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.
Post Tagged with: "usmca"
Know When to Fold Em: The Big Risk Behind Canada’s Digital Services Tax Bet
The Globe and Mail runs my opinion piece on Canada’s digital services tax today. I open by noting that the Canadian government’s efforts to regulate big tech companies sometimes feels like a series of high-stakes poker matches in which the government foolishly bets that readily apparent risks can be ignored. That approach has proven costly: the plan to regulate internet streaming services is now mired in multiple legal challenges in court, while news links on Facebook and Instagram have been blocked in Canada for nearly a year in response to the Online News Act.
The latest high-risk strategy involves the implementation of a digital services tax, which could lead to billions in tariff retaliation targeting some of Canada’s most important economic sectors.
The Biden Visit to Canada: Why Digital Policy is Emerging as a Serious Trade Tension
The U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Ottawa this week has begun to place the spotlight on the mounting tensions over digital policy. For months, Canadian officials have not only been dismissive of the issue, but – as this week’s fishing expedition into Google and Facebook demonstrates – have not shied away from making the issue front and centre. I have been posting about trade-related risks with Canadian digital policy for months, noting that the risks are real and could result in billions in retaliatory tariffs that hits some of Canada’s most sensitive sectors. Indeed, this issue has been raised at every major meeting between senior trade officials for the past year. Is retaliation likely to happen? Certainly not immediately, but the longer the issues fester, the greater the impediment to advancing Canadian trade priorities. As Scottie Greenwood notes, “these are top-of-mind issues. They are not a small obscure issue.”
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 155: Mark Swartz on the Harm Caused by Canada’s Copyright Term Extension
Many Canadians started the new year with an unwelcome surprise as they learned that Canada had extended the term of copyright by additional 20 years with no mitigation measures or efforts to limit the harmful effects of the policy. That the extension did not get much attention was seemingly by design as the government buried it in a budget implementation bill and posted no news releases on it. Mark Swartz is a Scholarly Publishing Librarian at Queen’s University and has been an active participant in copyright reform issues for many years. He recently published an op-ed in the Toronto Star and Hill Times identifying both the harms of term extension and potential mitigation measures. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about Canada’s approach to copyright term extension, the impact on the public domain, and what could come next.
“Ongoing Concerns”: U.S. Objections to Canadian Digital Policies Spreads to the Senate
U.S. concerns with Canadian digital policy continues to mount with both the U.S. Administration and Senators from both parties raising fears of discrimination. U.S. pressure seems likely to grow as the issue emerges as a major irritant in the bi-lateral trade relationship with Canada’s most important trading partner. With U.S. President Joe Biden scheduled to visit Ottawa later this winter, it seems likely that digital policy – particularly a proposed digital services tax, Bill C-11, and Bill C-18 – will be on the agenda at the meeting.
The latest signals came last week at a bilateral meeting between U.S. and Canadian trade officials. The U.S. readout of the meeting states:
Recent Posts
Why the Government’s Plan for a Social Media Ban in Bill C-34 Is Unconstitutional 
Outdated Data and Dubious Comparisons: Digging into the Government’s AI Strategy Adoption Claims 
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
