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Quebec Wants Artificial Intelligence. Just Not on America’s Terms

Local developers are building medical tools that follow the province’s rules and speak its language

Quebec’s unique history and fierce protection of French have long pushed it to do things on its own terms. That can be inefficient: overlapping bureaucracies, different regulations, more economic friction with the rest of Canada. But there’s a flip side to going your own way. It can force you to innovate. In 1965, Hydro-Québec pioneered ultra-high-voltage transmission to carry electricity vast distances from remote generating stations. Quebec’s bet on subsidized child care became an influential piece of social policy. Now the province is applying that same logic to artificial intelligence. If existing options aren’t built for Quebec, build ones that are.

American medical AI tools don’t meet the needs of Quebec guidelines and protocols

Quebec AI companies have spent years developing new systems and tools for medical questions, note-taking, and surgery

The province’s public health care network, however, still uses antiquated systems for data-keeping and communications

Health care offers a particularly clear example. A recent Le Devoir article explains why the realities of Quebec medicine can make American AI tools a bad fit. OpenEvidence, for example, is a popular US-made platform that helps doctors quickly find and make sense of medical research. Physicians interviewed for the report, however, complain that the technology doesn’t account for guidelines from Quebec’s National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services, the College of Physicians of Quebec, and Quebec care protocols. And because medical practices on either side of the border differ significantly when it comes to drug-management guidelines, immunization, treatment options, and broader philosophies of care, it makes sense the province would want systems that acknowledge its own needs.

One answer is IA Medica, built specifically for Québécois and Canadian family physicians. It grew out of Wikimedica, an open-access digital encyclopedia founded in 2017 by Quebec doctors Michaël St-Gelais and Antoine........

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