Human Resources Committee on Nov. 20th, 2023

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

I noted that the issue of self-regulation was one of the external criticisms of the bill. Is it responsible to ask companies that develop these tools to regulate themselves? It seems to me that self-regulation should be political and should not be based solely on AI designers or industries. What do you think?

[Théo Lepage-Richer]

Right off the bat, I welcome your comment with enthusiasm.

That's more or less the strategy that Europe has adopted. The European model relies a lot on independent or semi-independent committees to assess the impact of the deployment of this technology.

However, I wonder to what extent this approach would be realistic in Canada. I'm thinking of the size of the European government and public compared to that of the Canadian government and public. Realistically, although I'm excited about your comments, I'm wondering to what extent the Canadian government could implement a such an evaluation model. That's why developing analytical tools that are better adapted to the various industries and sectors seems to me to be a realistic compromise in the Canadian context. I'm not hiding my preference for possible solutions.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Hadfield, thank you for your comments. We're talking about various sectors where artificial intelligence is deployed. You gave the example of legal aid.

If we look at it in terms of gender or gender differences between men and women, do you think that the deployment of artificial intelligence will have a greater impact on jobs held by women or the more marginalized? Will there be specific consequences for women or people with disabilities?

[Prof. Gillian Hadfield]

That's a topic near and dear to my heart. It's hard to say this, but I think actually what we are seeing is evidence that the current versions of large language models have a bigger impact on higher education occupations, so that we won't see that sort of pink collar effect that we may have seen in the past. I do think the legal application that I was talking about—it's true—could displace that paralegal level, which is probably female-dominated. I haven't looked at the statistics on that, but it's actually doing legal work all the way through the ranks of the law firm.

I think it is something for us to pay attention to. I suspect this looks different from how it has looked in previous automation waves, however.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

We'll go to Madam Zarrillo, and that will conclude this panel of witnesses.

Madam Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do have only six minutes, and I have some committee business I want to speak to first.

Just so that witnesses can prepare, I'm going to ask witness Autor and witness Janssen this question. It has been proposed in this committee that a federal advisory council be struck. I wonder if I could ask both of you, after I finish my other committee business here, what top three topics each of you feel need to be considered at a federal advisory council and, I guess, first of all, if you think that's a good idea.

Mr. Chair, before I go to the witnesses, I want to respond to the letter the committee received back from Air Canada on our request for Mr. Rousseau, the CEO, to appear before committee. We received a letter that, I think, outlines that Mr. Rousseau does not plan on coming to committee.

I was wondering if I could get consensus from the committee that we reach back to Air Canada and say that we strongly encourage Mr. Rousseau to come, because we don't want to have to summon him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.

I'm going to ask the clerk to speak to.... You're right. Your motion was adopted on November 8, and a letter went out. The clerk will address it.

[Jacques Maziade, Committee Clerk]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As far as I know, the motion was adopted on November 8. The information was sent to Air Canada, and the letter you received a couple of days ago is the response to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

The motion requested the CEO.

[The Clerk]

Yes, exactly.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

[Inaudible—Editor] could write back to them, and just let them know that's our expectation for Wednesday. If not, we will have to summons him, and I really don't want to have to do that. I wonder if we could get the support of the committee on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

What is the wish of the committee?

Mrs. Gray, did you have your finger up, or Mr. Aitchison, on the issue of Air Canada?

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Chair, I support 100% what Ms. Zarrillo said. I think we should write back and tell the CEO of Air Canada he's welcome to bring whoever he'd like with him to help him out in his job, but this committee requested him, and that's who we expect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

I have Mrs. Gray and then Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I support that, as well. That is the will of this committee and, as my colleague said, the CEO is welcome to bring other individuals. That is the will of the committee. That is what was decided. We do have other parliamentary tools in order to have the CEO attend. Without having to utilize those, hopefully just this discussion will implore the CEO to attend, as it's the will of this committee. If not, there are other tools we can utilize.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

To Mrs. Gray's point, the committee has the ability to summons.

I have Mr. Fragiskatos next.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hope it doesn't get to that point, but if it has to, of course I won't speak for MP Zarrillo, but certainly our side would support that. Support is what's being called for here.

Air Canada looks quite bad, to be very frank about it. They can bring staff here, but their leadership needs to answer questions about a very important matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Does that address...? You still have time to get back.

I think it's very clear that the committee is unanimous. It is the CEO the committee wants to have appear before it at the earliest opportunity, and the CEO can bring support staff, as Mr. Aitchison pointed out, but the committee wishes to have the CEO.

Seeing no dissent on that, I will ask the clerk to clearly get back to Air Canada on the wishes of this committee.

Madam Zarrillo, you can go back to.... You still have several minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the committee members, and I apologize to the witnesses.

I wonder if I could go to witness Autor and then witness Janssen. If we run out of time, if either of those witnesses would like to respond to the committee in writing, that would be great.

My question is around a federal advisory council that was proposed by past witnesses. I wonder, Mr. Autor, if you could talk about the top three topics that you think should be considered in a federal advisory council, and then Ms. Janssen could respond to the same question.

[Prof. David Autor]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do support the idea of a federal advisory council, as all folks here today have testified. This is moving very fast. It poses new opportunities and new challenges. Bringing in top expertise in an advisory role is an excellent idea.

Of the three topics I would most address, one is how to use the technology to augment labour rather than automate it. I don't think we should take as a given that augmentation necessarily occurs. Countries steer technologies. Nuclear energy is used by North Korea solely for offensive weapons. It's used by Japan solely for energy generation. They have no offensive nuclear weapons. That's a choice of a country; it's not a characteristic of technology.

How to use it well to augment workers is the first thing.

The second thing is protection for workers. As I noted, undue surveillance, high-stakes decision-making by opaque algorithms, and AI's appropriation of workers' creative work without compensation should be regulated. We have fair use when it comes to intellectual property, but the laws were not written for AI.

The final thing I would say is on visibility into these technologies. They are opaque. They're making high-stakes decisions, and often the creators of technologies will not even disclose what sources of data have been used for training. I don't think that's acceptable.

I think there's a public interest in making sure that machines that are making important decisions—and valuable decisions; I use and support AI—need to be understandable to regulators and to consumers.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much. I'm so interested in this appropriation of expertise and creativity without compensation.

Ms. Janssen, do you have three topics that you would want to have considered?

[Nicole Janssen]

The cat's out of the bag with AI. We're not putting it back.

By the way, I am fully supportive of the committee. I would have the committee focus on the education, upscaling and supports we need to provide to our workforce as this begins to roll out. This means identifying those early, disrupted professions, following them, seeing what lessons can be learned from those professions, and then perfecting that change management as it rolls out across all sectors and professions.

Then there is the responsible AI piece, which is the transparency, accountability, privacy and all of those pieces that come with responsible AI. That and the direct impacts on workers would be the areas I would focus on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Is that it, Ms. Zarrillo?

We don't have enough time to go with another round, because we have one minute left.

With that, I'll call for the adjournment of the committee meeting.