Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a new artificial intelligence strategy Thursday in the hopes of increasing Canadians’ use of the technology. 

“The question isn’t whether AI will transform our lives. It will. AI is already changing how we work, how we learn and how we connect,” he said. 

“The question is, will it improve the lives of all Canadians or benefit only a few? And that’s why we must take a positive, pragmatic and prudent approach that builds safe, reliable and sovereign AI for workers and businesses, for Canada, and for our allies.”

The plan includes a pledge to boost the public’s trust in AI by offering free training. It also promises legislation aimed at tackling concerns about surveillance pricing and chatbot safety. 

The strategy promises to create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs for young people and offers what it calls a “pro-worker” approach. 

It says that a wider adoption of AI could help create 250,000 new jobs by 2031. 

The Conference Board of Canada previously projected that, under high adoption scenarios, a “short-term pain” period could lead to the loss of 555,000 jobs by 2030. 

In a technical briefing for reporters, government officials did not share their modeling for potential job losses, saying predictions vary widely. 

They said so far there has not been much displacement in the economy, and that $50 million was provided to Statistics Canada to help monitor that aspect of AI adoption.

Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman said her party is “obviously skeptical about the government’s claim of creating thousands more jobs… when there is a youth unemployment rate of almost 15 per cent.” 

“[Young people need] to get into a job market where their productivity can be enhanced with AI, not replaced by AI,” she said.

Trust as a key pillar 

The strategy talks about a “major adoption gap” when it comes to AI in Canada, and suggests literacy and training will increase public trust in the technology.

The document mentions offering entry-level AI training to all Canadians, and ensuring post-secondary students have access to trusted AI agents. 

When asked to define“’trusted AI agents” during a technical briefing, government officials said more details would be released in the coming weeks, and offered no estimated cost for the initiative.

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Speaking in French at the announcement, Carney said his government intends on introducing  legislation on protection of children and use of AI in the coming weeks, but otherwise offered little detail on the future direction of AI regulation.

Melissa Robertson, AI and technology lead at the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, said trust cannot be a policy objective on its own. 

“It requires clear accountability, transparency and confidence that AI risks are being managed effectively. Businesses and workers will be looking for greater clarity on what comes next.”

New supports for AI initiatives

While the strategy talks a lot about sovereignty, it does not include new funding for compute infrastructure and instead leans on $2 billion in previously announced investments. 

However, the government is also putting $500 million toward establishing a Canadian Tech Growth Fund. The strategy says the fund “will provide flexible growth capital and investment support, and enable the federal government, at times, to take equity stakes in the most promising Canadian AI firms.”

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The government suggests the new Sovereign Wealth Fund could be used to support “emerging national champions.”

More details on how the Canadian Tech Growth Fund or the Sovereign Wealth Fund could be used to support AI initiatives will be revealed in the coming weeks, according to government officials speaking during the technical briefing for reporters.

Elephant in the room

The AI strategy does not address the power needs that will come with a wider buildout of data centers. 

The document speaks of how Canada’s mostly renewable energy will enable data centres to operate on some of the cleanest power sources in the world. 

It does not talk about how Alberta has become a hot spot for data centre proposals, and how many of these projects are eyeing natural gas for their baseload power. 

With files from Anja Karadeglija of The Canadian Press