Thank you for the question.
If we don't come forward with a national data strategy—data is crosscutting, and it affects not only our prosperity but also our norms, our democracy, our security and our mental health—then I think we'll lose our sovereignty as a country in security, prosperity and democracy. I can't think of a more important policy priority.
It's very important to know that about 250,000 global patents have been filed just on AI alone in the past 20 years. Canada is the only country in the WIPO report of leading AI filers to have a reduction in its IP filings in AI.
We may not even have the right to apply algorithms on our own data, because we don't have what's called the “freedom to operate” patents to do that. That would be part of a national data strategy.