Canada convenes task force to update national AI strategy
Montreal - The Liberal government will update Canada's national AI strategy and has convened a task force of 20 leaders from business and civil society to guide the work, according to AI Minister Evan Solomon. The announcement signals a new phase for how Ottawa funds research, regulates risk, and deploys AI across public services.
For public servants, this is the moment to get your house in order: clarify use cases, risks, and resource needs. The task force will look for clear input from departments, provinces, municipalities, and crown organizations that need standards and support to deliver responsibly.
Why this matters for government
- Policy direction: Expect updates that recalibrate funding, safety standards, and public-sector adoption.
- Compliance pressure: Risk management, privacy, and procurement will get tighter and more specific.
- Service delivery: Departments will be expected to show measurable outcomes from AI pilots, not experiments for their own sake.
- Economic goals: Support for industry, startups, and skills will be tied to national competitiveness and trust.
Likely focus areas of the update
- Safety and risk standards: Clear rules for high-risk use, testing, evaluation, and incident reporting.
- Public-sector adoption: Guidance on procurement, vendor accountability, model evaluation, and audit trails.
- Compute and infrastructure: Access to secure, affordable compute for research and public projects.
- Data governance: Privacy-by-design, security baselines, and responsible use of public datasets, including Indigenous data sovereignty.
- Skills and workforce: Upskilling plans for public servants and support for domestic talent pipelines.
- International alignment: Consistency with trusted frameworks such as the OECD AI Principles and the G7's safety processes.
OECD AI Principles | Pan-Canadian AI Strategy (CIFAR)
What your department can do now
- Map current and planned AI use: purpose, models, datasets, vendors, affected services, expected outcomes.
- Create a risk register: categorize by impact on rights, safety, fairness, security, and financial exposure.
- Set evaluation baselines: accuracy thresholds, bias checks, privacy tests, red-teaming, and human oversight steps.
- Stand up governance: name accountable executives, approval gates, and incident response workflows.
- Procurement checklist: data handling, IP, model update cadence, audit rights, on-prem vs. cloud, exit clauses.
- Data readiness audit: data quality, lineage, consent, retention, and access controls.
- Stakeholder engagement: include unions, accessibility leads, privacy officers, and impacted communities early.
- Pilot with safeguards: start small, measure impact, publish results, and iterate.
- Train teams: policy, privacy, security, and delivery staff need common concepts and shared playbooks.
How to engage the task force
- Prepare a concise briefing: your top three use cases, risks, and asks (funding, standards, shared services).
- Identify cross-jurisdiction needs: areas where provinces, municipalities, and crowns require shared guidance or tools.
- Propose measurable outcomes: service metrics, cost savings, wait-time reductions, compliance hits avoided.
- Share lessons learned: what worked in pilots, what failed, and what you would change.
Public-sector training and tools
If you're building capacity across policy, service delivery, or compliance, explore role-specific options for your teams.
Bottom line: the update will raise expectations. Come ready with clear priorities, practical safeguards, and a plan to deliver measurable results that protect the public interest.
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