The Canadian government’s long-awaited and much-needed AI strategy is finally set to be unveiled this week, with AI minister Evan Solomon promising a plan that prioritizes AI adoption, investment, and regulatory guardrails to enhance trust, privacy and safety. My Globe and Mail op-ed argues the strategy seems doomed to fail, even before it is released, with the government’s own digital policies working against it. An astonishing series of developments in recent weeks amount to digital self-sabotage, leaving global technology giants alarmed and Canadian tech companies openly considering leaving the country.
Columns
Why The Senate Got Antisemitism Only Half-Right
Two months ago, I wrote about gunfire that hit the doors of several Toronto-area synagogues, including the Shaarei Shomayim, the synagogue where I was married. That round of violence led many to affirm yet again that supportive words alone could no longer meet the moment. My Hub Canada op-ed notes that last week, a Senate committee delivered its answer: a 73-page report with 22 recommendations, including a Digital Safety Commission, expanded hate-crime units, and the reinstatement of the Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism. These are serious proposals. But a report documenting antisemitism in Canada that cannot name the full problem cannot solve it.
Is Data De-Identification Dead?: Why the AI Privacy Risk Isn’t What It Learns, But What It Figures Out
In 1997, an MIT graduate student named Latanya Sweeney stunned the privacy world by matching publicly available voter rolls with hospital records stripped of names and addresses to identify the supposedly anonymous medical history of the then-governor of Massachusetts. Three years later, she expanded on that finding by demonstrating that 87 per cent of the U.S. population could be uniquely identified using just three data points: ZIP code, date of birth and gender.
My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that Ms. Sweeney’s work shaped privacy frameworks worldwide, which responded with de-identification standards designed to manage the risk by removing obvious identifiers, applying statistical tests and treating the resulting data as safe to use. Indeed, a core tenet of modern privacy regulation rests on the premise that de-identified data can be used, disclosed and commercialized without compromising individual privacy.
Heads They Win, Tails We Lose: What Lies Behind the U.S. Trade Battle For Control over Data
My Globe and Mail op-ed begins by noting that the Trump administration’s emphasis on tariffs continues to garner headlines, but a more consequential trade battle over data control is playing out with far less public attention. Last week, the U.S. released its annual report on trade barriers and for the first time, Canada was listed alongside dozens of other countries for seeking greater control over its own data. The message is clear: When countries enact laws that restrict where data is stored and who can access that information, the U.S. treats them as a trade threat.
Why the Verdict on Social Media Defective Design Harming Children Gets the Instinct Right But the Law Wrong
A California jury’s decision last week to hold Meta and YouTube liable for harms to a young woman’s mental health has been greeted as a watershed moment. Child safety advocates have called it Big Tech’s “Big Tobacco moment.” Parents who lost children to what they attribute to social media addiction embraced outside the courthouse. Commentators who have long argued that social media companies bear responsibility for the damage their services inflict on young users see the verdict as vindication.
My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the instinct behind the decision is understandable. The evidence at trial was damning, as internal Meta documents showed the company knew Instagram was harming adolescents but continued targeting them anyway. But the legal theory the jury endorsed – that social media platforms are defectively designed products – is the wrong tool for a real problem, and building on it risks undermining the very accountability the strategy seeks to deliver.
Recent Posts
AI for All, Details to Follow: Government Releases a Big-Spending AI Strategy That Is Still Short on the Specifics That Matter 
New Privacy Rights in the Morning, Mandatory Metadata Retention in the Afternoon: How Bill C-22 Undercuts the AI Strategy Before It Launches 
From Making Web Giants Pay to Making Taxpayers Pay: Government Announces Plan to Kill the CRTC’s Online Streaming Ruling 
Digital Self-Sabotage: Why Canada’s AI Strategy Is Set to Fail Before it Even Launches 
Why Mark Carney’s Antisemitism Speech Did Not Meet the Moment
