Given concerns about what the U.S. envisioned for “digital trade alignment,” consider the possibility that the package required Canada to keep its cloud market open to U.S. companies, gave them equivalent access to government procurement, and restricted the implementation of a “Buy Canadian” approach to sovereign cloud. The U.S. would also set the
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An AI Transparency Act for Canada: My Submission to the Government’s AI Transparency Consultation
The government’s consultation on AI transparency closed yesterday. My submission builds on appearances before the House of Commons Industry committee, the Senate Transport and Communications committee, and the Senate Social Affairs committee, and recommends an AI Transparency Act built on three pillars: mandatory public disclosure of AI corporate safety and escalation policies,…
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…
Named to Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers
Canadian Lawyer released its 2026 list of the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada yesterday and I am grateful to be included. This is the fourth time I have appeared on the list, but the first since 2013, when the issues of the day were copyright reform and usage-based billing rather than artificial intelligence…
TMU Picks Damage Control Over Fixing the Damage: Behind Its Shameful Response to the Devastating Benotto Report on Campus Antisemitism
Last fall, two incidents at Toronto Metropolitan University attracted national attention: the September 2025 disruption by the group Students for Justice in Palestine at TMU of a Democracy Forum event featuring federal AI minister Evan Solomon that ended in an arrest, and the November 2025 storming of an off-campus event hosted by Students Supporting Israel…
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network
Sovereignty, whether digital sovereignty, data sovereignty, or AI sovereignty, has been the hot-button issue in Canada for months. Governments have shifted policies in hopes of addressing the issue, the public has expressed interest in Canadian alternatives, and the business community has rushed to meet that interest. But what does it actually take to create a…
From CCH to ChatGPT: How Canadian Copyright Law Played the Key Role in Deciding a Leading AI Training Data Case in India
The Delhi High Court has released what may be one of the most consequential copyright decisions yet on artificial intelligence, ruling in ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. v. OpenAI that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted news articles to train the models behind ChatGPT is prima facie fair dealing. The 135-page decision of Justice Amit Bansal, released last…
Outdated Data and Dubious Comparisons: Digging into the Government’s AI Strategy Adoption Claims
The government’s national AI strategy is largely framed around the notion that Canada has an AI adoption problem. At the launch last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney said that “only 12% of Canadian businesses are using AI today” and presented the strategy as a plan to address concerns that Canada lags behind other countries.…
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…
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…