Industry and Technology Committee on April 13th, 2026

[Joëlle Pineau]

It continues to be a challenge. The numbers we cited are coming out of the Stanford HAI report. A new report just landed today. I'm eager to go and see the numbers, to see if we're progressing.

It's important for citizens to understand the technology and to feel like they have some agency over how the technology is used in their lives.

When it comes to the workforce, it's worth emphasizing that Cohere is strictly focused on deploying AI within the context of enterprise and governments. It's not for consumers. When it comes to that context, the strategy to build trust is twofold.

One is to support the transition that is necessary. We have several programs in terms of education to drive adoption and to make that transition a lot easier when we partner with an enterprise. We view that as being essential to the transition.

The other one is to show the burden of showing that we are actually realizing productivity gains. We are not there to deploy technologies just to complicate people's lives. It's to actually have a way to demonstrate that the productivity increases are real, toward use cases that actually matter to each company.

[Michael Ma, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ma.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am grateful to all the witnesses for being here.

I have a very broad question for Mr. Richer, and I would ask Mr. Madan and Ms. Pineau to chime in as well.

Every one of your presentations had a lot to say about the importance of Canadian control at every level from data to infrastructure and so on.

My questions are very basic. Why is that important? For example, what are the actual risks if those things are controlled by U.S. companies?

You also talked about the importance of economies of scale in the AI space, if I understand correctly. Is the Canadian market big enough to really benefit from economies of scale?

If so, is there space for competition, or is a natural monopoly taking shape?

[Michel Richer]

Mr. Chair, the question was asked in French, so I'll answer in French.

The first question was about risks and considerations relative to digital sovereignty. Here's how we should think about this: Digital sovereignty ensures that two major paradigms are in place. The first is that no one outside the country, at the request of another authority, can access or view our data. The second is an equally important but more recent consideration: No one, at the request of any such authority, can prevent our systems from functioning. In other words, no one can see our data.

Nobody can turn the switch off on Canada.

We are working with Canadian operators to implement both paradigms, for which four highly operational elements must be in place.

The first is control over data residency and storage. The second is control over data as it moves through the environment. In other words, control over the network that must be under Canadian control and on Canadian soil at every data transit point. The third is control over compute infrastructure that decides which scenario or model is used—or, more importantly, not used—at any given moment. The last element is control over governance and oversight infrastructure for all these environments.

Your second question was about the size of the sector and its potential for competitiveness.

Given the growth we foresee across the field of AI, Canada is definitely big enough to support key players and foster an industry in which an entire ecosystem can develop. I would emphasize not only competitive dynamics, but other dynamics as well. Earlier, we talked about how we need full-stack technology. We need a comprehensive ecosystem that includes players who will provide solutions and collaborate on everything from the infrastructure layer to enterprise adoption models and services.

[Chris Madan]

There are two aspects to that.

On the data side, there are three elements to the data that we have to think about.

There's the actual data, such as our citizen data, our own health care data, etc., that sits there. However, in the age of AI, especially on the digital side, it's also creating data. The models run, we have telemetry that's running on it and you're looking at all the information that flows through. Having control of that information is a critical aspect.

We can think of sovereignty. Signal 49, which used to be called the Conference Board of Canada, just came out with a new metaphor. The metaphor that has previously been used is that data is the new oil. In the age of AI, the term they now use is that data is the new soil. It is a place where you cultivate and grow, and you reap benefits that pay out over time. Unlike oil, which is typically taken out and exported, data is something we should continue to use.

The second element of that is the operational control. My colleague just talked about some elements, but there are a few more I would add to that. It's not about who can actually stop access to some of that information. If you think of dependency, especially on foreign entities, in some cases they may not allow you to upgrade your software, for example. There are ways that are extraterritorial, and in today's geopolitical environment, it's absolutely important that you control that infrastructure from end to end.

If you think about Telus, we own everything from the fibre networks to the data centres to where the models are deployed on our premises, and then the information, whether it's in transit or at rest, flows through our networks. I think that becomes an aspect of critical importance.

To answer your second question, about commercial viability, Canada is on the cusp of another revolution. If you think of where we are, the window is small, but there is a global compute shortage. This is something you see that plays out across the board. It's one of the reasons you see large American multinationals trying to buy up data centres or establish their presence in Canada.

When you think of that global compute shortage, you think of the natural advantages we have, whether it's the land, renewable power, the talent, the research or the start-up ecosystem. We have the ability to own the end-to-end AI ecosystem and make this a strong competitive advantage for us collectively, versus being at the base infrastructure level.

That would be my response.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Pineau, I only have 10 seconds left, so I'll come back to you for your answer in 10 minutes. I'll have two and a half minutes for you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.

Mr. Guglielmin, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks again to the witnesses for being here for this critical study. You've all touched on some pretty key components already.

I want to spend my time looking at the security dimension of what we're building here, because I think it's widely received by both the public and policy-makers that we need control of our own data, and we need our own infrastructure.

Something happened recently that highlights the risks that are facing us. There's a difference between AI as tools, as we know, and AI agents that can act autonomously. Last week, Anthropic announced that one of its AI models had autonomously exploited software vulnerabilities across almost every single major operating system and browser, including bugs that had been buried in code for decades at that point. That same model, in safety testing, broke out of a sandboxed environment, accessed the Internet and emailed the researcher running the project.

All three of your organizations are operating AI in sensitive Canadian ecosystems, but I'll start with Bell.

When you hear something like this, how does this make you think about the security of the infrastructure that you're building?

[Mark Graham, Senior Vice-President, Legal and Regulatory, Bell Canada]

I think there are going to be security issues like this, where we're going to have to land as a country on what the right controls are that we want in place in Canadian deployments. Our company is not in the model and application space. Primarily, we partner with Canadian organizations to do that, but I think it emphasizes the importance of building out those capabilities in Canada, right from the infrastructure layer up through the stack, including the security layer.

We are in the security space. We spend a lot of time both educating our clients on the security risks and supporting them in developing security solutions to address those risks as they deploy AI so we can continue to facilitate adoption.

We need a Canadian ecosystem and Canadian infrastructure so that we aren't faced with a choice between an approach that is not regulated in Canada but determined in another country or not deploying AI. We need the ability to deploy Canadian-governed AI, and that's why we're so focused on developing that full-stack solution.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Anthropic disclosed last November that it had detected what it assessed with very high confidence to be a Chinese state-sponsored attack by a group of people using AI agents not as advisers but to actually facilitate the cyber-attack. This was all before Mythos, which is the system we were just talking about that they put on hold because they were so alarmed by what it was able to do without any direction.

Mr. Madan, I'll ask you a question.

If Telus is going to be providing AI infrastructure to Canadian government clients—even Cohere's tools are being deployed in federal services—and given the fact that we're already seeing a rise in these state-sponsored threats, how can we be sure, and what are you guys doing to ensure that you're not exposed to those threats? Also, is government asking the right questions about this?

[Chris Madan]

I think government is asking the right questions. I'll answer the second one first.

What you have to think through is that there are a couple of different layers to this one. You've shared two examples, one from last year and one from last week, and there will be another one tomorrow. I can guarantee you that.

What that actually means is that we need to be looking at this across the stack. That's why we talk about it that way. If you think of the five parts of the stack, everything from the infrastructure to the data to the application layer to the model layer and then to the end user, think of where in that we have control, and who has the kill switch.

The point I go back to is the fact that at the infrastructure layer and the way these things are designed in facilities that are controlled by us and where we control and manage the API calls that hit our systems or don't hit our systems, having the ability to turn off that kill switch in a doomsday scenario is an absolutely critical aspect of this whole ecosystem.

If you think of AI, I would say the other piece we have to start thinking of very quickly is what's happening with quantum and how that's coming up. In fact, Telus is building a whole post-quantum cryptography that's flowing out across our networks and looking to secure some of these aspects of the future.

These threats, if anything, I think, are something we just have to continue to find ways to stay ahead of. That's where policy certainty aspects around the components of that stack—who owns that stack and its components—become really critical, and who owns that kill switch becomes a matter of national urgency.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Guglielmin.

Mr. Fonseca, welcome to the committee. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you, Chair Carr. It's really enjoyable to be here. What a fascinating discussion we are having. It's my lucky day to be here as you are studying AI, as it comes up often in the constituency of Mississauga East—Cooksville, the riding that I have the privilege to represent.

My first question is for Madam Pineau.

We talk about Canada being a leader when it comes to large language models globally. You spoke about only a few other countries. I believe you brought up the U.S., China and France.

What is our competitive advantage? How do we hold on to that competitive advantage and continue to lead and grow?

[Joëlle Pineau]

Our competitive advantage is multifold. There's a reason I've chosen to spend all of my career in Canada and, from here, have been able to take on a global leadership role.

First, it stems from the education and research layer that we've built. The knowledge capacity we have in this country is truly exceptional. We created the technology, going back to the work of Dr. Bengio, Dr. Hinton and others here in Canada. We understand that technology. To this day, the three institutes that we have—Mila, Vector and Amii—are some of the largest producers of domestic talent for this technology.

We've been able to build up a substantial infrastructure capability as well, as demonstrated by my co-panellists today, and Cohere has the ability to build large models. It's a skill that requires a combination of research and engineering, and I think that the complexity of training these models is only increasing year over year, so the ability to have all of these capabilities domestically continues to be very important.

In terms of global competitiveness, one thing that is also going to help us is the access to energy, in particular clean energy. I think this is going to be important. We are seeing in many ways that's becoming a bottleneck in many cases. The ability to build more lightweight governance, which actually gives us the clarity we need for how to develop that technology, is going to be important.

I very much look forward to the report coming out on the federal strategy from the government.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

We've heard here in testimony that there's a gap between what we're doing in research, where we're doing very well, and in commercialization, where we're not doing as well as we could be.

What is the strategy to get us from research to commercialization and to better address our productivity gap?

[Joëlle Pineau]

I'll highlight three things that are important.

The first is to continue to support a national strategy for physical infrastructure, compute infrastructure and data. Having clarity on that strategy will be absolutely essential; otherwise, it will be very difficult to continue to build out those models here domestically.

The second one is this risk-based, sector-specific approach to regulation. I do think we have to keep pushing on that.

The third one, which I think I mentioned in my remarks, is worth digging into. Is the government leading by example, boosting productivity and sending a strong “buy Canadian” signal for technology? It's sometimes easy to forget how deeply we are consuming technology built elsewhere throughout the government, and we have an opportunity here to pivot.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Madan.

I have many SMEs in my constituency. Is the adoption of AI by businesses happening fast enough? How are you helping with this transition?

[Chris Madan]

The short answer is that it's not happening fast enough.

It's not happening fast enough for a couple of reasons, as was just pointed out. I think the first one is purely access. Access continues to be a big challenge, and even AI compute. We talk about that all of the time. As a large organization ourselves, we are typically third, fourth or fifth in line to try to get that. It's one of the reasons we went and invested ourselves in this space.

The second one is that if you look at a lot of small industries, they're still connected to the large hyperscalers and the grants that come from there. There's a whole incubation of capabilities that actually start just past research but at the start-up stage. At the start-up stage, where a lot of companies are looking for the right grants, for the right set-up, etc., there are many hyperscaler grants that actually get them on. Once you're in that ecosystem, you're connected. It's a self-fulfilling piece.

From our perspective, while we're actively working with SMEs in a number of places, we've chosen to actually spend more time in the start-up ecosystem. If I look right here in Ottawa, we're working with L-Spark, which is a large consortium of start-ups. We have a number of start-ups now on the AI factory deployed. If we look nationally, we have folks like AIP, where there are 160 different start-ups that are coming into that ecosystem.

We've set up two programs. One is called the catalyst program. That actually meets and matches some of those grants. You come in, and while you're applying for different grants, etc., you have access to free infrastructure. Then, going forward, you have access to very competitive pieces.

On the second piece, around what we can do, I'd love to have a discussion with you on how we can help. I myself am from Mississauga, and I would love...but we are trying to reach all of the local ecosystems in different places. In some cases, we find that it's more efficient for us to work through an ecosystem of start-ups.

[Peter Fonseca, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fonseca.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, you have the floor for two and a half minutes. You can go to Ms. Pineau right away.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Before I do that, I want to say how nice it is to hear folks from Mississauga say good things about Rimouski and Hydro-Québec, which makes clean energy.

Ms. Pineau, my question was about the importance of every aspect of sovereignty. Why is it important?

I also asked about whether the Canadian market is too small for economies of scale. Do we have a competitive system?

[Joëlle Pineau]

Thank you for the question.

I'll start with data sovereignty. For starters, there are three types of data, and they're all important.

The first is personal data, such as citizenship and medical data. It's important to maintain control. Sovereignty is really about control. It's important to maintain that within our infrastructure and our system.

The second is data relating to competitiveness, and this applies to all businesses, whether they're small, medium or very large. They have a competitive advantage, and it's important to be able to protect that information so it's not vulnerable to being used in all kinds of ways we have no control over.

The third is generated data, which another witness touched on. More and more, AI is being used to generate all kinds of data. Here's a specific example: Agents are being built to carry out an in-depth analysis of an entirely new industrial sector to understand it and develop an investment strategy. That kind of analysis is increasingly being performed automatically by agents. This creates new information with real economic value. That's why it's important for both the government and all Canadian businesses to control this engine of economic value creation. This is where we must continue to focus our efforts.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Your colleague, Yoshua Bengio, testified before the committee. He has a lot of concerns about AI development, loss of control and so on. Do you share his concerns? If so, tell us about your concerns.