innovation to be using the very tools that we're making sure are responsible. We want a government that's innovative, but we want it to be responsible.

I hear the member's concerns. The AI summaries that helped us were not determinative. Real humans engaged. Obviously, our teams engaged, but we want tools to help the government to work more efficiently and to make sure that we're moving at speed so we don't fall behind.

Again, I'm really proud of the fact that we are trying to find efficiencies, that we could do in eight days something that could have taken eight months, and that there's transparency. You can read all of those responses just to make sure you appreciate that.

Finally, to make sure it is not precooked, we have not launched our national AI strategy. We are still engaged with stakeholders. I had a stakeholder meeting just this morning, a phenomenal round table. I met with the National Chief of the AFN at a round table on AI.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Excuse me.

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I met with provinces and territories just last week.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of time.

How many of those 160 experts who voiced criticism have you actually met with? How many of the 160 experts who signed the letter did you meet?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

To be candid, I'm not aware of the names of these 160, because I don't know who you're talking about, but we have been engaged in stakeholder relations round tables. We're using the tools we have. I'm meeting people to make sure that this national strategy reflects and protects our values in the best way possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you. Your time is up, Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Cooper, for the second round, you have five minutes. Go ahead, sir.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister.

Minister, your government gave $240 million in taxpayer dollars to Cohere as part of your government's so-called Canadian sovereign AI compute strategy to build an AI data centre.

We now know that Cohere handed the same $240 million in taxpayer dollars to a U.S.-based company, CoreWeave, to build and operate the data centre. Effectively, this is a $240-million handout, not to a Canadian company but to a major U.S.-based tech company headquartered in New Jersey.

Is it the case that, in the lead-up to this $240-million handout, your government knew that it was going straight into the pockets of a U.S. headquartered company?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I hope that Canadians recognize that we're very proud to have invested in Cohere.

There are only four countries in the world that have large language model companies. Those are the companies that are inventing, as people know, the open AIs. There are the Americans. There are the Chinese. France has one. Canada has one. The company in the enterprise space is Cohere. They built in Canada—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Minister, respectfully, I asked a very specific question, and that is, at the time and in lead-up to handing out $240 million in taxpayer dollars to Cohere, was your government aware that it was going to go straight into the pockets of a U.S.-based company, yes or no?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Again, let me just say we are very proud to have invested. Our investment was in a Canadian company, Cohere, that has Canadian jobs, Canadian IP and Canadian innovation. They're headquartered here. They were built here, and they're absolutely an important company to support.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Minister, my time is limited, and perhaps you're not answering my question because the answer is an embarrassing one for the government, and the answer is yes.

An official from ISED, for example, is quoted in a December 23, 2024, article in The Globe and Mail indicating that CoreWeave had been brought into the process and that the $240-million handout was made because your government saw it as an opportunity to act quickly. In other words, your government was more concerned with holding a press conference to look good rather than ensuring that a quarter of a billion taxpayer dollars would stay in Canada. Isn't that right?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Again, our goal is to invest in Canadian champions. We're not trying to tell companies how to innovate and do business. That's the job of the CEOs, and I know the member appreciates that. Government's not telling people how to do business, but we are investing, and we are going to support a Canadian champion like Cohere when they have Canadian IP and Canadian headquarters, and they're a company that we want in Canada. I know the member would support that.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Minister, if the government is truly interested in supporting Canadian champions, we know there are several Canadian-owned companies that have comparable expertise and technology to CoreWeave. For example, eStruxture has operated 14 data centres. They built them. If you're going to hand out $240 million in tax dollars to build and operate a data centre, which is exactly where this tax money went, why did your government fail to make as a condition of funding that the data centre be built and operated by a Canadian company?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I appreciate the question.

Our investment was in Cohere, a nationally important company. By the way, we as a government signed a memorandum of understanding with Cohere to make sure that we, in the government, are using Canadian technology. We want to make sure that a company like Cohere, that has world-class technology, is employing Canadians and stays here.

You also mentioned eStruxture and Denvr. There are also some other great Canadian companies. We have ways to—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Minister, the bottom line is your government handed out $240 million in tax dollars with no strings attached. Worse than that, your government knew all along that the money was going straight to a U.S. company. It's the straight-up quarter-billion-dollar subsidization of a U.S. company, courtesy of Canadian taxpayers—and it didn't have to be that way.

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

We're proud to invest in Cohere. They built a data centre here in Canada. I'm not here to tell CEOs how to build a business. This is a unicorn. This is a great company. I'm not going to talk down Cohere. We're very proud, as a government, to make sure that we are supporting one of the world-class companies. It's a matter of sovereignty. I know the member is seized with sovereignty, as are we. We want to make sure that Canadians are using Canadian AI foundation models—not American ones, not Chinese ones, but Canadian ones. Cohere is that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

Ms. Church, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister. Welcome, Deputy.

Picking up on that last exchange, I think it is really important that Canada is concerned about its sovereignty in this area. In marshalling and supporting the researchers and the industries that we have, we are planting a flag internationally in an industry that is going to very much shape our future in ways that we are just beginning to grapple with.

Minister, I also met with a terrific organization this morning—the Coalition of Innovation Leaders Advancing Respect, CILAR—which is in town. They represent leading companies, educational institutions, community organizations and employers. They are setting out with a mission to equip 100,000 Canadians with AI and digital skills in the coming years. It goes to show how much this sector, again, whether we like it or not, as much as we hope to be ready for it or not, is coming. It is upon us, and we have to be smart and strategic and sovereign in how we approach it.

My question for you today is on how we are doing on AI infrastructure investments in Canada. Are we doing enough to address the infrastructure challenges that might be faced by this sector, by researchers in it and by companies looking to grow?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I appreciate the question. I'm sure the meeting that my honourable colleague had was interesting.

Let me say something about skills and talent because, in a sense, that's another form of infrastructure. You have to have the intellectual property, IP, and you have to churn out the research in order to build these companies. We're very proud of the last budget, as the member knows, in which there's a $1.7-billion talent attraction investment to recruit 1,000 of the world's top world-class researchers and their labs, to get the doctoral fellows and to support the universities. That matters because many of these companies are spinoffs from incubators. If you go to Waterloo, to Sherbrooke, to the University of Toronto, to the University of Alberta or to UBC, our campuses are churning out some fantastic companies.

It might be worth mentioning to the member, as well, that we have 800,000 people working in the digital sector in Canada. That is the fastest growing part of our economy, so investing in the sector matters. In the AI sector alone, for some perspective, we have about 3,000 pure-play AI companies right now. These are people starting companies—we mentioned Cohere—and there are, literally, thousands of companies doing things in health care, transport and agriculture.

I was at the University of Guelph: They're using AI to help grow food for farmers here. In the health care sector, to cut wait times, to help surgeries, to reduce second surgeries and brain surgery...the technology is fantastic and it's going to be transformative. That's really important, so we have to invest in that kind of infrastructure, and we're doing that. We have three research chairs...our Canadian Institutes of Health Research are doing that, our Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.... Those are really important.

There's that kind of infrastructure we're investing in, but we're also investing, as I said, in building the actual.... This year you will see we're investing in our compute challenge so that we can build data centres that are sovereign and make sure that we have the infrastructure. I know there are some people who have concerns about that.

I was at a data centre built by a great Canadian company called QScale, outside of Quebec City, in Lévis. They built a $1.2-billion data centre, which is about 140 megawatts, with clean energy. There are some concerns about water use. It has what's called a “closed-loop system”. In other words, they cycle the same water through; they're reusing water. Many of these data centres are also about to capture heat for greenhouse growth, because they generate heat. There are ways to build this so that it generates and drives innovation and very efficiently uses water and energy. That was, by the way, all private investment.

This is happening. The infrastructure is being built, but we have to make sure that, once the infrastructure is built, people trust.... I'm just going to return to that. The trust is important. I often say that technology moves at the speed of innovation, but citizens move at the speed of trust. People have to trust this stuff or they're not going to use it, so that's really important.