The committee studied the opportunities, risks and regulation of artificial intelligence in Canada's strategic industries. Appearing were Barry Sookman (senior counsel, McCarthy Tétrault, as an individual), Ewan Reid (founder and CEO, Mission Control Space Services Inc.), Hon. Brian Gallant (CEO, Space Canada), Marie-Julie Desrochers (executive director, Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions), Christian Laforce (executive director, Copibec), Samuel Buteau (consulting program officer, ControlAI), and Sasha Luccioni (co-founder and chief scientific officer, Sustainable AI Group). The meeting was linked to Bill C-27.
Barry Sookman argued that new AI-specific laws would slow deployment in Canada, as unique requirements could chill innovation and drive talent and capital to jurisdictions like the U.S. or U.K. He recommended a decentralized, use-based regulatory model rather than a prescriptive, technology-focused one, and suggested Canada adopt targeted rules for areas like child protection and critical infrastructure, similar to U.S. state laws, rather than a broad AI bill.
Ewan Reid described his company's work deploying AI on spacecraft for tasks like wildfire detection, emphasizing that physical AI differs from large language models. He recommended that Canada preference fully Canadian-owned AI solutions in procurement and regulation, require foreign AI companies to disclose training data and keep sensitive data on Canadian servers, and support domestic AI infrastructure to reduce reliance on foreign entities, citing a disruption when OpenAI acquired a key service provider.
Hon. Brian Gallant stressed that Canada must adopt AI to boost lagging productivity, but with safeguards, trust and sovereign data infrastructure. He called for a coordinated national approach aligning AI policy with industrial, defence and space objectives, and recommended stronger protections for Canadian IP and strategic data, as well as continued government consultation with industry to remain nimble as AI evolves.
Marie-Julie Desrochers advocated for the ART principles—authorization, remuneration and transparency—in AI regulation, arguing that the Copyright Act must not be amended to include a text and data mining exception. She urged Canada to follow Australia's lead in rejecting such an exception, require mandatory transparency on training data and AI-generated content, and protect cultural exceptions in trade agreements like CUSMA.
Christian Laforce echoed the ART principles and recommended that the Copyright Act have no exception for text and data mining, and that any government investment in AI companies include clauses requiring compliance with copyright law. He noted that Copibec has developed tools to detect unauthorized content scraping and called for legislation to protect creators, as self-regulation is insufficient.
Samuel Buteau warned that superintelligent AI poses a grave national security threat, citing Anthropic's Mythos model that autonomously hacked systems. He recommended that Canada publicly recognize this threat, monitor its development, and lead a global coalition for a trust-but-verify regime to prevent superintelligent AI anywhere, using diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions and monitoring of precursors like large data centres and automated AI research.
Sasha Luccioni emphasized that AI has significant environmental impacts from energy and water use, and that Canada should focus on transparent, green AI rather than competing with foreign hyperscale models. She recommended mandating disclosure of full life-cycle environmental footprints for AI models, implementing energy certifications, and ensuring that public supercomputing infrastructure is powered by renewable energy and integrated into existing infrastructure to reuse waste heat.
The committee also heard from members of Parliament who questioned witnesses on topics such as the adequacy of current IP protections for publicly funded companies, the need for sovereign launch capacity and satellite data ownership, and the importance of consulting the cultural sector on AI strategy. No procedural debate, motions or votes were recorded in the transcript.
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