The federal government is moving full speed ahead to build the technology and infrastructure for an AI economy. Canadians are more hesitant. They have yet to buy into Ottawa’s vision of hyperscale AI data centres and widespread AI integration across public services, education, media and public life. 

Science-fiction scenarios of AI ending humanity have dominated recent headlines. But the more immediate concerns are rooted in the realities of an industry built around endless growth, concentrated power and efficiency at all costs. 

Ottawa says it wants to hear Canadians’ concerns. Its latest AI transparency consultation, which ran this summer, shows how public input gets filtered before it can change the government's course. 

In 2025, the federal government launched a "national sprint" to develop an AI strategy. The work fell to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), which opened a public survey and convened a 28-member task force, largely made up of AI industry executives, investors and academic researchers.

Unsurprisingly, the task force advocated for faster adoption, federal use of AI in public services to set a precedent for other sectors, streamlined approvals for data centres and compute capacity and support for Canadian companies to bring their AI tools to market.

This sits uncomfortably beside what Canadians told the government. More than 64,000 responses came from 11,300 participants, the largest public consultation in ISED’s history. The government’s own summary highlighted concerns about premature deployment, overhyped technologies such as........

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