Industry and Technology Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Sean Mullin]

Some of the major findings of the report in terms of the particular layers of the technology stack are.... As I talked about, the cloud services side is very vulnerable. We're also quite vulnerable on chip supply. Almost all of the advanced chips are not manufactured here in Canada. There are a number of other medium-level exposures as well.

I think the overall notion that we wanted to get across is that these decisions about this infrastructure build-out and these technologies are being made right now. It's a historical build-out in the United States and across the world. The risk is that we lock into a technology that we don't control.

Right now, we have an ally that is looking for ways to use vulnerabilities to exploit us for other reasons. It would seem that we don't want Canada to be more exposed and more vulnerable to what may arguably be the most important tech stack in the world.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, the floor is yours for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I'd like to thank the three witnesses for being here. Again, these are content-rich presentations. We're learning a great deal.

My questions will be for Ms. Brown, from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, or SOCAN.

Before I go any further, Madam Chair, allow me to greet the colleagues who are joining us today, such as Mr. McKinnon. I'd also like to say that it's great to see you in the chair today. Thank you.

Ms. Brown, as you pointed out, SOCAN does very important work for artists across Canada. The Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions has made five requests regarding the development of a legislative framework on generative artificial intelligence, and they overlap with what you have told us, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on them.

Here is the first request:

Ensure that the Copyright Act is not modified through an exception permitting Text and Data Mining (TDM) or any other exception allowing technology developers or users to use protected works, sound recordings, and performers’ performances to train generative AI systems without authorization or compensation.

You pointed that out to us. You also mentioned the examples of Australia and the United Kingdom regarding this issue, if I understood correctly.

Can you explain that to us again and confirm that you're in favour of this request?

[Jennifer Brown]

I do confirm that. We are greatly aligned with the CDCE, of course, as a member organization there. They're doing great work.

There has been lobbying by the AI tech companies around the world, which are asking for this exception in copyright acts around the world. What has happened so far is that the Australia and U.K. governments have put out there that there will not be an exception. They are not going to contemplate a copyright exception for the copying of all these works that has taken place for the training of the AI datasets. That's important for us, because we feel that now the AI companies don't have the loophole they're trying to get. That means they can come to the table, and we can talk about licensing and compensation for those works.

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

Thank you very much.

If I understand correctly, generative artificial intelligence companies are currently scanning and stealing information. The legislative framework would prohibit that or require those that do it to provide compensation. Is that correct?

[Jennifer Brown]

Yes, the current Copyright Act would not allow for that exception. It would say that there are incentives for human creation that should take place, even with AI. It takes place with every other technology and every other broadcaster. People are paid when their works are used.

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

Some generative artificial intelligence companies are publicly stating that if this legislative framework doesn't provide for this exception and they can no longer go and get the data in that way, they will no longer be able to produce their content.

What argument do you have to say to them?

[Jennifer Brown]

I would use the argument that we've heard this many times before. This is exactly what Spotify said in the early days. This is what radio said for years.

We've always been able to work hand in hand for them to grow and for them to compensate creators when they use that content in their growth. I don't think that copyright has ever stifled innovation. This is something that works hand in hand.

I can't take that argument seriously, because we've heard it too many times before and it's been disproved every time.

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

Thank you very much.

Specialist Yoshua Bengio came to tell us that businesses didn't want regulations, but clear guidelines. That's along the same lines as what you just said.

Another request from the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is related to what you said: the obligation for companies developing generative AI systems to disclose the training data they use. From what I understand, there's no such obligation right now.

Is that technically possible? Are there any countries that have already implemented that?

[Jennifer Brown]

I believe it's technically possible. Every other country is requesting these transparency guidelines so that they know what has been used. The EU is currently on the second round of these transparency obligations because they're improving them to be more detailed.

I see no reason why this is not technologically possible to produce.

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

Okay.

Along the same lines, the coalition is requesting—you mentioned this—the adoption of legislation to identify, for the benefit of the public, content generated purely by artificial intelligence. I have the impression that that's starting to catch on, but it hasn't been implemented yet.

Again, are there any countries that are ahead of Canada in this regard?

[Jennifer Brown]

We have examples from digital service providers that are seeking this as well. Apple has said they want to be able to show their users that the song is generative AI. There are companies out there saying...and can be used as a third party source, so we know it can be done.

The issue is that we shouldn't all have to pay for third party sources for this labelling. They themselves know what is generative AI. They should be putting that stamp, that label, on it when it is outputted so that everybody knows.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you very much.

We'll go over to Ms. Borrelli for five minutes, please.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Ms. Brown, my questions might be a bit repetitive, but I find this extremely interesting. I have two nephews who are budding creators, and I'm concerned for their well-being as well.

Should creators be able to opt out of having their work used for AI training? Should the Copyright Act make it clear that AI training requires an opt-in licence rather than an opt-out system?

[Jennifer Brown]

Opt-out and opt-in have definitely been talked about in other jurisdictions. In most cases, I would say that creators really don't favour opt-out. That's putting the onus on the creator when they haven't even been told that their work has been used. Now they're supposed to go through it and say, “Oh yes, my work has been used and now I'm going to put through some sort of request to take that out.”

There should have been permission asked going in. I think that's important for creators in the future: that they have agency over when their works are being used.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Is an opt-out system unfair once a model has been trained?

[Jennifer Brown]

I don't think it's the most ideal system, and it has been rejected in other territories.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Some creator groups have argued that copyright protection should remain tied to human creativity and that fully AI-generated work should not receive copyright protection, because machines cannot exercise human skill and judgment.

To play devil's advocate in this scenario, do you think it would be unfair for people who train and work with AI to develop music? How should we clarify in the Copyright Act that copyright protects only works created by human authors and not works generated by AI?

[Jennifer Brown]

I think the stance of most creators and creator groups is that the Copyright Act already states that it's a human ability: that you have to have skill and judgment for copyright to exist and that skill and judgment are human actions. It's not a machine.

There is definitely the idea that generative AI is not falling within copyright. However, we still, as we spoke about earlier, have the issue that human-created works are in that output. That output is not the brainchild of a machine. It is derivative of other human creation, so we would like to see the compensation flow throughout input to output.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Would granting copyright protection to fully AI-generated works risk flooding the market with machine-made content?

[Jennifer Brown]

It is a very big question. I would like to take more time to think about that one because it's about who the owner of that copyright is. Are you putting the owner as the AI company, as the person who prompted it? Again, we believe the output there is still pieces of human-created work.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

That's great. Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you very much, Ms. Borrelli.

We'll go to Ms. Begum for five minutes, please.

[Doly Begum, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for your presentations.

I have so many questions, but I'm going to share my time with MP Ntumba because he has some questions as well.

One thing we've been hearing quite a bit about recently because of news from the U.S. is regarding the way that AI data centres are cooled—air cooling and liquid cooling—and the use of water.

Mr. Mullin, I want to go to you.

I believe that in Canada we have better standards in place. Do you find there are concerns there? What would you recommend? Of course, there are differences in terms of the evaporative and direct cooling methods. I know in my riding, we're seeing that happen as well, and people have complained about what that may look like because of the unknown. It could be water pressure. It could be water contamination.

I want to understand this. Could you speak a bit about it? Are there concerns, and what can we do to address them from the get-go?

[Sean Mullin]

We didn't go directly into the environmental considerations in our report, but it is something we're certainly alive to as we look at this topic.

One of the benefits, as you hinted at, of having sovereign AI capacity or, if it's not fully sovereign, having hyperscale data centres here in Canada to serve Canadian compute demand is that this will be subject to Canadian environmental laws and our standards. If you are taking for a given that there's going to be a build-out of demand as more and more Canadians adopt this technology, then you want to make sure that compute, as you trace it all the way back to the energy and environmental impacts, is as mitigated as possible. Not only water, but some of Canada's clean or renewable energy capacity is where we could really benefit from building out compute in a way that makes sense for Canada and Canadians.