Science and Research Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2025

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

How does the government plan to balance collaboration between the private sector and Canadian research institutions with the need to protect Canadian intellectual property and data sovereignty?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

It's a great question.

The government is working very closely to make sure we have ways to incentivize the private sector. First of all, that's part of our AI institutes' mandate. We also have a digital cluster called Scale AI, based in Montreal. Their job is to help commercialize AI, support AI companies and small and medium-sized businesses.

We also have a $2-billion investment fund that we are investing with very strongly across sectors, and have billions of dollars in AI infrastructure and our AI compute access fund, all of this to help stimulate growth, investment and job creation in this sector.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Budget 2025 saw massive investment in advancing artificial intelligence programs, such as the AI compute access fund and the AI sovereign compute infrastructure program, which received almost $1 billion in funding. Can you speak to how these investments push Canada to the forefront of AI research and its application for Canadian companies?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

You're seeing that these investments have really paid off. I'll go back to, first of all, the Deloitte study and the fact that we've had $100 billion of economic growth here because of this sector. For every dollar invested here from the federal government, we've had 10 times the return. That's just one example.

We're speaking about Cohere. The founders of Cohere studied under Geoffrey Hinton, who is, of course, the leader of the Vector Institute. Cohere is a Canadian-headquartered large language model developer. That's very important.

Just so Canadians appreciate this, when we talk about large language models, people may know ChatGPT and Anthropic—they hear about them—but Canada has Cohere. Only the U.S., China, France and Canada have large language models. Those are the kinds of systems that can generate language and their predictions.

This is a very important company. Canada has the intellectual property and technology here, and the growth is coming from Canada. That really stems from the fact that it begins with the world-leading research—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Can you wind up in the next five seconds?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

—and world-leading frontier scholarship that we have and support here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. Time is up.

We will now proceed to MP Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, good afternoon and thank you for being here.

My human intelligence network has heard some very strong words from you. I'll repeat them to make sure we're on the same page. You mentioned that it's important to rely on trust, which is essential. You talked about transparency.

Minister, you have refused six separate invitations from the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, while your department is conducting a consultation on artificial intelligence. According to what was revealed in La Presse, actors were able to submit anonymous responses to your public consultation.

You talk about transparency and trust, which leads me to ask you this question: How can Canadians trust your artificial intelligence strategy when anonymous actors, including potential foreign actors, can influence public policy while you refuse to answer questions in Parliament?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you for your question.

I'm going to answer you in English, because it's easier for me.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

We're used to that. That's fine.

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I understand the questions in French, but I speak French like a Spanish cow.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

As the Prime Minister says,

“Who cares?”

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

No, it's very important.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

That's okay. French is a secondary language. It's not an official language. We understand that.

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

It's a very important language, and I understand it well.

We are very proud of our task force. There are 28 members, whom we chose. Remember, they had 30 days. They submitted their proposals. We are currently making sure they are translated and coded, and all of them will be made public. That's the first thing.

Second, there are 11,300 public submissions, which we're also very proud of. All of those will be made public as well. This is a fully transparent process, and we want it to be, because this is the largest digital public engagement in our industry's history.

I'm also very proud of the fact—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

That answers my question, Minister. Thank you very much.

Today, you can assure us that the list of stakeholders from the consultation, as well as the briefs received, will be made public. Can you guarantee that foreign actors won't have anonymously influenced the consultation that's going to guide the pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy?

Minister, I'm speaking to you. I'm the one asking questions. I see that you aren't interested in this.

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you for your question. It's a very important one.

That's why I want to make sure I give you the exact right answer—always.

We will be making sure there are summaries of all the feedback we've received. Part of what's happening is that these public engagements will feed into our national AI strategy, which we're building and happy to talk about. We have an AI strategy, as you know, but we're building a new—

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

I'll use your words, “transparency” and “trust”.

Can you confirm today that the names, the consultations and the briefs submitted as part of the public consultation on your national strategy will be made public, yes or no?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I've said this before, but I'm very proud that we've already made the names of all 28 members of our task force public. You will be able to read them.

As for the 11,300 public submissions, I don't know every single public submission name.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

I understand that you're buying time and that you don't want to answer the question. Again, these are your words: “transparency” and “trust”. Trust is essential, and there's a need for transparency. Those are your own words, the ones you used in your opening remarks.

I'll go back to my question. Will you make public all the names of the people who contributed to the public consultation to ensure that no one is anonymous and that people don't think foreign forces are anonymously influencing Canada's pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

We are very transparent about the task force members we publicly asked to submit their proposals. We also opened up a portal where we had 11,300 interventions. This was a public consultation. We're very proud that Canadians intervened.

We are crafting our AI strategy very transparently, which is why I am here at committee. I'm very happy to talk about it.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

What you're doing today is dangerous. You can't give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to this question: Can we identify the people taking part in a public consultation so that we can ensure that a policy as important as the one on artificial intelligence isn't subject to any foreign interference?

Do you recognize the seriousness of your current inaction and irresponsibility?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you for your question.

We are very transparent and open. We put together a public task force that was chosen by 28 people. It was very public, very transparent. We will absolutely be publishing their reports. Everyone can see them. We are in the middle of translating them, and this is open and transparent. We had a public portal, which is exactly what government should do. They should ask the public to give their opinions on important subjects like AI, and we're very proud of it.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

We're going to find out the names of all the people who contributed to the public consultation, then, right?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

My deputy seems to want to answer, but we are very proud of the—