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Why Being Locked Out of Frontier AI is The Sovereignty Threat Canada Missed
For months, questions about digital sovereignty have dominated the Canadian digital policy landscape, with many concerned about domestic control over both computing infrastructure and the data that fuels the digital economy. The debate reflected mounting unease over the risks of relying on non-Canadian companies for what have become essential services, and fears that Canadian privacy safeguards could be overridden by foreign courts or governments. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that these remain real concerns, but the past few weeks have revealed an overlooked threat that similarly speaks to a loss of control. While Canadians have been worried about others controlling our infrastructure or using our data, we have lost sight of the risks of Canada being locked out of the most capable artificial-intelligence models, with consequences that could leave the country in the second tier of AI.
Blocked Twice: How Bill C-34’s Kids’ Social Media Ban Would Compound the Online News Act’s Harm to Young Canadians’ News Access
Bill C-34’s proposed social media ban for kids has rightly attracted considerable criticism since the bill was tabled last month, given that it requires age verification for most Canadians to use social media and the government plans to implement it before privacy safeguards are in place. Moreover, as I wrote last week, mounting data from Australia indicates that bans simply do not work. Thanks to a reader for pointing to a new Australian study that identifies yet another cost: young people’s access to news. The concern has resonance in Canada, where youth access to news on social media has already been undermined by the Online News Act, which prompted Meta to block news links on Facebook and Instagram. Bill C-34 would exacerbate the problem by cutting kids off TikTok and YouTube, which emerged as important news sources after the Meta news link block.
The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban
As regular readers know, the Canadian plan to establish a social media ban for under 16s in Bill C-34 is based largely on the Australian model that took effect last December. With more data on the ban’s effectiveness continuing to roll in, multiple studies now confirm that it simply hasn’t worked as the majority of under-age users still have access to social media accounts. Yet rather than treating that as a reason to reconsider the model, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament in late June that his government is working “as a priority” to strengthen the law. The failure highlights a troubling correlation: the better the privacy protection, the less effective the ban. In other words, since users will find ways to circumvent the ban, “strengthening” the law likely means less privacy and more surveillance.
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22
When the government rushed Bill C-22 through the House of Commons last month, it defended the lawful access mandatory metadata retention requirement as consistent with similar rules established by Canada’s Five Eyes allies. Yet the U.S. has never imposed a comparable obligation to retain every subscriber’s transmission data, and this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that further solidifies the view that Bill C-22 is disproportionate and inconsistent with widely held understandings of privacy.
The Two Weeks That Reshaped Canada’s Digital Policy
It started with an unexpected early-morning announcement on June 3, 2026, from Marc Miller, the Minister of Identity and Culture. Mr. Miller said that the government planned to direct the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada’s broadcast regulator, to review its two-week-old decision that imposed hundreds of millions in new investment requirements on internet streaming services. My Globe and Mail essay that appeared over the weekend notes that the move came as a surprise, not only because he had chastised the commission a month earlier for moving too slowly, but also because it marked a major reversal of a core Canadian digital policy that had been years in the making. The decision sent shock waves through the cultural sector, but it was only the start.
Recent Posts
Why Being Locked Out of Frontier AI is The Sovereignty Threat Canada Missed 
Blocked Twice: How Bill C-34’s Kids’ Social Media Ban Would Compound the Online News Act’s Harm to Young Canadians’ News Access 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 275: David Loukidelis on Why Stripping Privacy Enforcement from Canada’s Privacy Commissioner in Bill C-36 is Unnecessarily Risky Policy 
The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban 
Shaky Ground Gets Shakier: What the U.S. Supreme Court’s Location Data Decision Means for Bill C-22
