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2023 US-Canada Summit by Eurasia Group CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/2osnFe4

An Illusion of Consensus: What the Government Isn’t Saying About the Results of its AI Consultation

The government quietly released a “what we heard” report this week discussing the response to its 30-day sprint AI consultation from last October. Described as the “largest public consultation in the history of ISED”, the report relies heavily on AI for its analysis as the government notes that it used “Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5 nano, Anthropic Claude Haiku and Google Gemini Flash to read through the submissions and identify common themes.” Given that it received 64,600 responses to 26 questions, it says AI enabled it to shrink a process that would typically take many months into a matter of weeks.

In addition to the public consultation survey, AI Minister Evan Solomon formed a 28 person expert committee that provided the government with 32 different papers and reports. Those documents were similarly subject to AI analysis with the “what we heard” report devoting several pages to the expert analysis and recommendations. Yet unlike the public survey responses, the government has posted all the experts’ reports, which allows the public to see the actual advice alongside the government’s summary of it.

Since the government used AI to summarize the expert reports, I thought I would do the same.

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February 4, 2026 — 0 comments — News
google cup by keso s https://flic.kr/p/eP7rU CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 256: Jennifer Quaid on Taking On Big Tech With the Competition Act’s Private Right of Access

Concerns about the dominance of big tech companies has been steadily mounting for years, leading to an increased emphasis on the role that competition law might play. The government recently expanded the tool set within the Competition Act by expanding the private right of access that enables individuals to launch their own claims. That led quickly to a case against Google, which the Competition Tribunal addressed in a recent ruling.

To help unpack the state of the law, the Tribunal’s decision and what it means for future actions, my colleague Professor Jennifer Quaid joins the Law Bytes podcast. Professor Quaid is an internationally recognized leading legal expert and scholar in the fields of organizational criminal liability, corporate accountability, competition and business regulation as well as a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

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February 2, 2026 — 2 comments — Podcasts
CeBIT_2011_Samstag_PD_118 by Bin im Garten, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Government Says There Are No Plans for National Digital ID To Access Services

The government has confirmed that it has no plans to create a national identification system. The issue arose in a sessional paper response released this week to a question from Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu. Gladu asked “With regard to the government’s implementation of a digital identification that will be mandatory to access government services and pay taxes: what is the plan and progress of the government on the implementation of a digital identification and what are the implementation dates for each phase?” The government’s short answer: “the Government of Canada is not implementing a federal or national digital identification credential.”

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January 29, 2026 — 3 comments — News
Profile_Photo_of_Marc_Miller_at_a_press_conference by Satiricalman, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Government Reveals Digital Policy Priorities in Trio of Responses to Canadian Heritage Committee Reports

The Canadian government has responded to three reports focused on digital policies from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, shedding new light on potential future policies and priorities. The three reports – on tech giants, local media, and harms caused by illegal sexually explicit materials posted online – recommended a wide range of measures that include new laws, regulations, and government programs. The government sidesteps some of the recommended legislative reforms in its responses signed by Heritage Minister Marc Miller, suggesting limited interest in committing to broad-based platform liability rules.

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January 28, 2026 — 3 comments — News
van-8 by Ekō CC BY 4.0 https://flic.kr/p/2rRNqfd

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 255: Grappling with Grok – Heidi Tworek on the Limits of Canadian Law

The Law Bytes podcast is back, starting with an episode on the limits of Canadian law in addressing the concerns associated with Grok AI, the AI chatbot that garnered global attention over the widespread creation and distribution of AI-generated sexualized deep fakes. Weaving together online harms, privacy, AI regulation, and platform regulation into a single issue, there have been service bans in some countries but Canada has thus far struggled to respond.

To help understand what has taken place and Canada’s law and policy options, Professor Heidi Tworek returns to the Law Bytes podcast. Professor Tworek is the Canada Research Chair and Professor of History and Public Policy at the University of British Columbia, where she also directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Her work explores how new communications technologies affect democracy in the past and present and she served on the government’s online harms advisory board.

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January 26, 2026 — 5 comments — Podcasts
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