Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 20th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 42 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), the committee is meeting to resume its study of artificial intelligence and Canada's democratic institutions.

Today's meeting is taking place in public in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. I don't think anyone is online. All members are here in person.

I would ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. I would like to remind all witnesses that committee members, as you know, may ask questions in English and in French. If you need interpretation, please take a moment to familiarize yourself, but you are frequent flyers and you know what to do.

As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair. If you wish to speak, raise your hand. The clerk and I will do our best to recognize you.

Before we begin, I'd like to take care of a quick administrative item. The clerk has circulated a draft budget. Is there any opposition or concern?

I see thumbs up and nods, so it is by consent that the draft budget is passed.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses. They are familiar faces: Eric Janse, Clerk of the House of Commons; Natalie Foster, clerk assistant and co-chair of the House of Commons AI working group; and Christopher Henry, director general of digital enablement and innovation and co-chair of the House of Commons AI working group.

I understand that Mr. Janse will deliver a five-minute opening statement. Then we will proceed to rounds of questions.

Mr. Janse, please proceed.

[Eric Janse, Clerk of the House of Commons]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting my colleagues and me to appear before you today regarding the opportunities, risks and implications arising from artificial intelligence for Canada's democratic institution.

As mentioned, I'm pleased to be joined by my colleagues, Natalie and Chris. Behind us on the backbench, we have representatives from digital services, legal, finance and procedure, so that we are ready to answer any and all of your questions.

AI is rapidly changing how information is created, analyzed and shared, and within the House's digital environment the use of AI-enabled tools is becoming increasingly prevalent. While there are possibilities for innovation across the parliamentary environment, we must also carefully consider how these new opportunities can be balanced with the protection of people, information, systems and processes, as well as with the key principles that are fundamental to parliamentary democracy.

A recent article in The Economist on AI-generated political speeches illustrates how quickly questions about authenticity, accountability and appropriate use are moving from the theoretical to the practical.

The House administration's role involves helping to establish a secure and trusted environment in which AI can be used responsibly. We have already been laying a stable foundation to prepare and protect the institution, members and employees. This includes clear guidance, appropriate guardrails, training and support, and carefully designed proofs of concept that allow us to learn before expanding.

In 2024, the House administration established the AI working group to provide immediate guidance on generative AI and to develop a long-term AI strategy. Its cross-organizational membership and co-leadership from the parliamentary business and technology sectors reflect the reality that addressing AI in our organization is a fundamental shift that requires expertise and collaboration from all sectors.

Following the June 2024 launch of AI guidelines for employees, the House administration consulted with the recognized parties and released AI guidelines for members and their staff the following year. Both sets of guidelines explain how to use generative AI safely and ethically, while the guidelines for members also address protecting their information and that of their constituents.

At the same time, the House administration has created an AI-dedicated space on Source, bringing together the guidelines as well as information on the security ratings of AI tools, writing effective prompts, acquiring AI tool licences, and other reference materials.

AI and cybersecurity content was also incorporated into the members' orientation program, as well as into awareness materials distributed as part of Cyber Security Awareness Month, a practice we intend to continue and expand this year.

For the more serious AI challenges, such as deepfakes or other security risks, the House has also developed clear guidance and coordinated support for members. Through a “no wrong door approach”, the House administration will coordinate assistance from all service areas on topics related to AI.

Finally, consultations with the recognized parties also identified the need for a secure generative AI tool. In response, the House is conducting a proof of concept with members selected by the whips to assess the viability of offering such a service. It allows for the exploration of practical use cases within an institutionally managed environment with stronger protections for our data. The proof of concept will help assess the technology’s value; understand its implications for information security, privacy and data governance; and identify the guardrails, training, support and resources required for broader implementation.

The House administration recognizes the importance of safeguarding the integrity, security and non-partisan nature of our parliamentary operations, while supporting informed and responsible AI adoption. Consistent with our mandate to anticipate members’ evolving needs and to innovate in support of your work and parliamentary democracy, we will continue to invest in the people, safeguards and tools required for the responsible use of AI at the House of Commons.

We welcome the committee’s guidance and support as we continue this work.

This concludes our opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn to Mr. Cooper first for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Janse, you referenced the artificial intelligence strategy for 2025 to 2027. That strategy has not been made public—has it?

[Eric Janse]

I'll turn to Natalie, who's our strategy expert, to answer that one.

[Natalie Foster, Clerk Assistant and House of Commons AI Working Group Co-Chair, House of Commons]

At the moment, no. The strategy is available internally only. It has not been shared with the public.

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

Could the strategy be provided to this committee?

[Natalie Foster]

Absolutely. We'd be happy to do that.

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

Okay. Thank you for that.

You spoke about building a stable foundation for AI within Parliament, including clear guidance, appropriate guardrails and training and support. You spoke about some of the training for members. What about training for staff?

[Eric Janse]

Are you asking about the staff of members or the staff of the House administration?

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

It would be both the staff of members and of the House of Commons administration.

[Eric Janse]

I think it's all of the above.

Natalie, do you want to speak to that?

[Natalie Foster]

We've launched a training program for members and their staff, so both are invited to those. We have a monthly seminar that's available virtually. It's put on through our members' orientation program. That's open to members and their staff. The first version of that really focuses on the guidelines, guardrails and risks.

Then, through our proof of concept for Copilot, we've also established a training program specific to Copilot, its uses and use cases, and that is open to the participants of the proof of concept. That's meant to be a test to see if that's useful so that it could be expanded if ever we were to expand that as well.

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

With respect to the training, what has been the uptake?

[Natalie Foster]

For the one that's open to all members, I believe we've had about 100 participants so far in that course. That was during the summer, so I could get some updated statistics for what may have been done in September. We have had a very high uptake.

In general, it's viewed quite favourably. We do feedback surveys afterwards as well.

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

What about for staff?

[Natalie Foster]

That's a combined number of members and staff.

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

Okay.

Regarding appropriate guardrails, can you elaborate on what those guardrails are?

[Natalie Foster]

I'll turn to my technical colleague to talk about some of the technical guardrails we have in place.

[Christopher Henry, Director General of Digital Enablement and Innovation, and House of Commons AI Working Group Co-Chair, House of Commons]

Thank you for the question.

We started with guidelines first to ensure the safe and responsible use of AI and to ensure that our people, including members and their staff, have the right information to be able to use these tools responsibly. That's been the premise of our human-centred focus for AI adoption here at the House of Commons. It's one of the pillars of the strategy, which we'll be sharing with the committee. Those guidelines were the first layer of defence we had to make sure those understandings were clear.

When it comes to guardrails, we look at those more from a technical controls perspective to see how we can further protect the environment for how AI is being used. Those start as the foundational pillars that we've had in our IT environment since the dawn of using IT for many different use cases pre-AI. Those include information security protections and visibility on all of our information so that we can have assurances that we can protect that information.

That's how we've started with the guardrails. It's simply from an administrative controls perspective to make sure we can have the right safeguards for members and their use of AI.

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

Thank you for that.

To what extent is the House administration using current AI tools?

[Eric Janse]

I'll start and then hand off to Natalie.

For instance, we are using AI in the parliamentary publications directorate for Hansard production. The first “take”, if you will, of Hansard is now produced in part using AI. That's just one of many other areas.

Natalie, do you want to expand on that?

[Natalie Foster]

With respect to Hansard and committee evidence, while the team does use that for a first pass, we employ the human-in-the-loop concept. There is always verification and validation, and we have our employees pivot very quickly to that higher-value work of editing and proofreading. While it's there as an assist, it's not meant to replace the expertise that our employees have.

The other use case that we're exploring is looking at transcription or closed captioning for private or in camera meetings that may be used for assistive devices for accessibility purposes. That's currently being explored, though it's really very much in pilot mode.

The third general use case might be around some coding practices, and I'll let Chris speak to that.

[Christopher Henry]

When it comes to the digital applications that support Parliament, since the creation of these applications, many of those that are used to provide support for proceedings, for example, have generally been of a high-code or human-coded aspect from a digital creation perspective. In the advent of exploring the capabilities of some of these generative AI tools, we have begun some light exploration of these tools insofar as, as Natalie mentioned, assisting our people with the ability to use those tools to create code for our products. Again, this is in a very small, limited testing base use case.

The final use case that I could add for House administrative use is general productivity. That's another area we're exploring as well—things such as summarizing meetings and planning our days—when it comes to understanding the capabilities of the technology.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll now turn to Mr. Jeneroux for six minutes, please.