The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology (INDU) met on April 30, 2026, to continue its study on artificial intelligence (AI). Witnesses included Roch Leblanc (Unifor), James Beer (Qu Data Centres), Dr. Barry C. Sanders (University of Calgary), Nathalie Blais (CUPE), Corey Mandryk (United Steelworkers), Fenwick McKelvey (Concordia University), Lisa Lambert (Quantum Industry Canada), and Jim Balsillie (CIGI).
Roch Leblanc, speaking for the Canadian Telecommunications Workers Alliance, argued that Canada must assert autonomy over its telecom and digital infrastructure to guarantee digital sovereignty, as foreign-owned AI tools and data centres outside Canada pose risks to personal information. He called for a permanent tripartite working group on AI including employers, labour, and civil society, and recommended repatriating call centres, restricting AI-based workplace surveillance, and prohibiting the use of AI to deceive Canadians, such as masking offshore agents' accents.
James Beer recommended that the federal government define "sovereign AI" to require data centres on Canadian soil, Canadian employees and management, and adherence to Canadian values. He urged that strategic sectors like banking, energy, health care, and defence be required to use sovereign data centre infrastructure, and that new funding and tax incentives be delivered to scale domestic sovereign AI infrastructure.
Dr. Barry C. Sanders discussed the co-evolution of AI and quantum technologies, noting that AI can advance quantum computing, sensing, and communication, while quantum computing could eventually influence AI. He called for adaptive governance that can evolve with technology, coherence across government mandates, and coordination with partners like NATO and the G7 to avoid policies that work against each other.
Nathalie Blais emphasized that AI policy must include social dialogue with workers and civil society, not just corporate voices, to address risks like job losses, data leaving Canada, and bias in AI systems. She noted that the government's focus on commercialization overlooks the common good and called for public education on how AI works, as well as stronger protections for critical sectors like telecommunications.
Corey Mandryk highlighted that telecom workers are anxious about AI replacing jobs and that the government needs to act quickly to provide reassurance. He cited the offshoring of Rogers' network operations to India as a concern, arguing that when operational control leaves Canadian borders, data sovereignty and national security are compromised, and that workers' hands-on knowledge must be included in AI policy discussions.
Fenwick McKelvey argued that AI regulation must be social as well as economic, protecting human rights and addressing gender-based impacts. He called for greater participation from social sciences, arts, and humanities in the pan-Canadian AI strategy, better public participation in policy development, and special consideration for Indigenous voices. He criticized the voluntary code of conduct on generative AI as non-binding and performative.
Lisa Lambert stressed that AI and quantum are distinct technologies requiring separate policy treatment, though they are converging. She warned that adversaries are already harvesting encrypted data for future decryption by quantum computers, making the migration to post-quantum cryptography urgent. She recommended that the government ensure department migration plans are credible, extend expectations to the entire economy, and use procurement to pull the market forward.
Jim Balsillie argued that Canada's economic thinking remains rooted in the 1970s, leading to a structural 40-year decline in productivity and a trillion-dollar GDP divergence with the U.S. He called for fit-for-purpose privacy legislation, expertise in economic statecraft via regulatory frameworks, and sovereign commercial alternatives such as sovereign compute and national digital rails. He criticized the government for giving $240 million to a foreign company under a sovereign compute program and for being absent from global standards bodies where AI governance is being shaped.
The committee heard from members of Parliament who questioned witnesses on topics including the risks of offshoring telecom jobs, the need for social dialogue, the importance of domestic data centres, and the urgency of post-quantum cybersecurity. No procedural debate, motions, or votes were recorded in the transcript.
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