Post Tagged with: "digital sovereignty"

Mark_Carney_with_Ursula_von_der_Leyen by European Union, 2026, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Elbows Up With Europe Too: Why Canada’s Pivot to the EU Raises the Same Digital Sovereignty Questions as the U.S.

Canada’s pivot to Europe continues to accelerate with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech to the European Parliament today, the call for Canada to become the first “associate member” of the EU, negotiations on a Canada-EU Digital Trade Agreement launched earlier this year that could conclude this fall, and an upcoming summit that could bring even further measures. In the wake of the collapse of trade talks between Canada and the U.S., closer relations with the EU are an obvious alternative. While U.S. demands on digital policy (notably the cancellation of the DST and streaming payments) have attracted some criticism in Canada, a European shift is likely to substitute one pressure point for another, with some of the same questions about Canadian digital sovereignty in play. Indeed, the EU has exported its regulatory standards around the world for decades, and trading U.S. “digital trade alignment” for a European digital regulatory model will still raise many of the same “elbows up” questions about whether Canada gets to set its own digital policies.

Be Careful What You Wish For: Why Asking Google Maps to Defy the U.S. on Lake Ontario Would Undermine Canadian Digital Sovereignty

I woke up early on Monday morning for 14 interviews focused on digital sovereignty on CBC Radio stations across the country (here’s the Manitoba version). Most opened the discussion by asking what digital sovereignty means. My answer was that it is about choice: the ability of Canadians to choose the digital services they use and the ability to ensure that Canadian law applies to those services here. Several hosts then cited the emerging Google Maps controversy, in which U.S. users now see “Lake America” while Canadians continue to see “Lake Ontario”. The reference made sense in the moment, but on reflection, I don’t think the mapping case is an example of digital sovereignty gone wrong. This may not be a popular opinion, but the incident demonstrates the opposite since Canadian rules are being respected domestically and large Internet platforms are refraining from using their power to decide which rules to follow.

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.