Evidence of meeting #40 for Industry and Technology in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sovereignty.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
During COVID, it was reported that our own military had launched propaganda campaigns against Canadian citizens with the use of AI. Is that something that you believe, sir, the government needs to put restrictions and parameters on?
Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, As an Individual
That would go beyond just the use of AI. It would not be something—if that indeed happened—that we'd want the military or the government doing in any case. I would say that's not just an AI issue.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
These deepfakes and the replications that AI can do are fascinating and incredible. Should there not be safeguards that would prevent governments from using them against their own citizens and promoting any particular ideology?
Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes. When you get into particular instances of propaganda like deepfakes, that's where you'd want to ask what the law is in Canada. That should apply to Canadians, citizens and anybody in the sense that we should have a way of avoiding the misuse of that type of technology to do things like misleading citizens through deepfakes.
Conservative
Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Indeed.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Raquel Dancho
Thank you very much.
We'll go over to Mr. Bains for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Richmond East—Steveston, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all of our guests for joining us today.
My first question is directed to Mr. Lee, from British Columbia.
We see how the world is becoming quite complicated, with significant uncertainties putting a strain on public safety and institutions not just in Canada, but globally. How can government identify the risks before they escalate and direct resources where they matter the most?
I ask you this because I know UrbanLogiq does a lot of work in different jurisdictions. Maybe you can provide some input there.
Chief Strategy Officer, UrbanLogiq
In UrbanLogiq's deployments, I have seen the dynamic models we put forward enable the addressing of geohazard risk, for example. In the city of Edmonton, as I mentioned in my opening statement, we provided a dynamic scenario modelling device and platform for city planners to determine, with climate change impacts out to 2040 and beyond, where wildfire risks would be in order to ensure that when they're building in a built environment...where they should build housing. We recognize from the lessons of Lytton, Kelowna, Hinton and Jasper, and from the wildfire damage to public safety and housing, that government has data that it can map out and utilize in a more predictive, proactive form.
This is not about relying on static reports. We know that hazard, risk and vulnerability assessments and LCCAPs—local climate adaptation plans—are examples of government-required reports that need to be done at the municipal level. We also know that with national integrated emergency management systems, we need to integrate the various jurisdictions—federal, provincial, first nations and local—in an emergency-type situation. These are examples of where we can plan better, understand where evacuation routes might be and recognize where traffic congestion and critical infrastructure demands from wildfires, flooding or earthquakes might be. These are public safety risks.
I'd also like to say, to the many comments Mr. Mullin stated to this committee, that the Government of Canada clearly needs to be using these tools. In order to properly regulate the responsive use of AI, government needs to be utilizing these tools and adopting and adapting them in a responsible way. There are federal directives for the public service around algorithmic impact assessments in order for them to be used, so there are definite regulatory requirements already established. We can do more, though.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Richmond East—Steveston, BC
Thank you for that.
You worked with the City of Coquitlam in British Columbia on a two-year trial to advance analytics and create real-world benefits. Can you outline some of the outcomes from that partnership?
Chief Strategy Officer, UrbanLogiq
The City of Coquitlam, like the cities of Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey and Nanaimo, is a municipality in British Columbia that we work with. In that case, it was a pilot to look at community amenities. When you have a growing community, where do you best place your resources, as a decision-maker, mayor, council, or city planner, to ensure that there are park, school, traffic, housing and child care amenities for your community? That's an example of a kind of planning device. You're integrating the data in a planning way to understand where population growth is and what the needs of the community are.
This is the kind of decision-making support system we did for the City of San Jose. You can model out different community infrastructure amenity investments and recognize, in a key performance indicator kind of way, what makes for a great community and a healthy one.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Richmond East—Steveston, BC
A lot of the questions we get about AI are around privacy and the protections people want for their data. What processes does UrbanLogiq utilize to protect data? Ultimately, the committee's role is to try to get recommendations put forward. Do you have recommendations for the government on protecting data?
Conservative
Chief Strategy Officer, UrbanLogiq
This relates to Canadian sovereignty. We are a purpose-built solution for government, with the highest, strictest privacy standards. That means having auditability standards, ensuring that we're tracking the lineage of where the data source goes, having access controls to the data, having encryption and ensuring that the data itself is kept with zero retention. These are examples of the kinds of mechanisms that can build out the responsible use of AI.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Raquel Dancho
Thank you very much.
We have about two and a half minutes of committee time remaining. That's not quite enough time to equally distribute among all parties.
Colleagues, if you'll allow me to use the chair's prerogative, I want to ask one brief question of Ms. Brown so I can fully understand what she's saying.
In brief, all Canadian content from all of our artistic creators and others is being used, in essence, for free by AI models. They use your content to train, and there's no compensation for, recognition of or transparency in how that's being done. Is that accurate?
Chief Executive Officer, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
That's correct, yes.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Raquel Dancho
You're saying that there are other jurisdictions that require this transparency when your content is being used and require you to be compensated because of licensing fees. Is that correct?
Chief Executive Officer, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
What I'm saying is that with transparency and having no exception, we believe we can have a market solution to license these AI platforms to make sure compensation is flowing to the creators. These are the same arguments happening in other countries, because AI platforms did this in every other country.
Through our relationships with other societies in those countries, we're able to share that information with this committee if you would like to see what's happening in other jurisdictions.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Raquel Dancho
I feel the voice you brought to the table is one of the few in this space, so any further submissions you can provide to us and the analysts for review would be welcome. This is a very important piece. I think we'd all agree on that.
We welcome the submissions from all three of you. We appreciate your testimony today very much and wish you a wonderful rest of the day and safe travels. Thank you very much.
Colleagues, we will briefly suspend as we turn over, so now would be a good time to take a break. We'll resume discussions in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]