Industry committee  No. I think what's happened since the original draft of this is that generative technologies have come to the fore. We used to think of data...and then you run an algorithm against it to get a result. Now you have data and an algorithm trains off it and says goodbye. I will say—and this is beyond the scope of this committee—that you now have to think of what the infrastructure of a sovereign country is, because Europe has done what's called Gaia-X, a sovereign cloud.

Industry committee  If I may, I'm going to answer this a little indirectly. I dialogue a lot at the subnational level with premiers who are grappling with issues of data and identity systems and so on. People like to talk about efficiency. I explain to them that they must first invest in trust in governance.

Industry committee  Yes, I would like to put the sock on first with AI. First of all, I said in my testimony that we should start over with AI. I agree. Second, I think that the tribunal should be scrapped. There's no purpose for it other than to undermine the effective process. I do think that the privacy provisions can be fixed, but you have to fix them comprehensively.

Industry committee  Yes, in Europe, for adequacy—and don't assume this bill will get adequacy in Europe—the two most sensitive types of information are children's information and political party information, which were not included in Bill C-27. There's a minimum standard in British Columbia, and the political parties under the budget bill are claiming that they trump that under a judicial review right now, which is effectively no oversight whatsoever.

Industry committee  Bill C-27 turbocharges surveillance capitalism. I talked to Shoshana last week, and we worked through this. She is coming here in February. This turbocharge is insane.

Industry committee  I don't know who came up with this idea of a tribunal. I think it's a mistake; it shouldn't be there. It undermines the courts. It undermines the commissioner. I think it just adds another layer, as you said. If you're a corporation trying to negotiate with the commissioner, you'll just shrug your shoulders and say, “I'll see you in the tribunal”, which is quasi-judicial.

Industry committee  No, I do not. I think the mistake with the creators, particularly in relation to Ms. Vipond's comment on AI, is that the government put its shoes on first and is now trying to put on its socks, and we have to start over. You begin with the consultation and the dialogue with the stakeholders.

Industry committee  We have to understand that we live in a world of digital mediation that has economic and non-economic effects, but how we govern these is through social structures. When the car was invented, we decided there should be speed limits in front of schools and blood alcohol limits.

Industry committee  I welcome your question. Not to drop names, but I keep very close relationships with good friends on this, like Beeban Kidron, who is founder and chair of the U.K. 5Rights Foundation for kids, and Shoshana Zuboff, with whom I am very close and we'll be here together in Ottawa in February with many other developmental psychologists.

Industry committee  The answer is no, because so many of the people who consent are forced into a consent model or there's implied consent or there's no need to disclose there is consent. There are aspects of algorithms that who knows if you can contest if you don't know what's going on. Look at the mental health crisis for our kids.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  Yes. I went to the government when they said they had the first national AI strategy, and they said there were no documents. That was reported in the news—in The Globe and Mail—in February.

Industry committee  But you still have five holes in your bucket, so it's not a bucket. That's my point. The point is that incompleteness is deeply harmful, with the nature of the knowledge economy and the data economy. That's why Canada is faltering with these prosperity and citizen wellness effects.

Industry committee  To contrast it with bill 25 in Quebec and its effect on Quebec, I think the strategic approach of Bill C-27 will disproportionately harm Quebec, worse than any other region in Canada, for several reasons. Number one, when you commodify social relationships and cultural properties and they can be exfiltrated and exploited, then you diminish the distinct social society in its control within the province.

Industry committee  Well, the nature of the contemporary economy, the data economy, is that you absorb data on people to manipulate them, and you use that data to do all kinds of things that benefit the keeper, the controller, of that data, who puts them into algorithms. My view of this is that you need to deal with this ex ante.