Hi everybody, I'm Steve Pacin and we are in Waterlue tonight, part of Ontario's Tech Triangle at CG, the center for international governance innovation because our topic tonight is tech and governance. It is hardly a news flash that our lives and economy increasingly happen in the digital world. And the backbone of that world currently is not Canadian. It's mostly big tech, mostly foreignowned, mostly interested in their bottom lines. Why that matters for people, for Canada's economy and democracy, is our subject for tonight.

We've got a very full house here tonight. And I want to start by just doing a little survey of this audience because I mean, if every hand in the room doesn't go up here, I'm going to be shocked, but let's try anyway. How many people in this room used to own a Blackberry? Hands up. Okay. Practically every hand in the room goes up. How many people here used to use Corell for graphics or Word Perfect? >> What? A lot of hands still going up. Does anybody in this room remember Nortell? >> All the hands go up. Okay. Yes. Lots of snaps here from Vas as well. Craig, I asked these questions because once upon a time, Canadians got out of the gate pretty quickly and pretty boldly when the digital revolution began. It seemed to have lots of promise and then it didn't. What happened?

I think that uh Canadians are great innovators and uh we suffer from being able to execute continuously and in the in the cases of the names you mentioned I think they draw a lot of attention internationally from other countries that don't necessarily operate with the same level of uh legal transparency as we do in Canada and with that comes a lot of uh trade secret loss over time and I think uh specifically in the case of Nortell I think it's a pretty well-ritten story about the the loss of trade secrets there and uh I think but parallel to that it really is as a as a Canadian tech organization like that I represent we have to constantly be innovating and looking around the corner and I think it's easy to become uh you rest on your laurels after a period of time

you know it's it's hard to remember this far back but Nortell fast was a 13 billion dollar company and it doesn't exist what would you add to what we just heard about what's gone wrong >> to our history with Nortell. I would offer that those companies uh came before the explosion of surveillance capitalism that we see now and the uh dominance of the intangible economy in our everyday lives. So when we think about that interdependence mostly with the US as you hit on in your introduction, that's something that's historically much newer than those companies. And you got to wonder if you went to market right now with a sovereign secure device that also had a messaging program on it that wasn't me wasn't reading and scanning your messages that there'd be a pretty big market for it.

Indeed. Mark, what would you add? >> Uh, you know, I think there's a a little bit of a thing where we think too much inside of our own bubble. I mean, think about Nortell. It really was a Canadian company with a Canadian mindset. And I don't think any of those three companies you mentioned really figured out to some degree at surveillance capitalism, but how the tech industry was evolving. And when I look at a company like Shopify, I mean, I I sit and I shudder. Will that go the way of a Blackberry or are they on to something different? And and it feels like they're on to something different in that they really are looking across the whole value chain. they kind of have a a consumer really product oriented way to where how do they get that Shopify thing in every store? How do they get it in every online retailer? I mean they really and how do they use AI? So I I think it is really learning from the best in the world in terms of how you build a tech company and then doing it from Canada and looking out to the world. And I don't think we've always done that. I think we've sometimes been a little parochial.

We're going to hear this expression digital sovereignty a lot tonight. And I guess we should start by just saying, Vass, maybe you can help us out on this. What What does that mean? When we talk about digital sovereignty, we're we're referring to what? >> Yeah. Well, the government of Canada offered a fresh definition. If I can take us back to Halloween 2025, same day as one of the World Series game, this policy update happens, right? I almost kind of thought it was not a joke at first, but I was like, no one drops a policy on Halloween with a World Series game. And uh >> apparently we did. >> We did. This is why it sticks in my mind. Um that digital sovereignty is the ability of a state to govern digital assets and services no matter where the data is held basically. So do you have the capacity with the frameworks that you have and the infrastructure that you have that supports the intangible economy to make decisions and govern it in the public interest, the national interest. That's what digital sovereignty fundamentally asks.

So Mark, if one means we're doing a horrific job at it, we have no sovereignty whatsoever over our digital assets and 10 means we demand, where are we right now? >> Well, I might pick a a fight with the government's definition. But, you know, even my definition or theirs, I would think we're probably at about a three. Like, we're just not there. But I think part of the challenge is really if you think about like personal sovereignty, but also as a nation, yes, it's about can you govern, but do you really have control? Do we have resilience? Do you have choice? Do you have dependencies on others where the rug can be pulled out from you? And I think actually if you look at that dependencies on others where the rug can be pulled out from you, we might be down at a two or a one. We're really relying on other people's tech. We got to play by their rules.

Give me an example of that. Well, I mean an example of that you you know you saw with the European I think the court of justice where but you know a kind of international court where Trump didn't like what some of the people were saying and Microsoft shut off some of their email addresses. That's the rug being pulled out. >> So if you're in France and you actually have control, you have digital sovereignty over your stuff, that's not going to affect you in a way. If you're in Canada and you have, you know, it's hosted on ThinkCon or on your own computer or it's open source software where nobody can actually shut it off or, you know, anything that gives you control whether it comes from Canada or not. That's sovereignty.

Can you just give us the 30 secondond spiel about what Think on is and what you do? >> Sure. We're a Canadian founded and based cloud service provider that's immune to the US laws like the cloud act and other laws around the world because different governments have different laws with respect to extrajurisdictional data access. So we fall under the laws of Canada. We provide cloud services no differently than any of the large US providers do. We're just a different size. >> So by the definition we've heard so far, you represent digital sovereignty. >> We do. We've been talking about since 2018. Just no one's listening. What happened, Greg? Why are they listening now? >> Why did that happen? Who showed up? >> Employee of the month.

Well, I think we're kind of laughing about who showed up and how the administration in the US shifted, but to your points earlier about complacency. Uh there's nothing about the Trump administration that has fundamentally changed policy-wise when it comes to digital sovereignty. The difference with this administration is that they are willing to exploit and weaponize the interdependence that the US intentionally built over time. Um, they control most of the choke points for our economy, be it payments, be it commerce, as Mark was alluding to, our access to information, the quality of that information, how we receive it. It's very important. And that's why I think that phrase digital sovereignty doesn't always get at the heart of how alarming and fragile those elements of our economy are.

Well, I have a quote to that end. There's a group called Canadians for Digital Sovereignty, and they have a definition that goes like this. >> Digital sovereignty means democratic control over digital ecosystems, free of foreign interference, and in alignment with Canadian values. It is essential to our political independence, economic security, cultural vitality, and democratic legitimacy. Are those the stakes? Because those seem like very high stakes. I >> I think it's those stakes and more. So, and I think there's something really key in that definition, which is, you know, you're you're not necessarily owning or making everything. It's that you actually have the choice. And that's not just a choice about, you know, democracy in terms of free speech, but it's actually about our economic independence and our ability to grow our our economy and thrive as citizens. And that's what I think has changed in the the recent US administration is the whole global trade order has shaken up. And this isn't about just what's on my iPhone. It's about can we make money as an economy? Can we grow around AI and around these technologies? And I think if we're dependent on somebody who doesn't want to play ball, it means we need to control our own tech.

But you know, well, maybe I I'll kind of give you this story from last week. Last week I was at this thing called the India AI summit. 250,000 people talking about AI >> in India. in India and so governments around the world, our AI minister Evan Solomon was there, all the big tech bros that you would imagine, Sam Alman and everywhere on stage, but a lot of other small companies, uh, you know, people innovating in open source, really interesting stuff. And and the thing is sovereignty was the talk of that town, right? It wasn't just who's got the fastest AI model. And really what was echoing in the hallways was Prime Minister Carney's speech from Davos and this idea of middle powers because tech is at the center of economic power today. And so I think the stakes aren't just our democracy here. They're our role in the world.

I think we need a little bit more information and let me go to you first and then Vass you can play cleanup after that. >> All right. >> To understand the significance and potential consequences of not being digitally sovereign. I we don't want it to be airy fairy like hit it where the rubber hits the road. What are the actual consequences of not having it? >> Well, the the world for as far as we know it could stop. >> What does that mean? >> Um it means that uh most of the services you use from the public sector at all levels of government run on foreignowned and foreign managed and controlled compute assets >> still. still absolutely and uh you'd be quite amazed at the exposure we face not only were they to no longer be available but the reality is the data that was residing in that environment would also be unavailable and could potentially be gone. The reason I ask still is because I know at TVO for example, Geez, I hope I'm not telling tales out of school here. Well, >> no, tell a tale. It's Friday night. >> Let's see. Let's see. I mean, we used to have uh I don't know the right technology language here, but you could create an e distribution list so that for example, when I write a column for tvO.org, I got X number of thousand subscribers and I'd put it in there and eblast it out. And you know, if you weren't on X and you weren't on Blue Sky, you could sign up to this distribution. Now, what I never knew, but what later I discovered was apparently was an Americanowned eblaster. So, given the new realities, we were told we can't use that anymore. So, get rid of that and use a Canadian one, which we are now doing.

Yeah. No, that's >> more to come. Do we need to do more? >> Absolutely more to come. uh the vast majority of workload across all of public sector and frankly a lot of the larger commercial sector resides on assets that aren't controlled by Canadians. It it took since free trade came in in ' 84 for this trend to persist to this level and to continue to evolve to this level. So it's not going to change overnight. Um but just I think the the key thing to note too is when you don't use Canadian suppliers, they do not get better. And if we want to foster domestic innovation and progress, it's imperative that we work with domestic providers because Canada's known as a world beater. You name three companies, that's three of 3,000 world beaters that Canada has created over time. But they all got better by virtue of working with local consumption, local consumers, and then expanding internationally. And what we've done on the tech side is we've too quickly missed using Canadian companies and and therefore the Canadian companies suffer because they don't get a chance to get better.

So here's the question for you. Are you would you recommend that individual Ontarians, individual Canadians make those individual decisions to delink from foreignowned and sign up to Canadianowned? I think individual switches can be powerful and we send signals with our dollars, but I would never ask everyday Canadians to solve for a long-standing structural problem that is fundamentally a public policy fight. Even if you are using and switching to a Canadian company for your eblast, which add me to the list would love to receive. Um, even if >> you'll be sorry you said that, but okay. Yeah. >> If that Canadian company has a significant presence in the US, too bad. That information can be commanded by the American government. What do companies in the US what are they very much interested in to build AI systems data and our information? Again, we're in an extractive intangible economy. You were saying earlier like what are the stakes? How do you make them more tangible? Don't ask us. Ask international criminal court justice Kimberly Pruss. She's been living this since August. She is sanctioned. She cannot book a vacation, use a credit card. A French justice has had his emails accessed through Microsoft. that kind of subjugation and inability to both navigate your everyday life but navigate commerce and the economy. That's what the stakes are with digital sovereignty. We have a good history with sovereignty in Canada. We may not have the best history with some of the companies you mentioned, but I think now is about using this moment to our advantage in terms of how we want to govern our markets and how we want to be as a country. >> We should just explain this is this is a Canadian judge who made a decision that Donald Trump didn't like. Y >> and as a result is in his crosshairs right now >> and he has put >> well how do you want to define it what >> she can barely bank she's basically shadowbanked right we have a sovereign payment option that's very strong called interact I think in this moment when we see the EU and the UK actively looking at payment alternatives hopefully they're looking at Canada often we're not in the jurisdictional scan as the actor that's like really nailing it but we are when it comes to transferring money we're not when it comes to crossber uh credit payments That's a duopoly that is US-based infrastructure. Now, a lot of jurisdictions are starting to think, do we need to build and own something different? Is there space for another competitor? Do we do that together? Or are we in this moment where if we just wait it out and kind of close our eyes, will we wake up to a new administration that won't threaten us as much? And I think the point of this threat is that the risk was always there and that we should be working to eliminate or change that risk. Maybe as one last thing to make it a bit more tangible. Um earlier your colleague was we were joking like if you have a phone in the audience we all have phones. How does telefan work? Every phone call we make gets rooted through the US. That's something we could change and probably should. >> Every phone call we make even if we're on Bell or Telus or right Rogers it gets rooted through the United States.

It raises this question mark. Vas said she doesn't expect individual Canadians to make millions of individual decisions to try to solve this problem. We need a bigger public policy solution here. Do you agree with that? >> Well, I I would kind of say two things. Certainly, yes. We need a bigger public policy solution. And it's a long game. >> Yeah. >> Right. You you can't do this overnight and we need to whatever administration is in whatever country look at how do we own our own, you know, communication destiny, our own economic destiny. That is always been clear, but it's clearer now. And and we've done this before. I mean, if you think about TV Ontario, the CBC, we know how to run, you know, all of our rules around radio and Canadian content. We know how to build sovereign systems through public policy that balance both the public and the private. My first job was at CTV, but you know, we we've had this kind of ability to blend these two things. And I think looking in the long game of what does it look like to use our public policy levers to build for the next 10, 20, 50 years a environment that mixes public and private approaches.

But but the other thing I really want to throw in there is if I were to say, you know, what should you do today? And you know, you're not going to hear be surprised to hear this from Azilla. Pick something that is open source. Because one of the things that often gets left out of this debate, but is really central is open source software, which Firefox is or Wikipedia is or Linux is, means that when you take a copy of it, you own it. If you put it on your computer, whether that's your server or your your home computer or even on your phone, like wherever it was made, and usually it's made by people from dozens of countries, right? These are not made by centralized companies. that is actually an alternative that gives you personally or as a company or as a government sovereignty because it's a different economic model and that really was clear in this India conversation about sovereignty last week. Everybody was talking about open source.

Craig, are you seeing the political will in Ottawa to tackle this in the way that Marcus suggested it needs tackling? I've asked for that matter. I I would say that the the wind has shifted direction and there's potential for there to be will. I think we're still probably six months away from people feeling that they really it's it's not going back. I think the further down inside the the public servants you go, the the more people believe that this will all just go away. >> It'll just go away. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think that's I see that enough to feel confident that that that's not changing overnight. The senior leadership sees the threat. They've been briefed enough on the threat. The other thing too just to add to that is the the threat doesn't need to be a complete reset. The threat just needs to be a posture change or how to address it. For instance, uh I earlier in my career, I was a disaster recovery planner. It's one of the boring most >> Funny that that standard started with disaster. earlier I was. >> Yeah. The thing about disaster recovery planning is you have to anticipate the worst. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well, when people started adopting cloud services, people stopped assuming or being concerned about the worst. They more or less were told, "Don't worry about it. It's my job. I got it." >> And so, we became very complacent.

And I'm starting to notice in Ottawa and across the provinces as well that people are realizing, "Oh, wait. The things we did 20 years ago are actually still good habits." Mhm. >> And they're coming back. >> I'm just Well, I mean, I I can't survey this whole audience here on the individual choices that they'd be prepared to make, but let's consider in the course of your everyday lives, you know, Sheldon, you want to spray the room here? How many people have a Facebook account in this room? Hands up. Okay. Almost every hand in the room has gone up. How many people here have a credit card? Hands up. Visa, Mastercard? Exactly. Everybody. These are all American firms. I presume many of you here have Amazon accounts as well and you order stuff to your homes. Hands up. Who's got that? I mean, we are incredibly dependent on American-based companies for some of the most basic everyday things that we do. >> Yeah. >> Are we prepared to make the individual I mean, I don't see how many people here are prepared to shut down their Facebook account, not go on X, uh, get rid of the Amazon thing. Okay, you're prepared. Yes. So,

and I think I don't know. >> Well, and I think that is a key piece, right? Some of these things, credit cards, almost impossible to opt out of it. But there are things actually, you know, you I've kind of mostly gone off social media, the Facebook marketplace, very hard to quit. Uh, you see, right? That's how they keep you. Um, but but actually, I think we have just become accustomed to these things that we don't need them as much as we want. And then the other piece though I would say is there are options that may not be Canadian but they might not be American either. And so one of the things is if what you want is resilience of any kind and I think sovereignty ties to that diversifying your optionality being able to to kind of play from other folks. So I often use instead of using chatbt something called Mistral which is a French company that offers mistral mist. It's a it's a French company. They're focused on sovereign AI there. And I use that one as said I feel a lot better on that than I do on open AI.

Vess, you wanted to add? >> Well, yes, those individual choices can be powerful and send a market signal and I think it's been really gratifying for Canadians to see the impacts we're having on the economy. Say there was recent new data about our travel changing and and how that is hurting the US in particular ways. So I understand the impulse to switch to alternatives and and send those signals. But again, it doesn't change the underlying infrastructure, the policy infrastructure. We've been using the word complacency as if, you know, the US is, you know, doing this to us and we're just kind of twiddling our thumbs. We also have to take ownership, right? We signed trade deals, uh, the digital chapter in Koozma that gave away a lot of our rights and ability to govern the digital economy. We let the cloud act, you know, come forward and didn't start switching away and building more sovereignty. Like the goal I think that we're talking about is to make Canada un Fuku withable, right? Like you don't want you don't want a former trade partner to become a tyrant or get weird and start flexing on your economy and shutting it down. We had the Rogers outage and we can frame that as a telecommunication failure. The Rogers outage is a microcosm of how the cloud infrastructure can be, if people wanted, weaponized against us. Forget paying with your credit card. You're not paying for anything.

Well, we are, you know, sometimes in the middle of, sometimes not in the middle of negotiations with the Americans right now as it relates to >> Kusma or USAKA, whatever we want to call it. >> Um, that's a really automatop poetic phrase, isn't it? when you start with the US, it's the acronym is US Smacka, which it feels like we are getting from time to time, but uh I mean do do you think our negotiators are seized of this issue and and what we've given away in order to get, you know, our ability to sell our wine down there or whatever it is that we ended up doing or keeping supply management off the table, that kind of thing. >> I think this is where people are getting excited about the opportunity to build and own alternatives, right? both for Canadian companies who want to be a part of building that resilience. We saw uh The Logic recently reported about a Canadian company that wants to help rebuild um a more national GPS, right? Um that's interesting. That's cool. That's a great economic opportunity as well. When we mentioned that we're building sovereign cloud, which is something Prime Minister Carney mentioned in the fall and and many are waiting to see more, you may like know more about that uh in particular detail. What and who are we building that for? Right. that we're not building uh capacity for the hyperscalers and for other companies here. That we're building it in service of that broader goal of sovereignty that we want to be able to govern and control and own the data and intellectual property assets that we create here in Canada and keep them here in Canada for Canada.

I presume you like that when Prime Minister Carney dropped that little nugget that he wanted to create sovereign cloud here. I I do, but I kind of resent the fact that it's been happening since 2018 and suddenly it became important to the prime minister. It's not it doesn't it's not something that has to be done. It's has it's something that has to be continued. >> Mhm. >> Because there are lots of people that have been working on this quietly toiling away uh and frankly now is the time to to give them an opportunity.

Okay, let me follow up with this. Microsoft apparently recently promised to spend $7.5 billion dollars, I don't know if that's Canadian or American dollars, but it's still a lot of money on Canadian data centers over the next couple of years and to protect Canadian data from other governments, including that of the United States. Um, are are we buying that? What do we think? >> I wouldn't buy it for a second. No. Because the month earlier, the same man who made that pronouncement was in France testifying in front of a French tribunal that they would honor all US laws. FISA is even worse than the cloud act because it has a gag order. >> So, as a if I was an American service provider, I can honestly say I've never been asked to produce data for a Canadian because if I admitted it had to happen, I I would actually be breaking another US law. So there's lots of protection out there that exists to make it easy for the US government. But under no circumstances would I consider Microsoft's words to be other than just words. And I will also go on to say this. It takes about 20 people to run a data center. There is very little economic value added to the country. There's lots of jobs during construction. Don't get me wrong, construction is a wonderful thing. Uh but once the data center is built and operates operating, the vast majority of the operational skill sets reside in other countries to begin with. They're not putting them into Canada anyway. So, you can't even qualify as FDI. >> They'll they'll they'll spend a lot of money on our electricity though, won't they? >> Right. That by the way, that they're looking for a subsidy to. >> And on top of that, when the AI market does something different, whether you think it's a bubble or not, when it evolves, there's going to be an abundance of power available potentially. Well, we are in Ontario, we're already paying a tax to retire debt. Yes. >> Right. The people that came in guns ablazing to consume a lot of power who are no longer consuming a lot of power. I they're not going to be around >> to help service that debt that we invested in building, you know, new nuclear reactors and new transmission lines. These things all cost vast quantities of capital for long periods of time and it's not associated with jobs. Quebec learned that lesson when they started building data centers, especially around uh crypto. They learned that there was just no real long-term employable opportunity there. And I think we're going to see a whole another phase of that.

Vess, would you take Microsoft's word for this? >> No. Again, because I'm like so interested in the policy and yeah, thanks for mentioning FISA as well, right? That infrastructure. Again, back to the data, back to being able to protect those intangible assets and and say no, right? We don't have that ability to say no. I think another very tangible example is just in the Microsoft realm, Microsoft Office, a suite of very useful products, a kind of all-in-one. We're very familiar with it. Um, the government of Canada spends millions of dollars every year to rent access to Microsoft emails and and other elements. In December, Microsoft announced to everyone they had a great idea, which is the price of those subscriptions are going to go way up. Why haven't we, like other European uh jurisdictions, used or built an open source alternative that we own, that no one else is taking the data from, no one is spying on us, and we're not blowing money every year, year-over-year to use infrastructure that we don't own and we don't control.

You've asked a good question. What's the answer? >> Why haven't we done it yet? Maybe we needed to get our butts kicked a little bit to have this situation and have the fear and have this, you know, yes, you've been building since 2018. Yes, many people have been historically warning about this, right? It's not like it's new. We've had many Canadian Cassandras as well, right? Spotting spotting these harms. Now's the time again to take on this project and we won't do it overnight, but I think we can be pretty proud of what we can build and achieve as a country coming out of this. >> But I would say it's not just that we can't do it overnight because why haven't we done that is we can't do it alone. >> And I think that's a really key piece. I mean, not that government many governments have done that. I mean, we work with a lot of them who have, right? Governments use Thunderbird and Firefox who are trying to get sovereign, but the whole stack isn't out there. They're addicted to Microsoft. So the Germans have this sovereign stack, but they're really the first to have built this open source system to run the whole government. And the way to go faster is to work together. I mean, that's why there's actually a great kind of agreement that or promising agreement between Canada and Germany on sovereign tech because the thing we need to do and this is where this middle powers frame I think is is really interesting. Yeah. is pull our resources to create alternatives that we own collectively and and that are open. And that is starting to happen, but unless we actually put our resources there as well as into data centers, we're going to get stuck. And I and it's where I worry that the data center stuff is a little bit of a look squirrel. It's trying to put us away from where the rents actually get charged, which is up the software stack. Where the opportunity is to get really sovereign and do our own thing, which is up the software stack. We need all of it to be independent and we need allies to do that.

Gotcha. Okay, let's rerack here. And by that I mean we just want to remind everybody what we're doing here tonight in the house that Jim built. We are after all um in Jim Balsi's home court if you like. And joining us for our conversation tonight about digital sovereignty are Vas Bedner, managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, Craig Mlen is here, founder and CEO of Think on, and Mark Surman, president of Mosilla. Just before I'm going to let you guys catch your breath for a second here because I want to go into the audience. There she is. I want to introduce you to Anne Fitzgerald who is the director of the Balsley School of International Affairs and a professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University. and beyond that, if you can imagine, was in Ethiopia yesterday and flew back and landed here at 10:00 this morning >> cuz she wanted to come to this tonight. So, how about a hand for Anne first of all? There we go. >> We are thrilled that you made it back safe and sound and we're happy to have you here tonight. And could I just ask you to react to whatever you've heard here so far that you'd like to respond to? >> You know, first of all, three brilliant speakers and great Steve for for getting them all on. Um, what am I worried about? I am worried about this intangibles world that we're living in. All three speakers spoke about it. Um, as an educator and a professor, I uh worry that we're not building the capacity to understand these things. You know, a lot of us were deers in headlights when we heard about clouds and stacks and but is there still now that decent level of understanding to take it forward? The policy environment in the US pivoted about 15 years ago. We didn't. So now we have to make a policy orientation that is fit for the intangibles world where things like procurement and purchasing and intellectual property things like that take on different dimensions. And so the textbooks aren't with us on this yet. In fact, my son's textbook from first year university is still based on the 1950s60s economic model where the factors of productivity were uh labor and physical capital. And of course, now they're all intangibles, data, algorithms, LLMs, AI.

And how can that be? >> Well, it's just going so fast. It's going so quickly. And we didn't pivot. and you know government and policy sets the stage for a lot of academic research. So you think about the policy uh priorities that have been the case in Canada uh academic research sort of follows. The other thing as somebody who studies defense and military security, I see the way wars are being fought and you gave a couple of examples of switches being flicked but look at agricultural data and agriculture in Canada. The farmers use two huge multinational companies. All of the platforms are driven by uh data and AI. And if they flicked the switch on those platforms, John Deere is one of them, it would impact our food security and our economic productivity. >> How >> uh because they would control the data, they would control the algorithms. They would control what we have access to and what we don't have access to.

Are you are you heartened by the fact that we now have for the first time ever a minister of the crown responsible for artificial intelligence in the current cabinet of Canada? >> I am inspired. My worry is that artificial intelligence is being treated as an isolationary portfolio. And what I mean by that is AI is part of an ecosystem. It's like a car. The driver is AI, the intelligence. The shell is the protections IP, cyber security. The engine is compute and the gas or the electrons is da our data. So you need that whole system and we as of yet do not have a data strategy to harness our national data.

In which case >> huge implications >> as you look at the landscape where's the big opportunity we ought to be picking up on right now and running towards >> health data. Health data we have a public health system. uh it could be huge fuel for our productivity and economic growth. We have data on every Canadian citizen from birth to death. We have the most multicultural capital city in the world and it's not a federal capital. So we should be arguably the hub for clinical trials, biotech, uh gene therapy, but we don't have rules for our data >> and our data is still tethered and could become even more tethered to other state systems. And I've just come back from Africa this morning. That's why I'm I'm not all here. But um there is a push by US embassies in Africa at the moment for African countries to hand over all their health data for a new health aid. >> To whom? >> To the American government. >> So it's like taking a vacuum over a new form of neocolonialism. >> And they will innovate off our data. And that means our economy can't capture wealth. Every dollar of investment will be a dollar return. We want every dollar of investment to be a hundred dollars of return.

You have painted a very ominous picture. Should we feel quite daunted by this whole thing? >> Yes. >> Okay. As an answer, >> the good news is we have good people like the three panelists on the stage doing great things for the country. So, >> and we thank you for your contribution to our program tonight and Fitzgerald. everybody from the B city school. Thank you. Okay, who wants to pick up on something Ang that I thought the agricultural implication >> there's the switch being turned off >> but in a economic stressful situation. It would be even worse if they could adjust the fertilizer ratio and hit the crops with 10% more phosphorus for instance and kill it. then we'd be in a just imagine if we lost our food supply. Not only is it a tremendously important domestic resource, it's also a a very large export resource and that's how fast that could be uh damaged for as one example. So data sovereignty takes on different postures. There's there's clearly we all think about the access or no longer having access to something. But what's worse is when you could inject change in an unexpected way. And AI makes it even worse because now you can start to manipulate the outcome through knowing what you have to put in the way of input. And the average person just wouldn't realize the difference. >> Bas >> I'm looking around for another seat to get an right up on the stage. What I think she did so perfectly uh amongst everything and really helped us. We we kind of rushed into the conversation and made it a little bit mechanical. Uh I blame myself for that, right? How how do things work? Where are the choke points? How do you turn it on and off? And we didn't get to the why. Why would any state or any company be interested in pushing us around like this or again extracting? And it's because as an said, this is how value is created most of the time in this new economy. This is where innovations come from datadriven insights, right? or you know predictions. So why would another company want to take our health data um through laws that they have to maybe train new companies and have new insights or you know learn things about us. >> Feels like the answer to that question in an era of you know who is pretty self-evident though, isn't it? >> I don't know. Again, I would say it's not really about that person. All of the risks that we've been talking about tonight existed before. We just didn't take them seriously enough. We slept better at night. I used to sleep through the night. That's not happening right now. I don't know about you guys. Anyway, that's a whole different story. Sorry. But the more I learn. >> So, this predates Trump and it will be here after Trump. >> Yes. And we need to also take ownership that we've been at those bargaining tables and we blew it, right? that we read those policies. No one stopped. We read them. We talked about them. We knew that they were there. We knew what was what was possible and we had more trust than we do now. And again, what is the definition of risk? It's that it can happen. That digital sovereignty paper that I was giggling about from Halloween says, well, you know, we understand that through these policies, information, you know, the American government can compel information, but we find no evidence that that's happened. Well, guess what? when it happens, and I'm sure it's been happening, there's not going to be evidence.

But I think I really want to pick up on that it is well before Trump >> and and it also isn't just the policy stuff. And so I think that's really good to bring it back to like the our lives and what we use and like the the core of what's happened in the economy with the internet in the last 20 years, 20, 30 years really. I mean, the internet was supposed to be this really distributed thing. Everybody's going to be able to build something. everybody's going to be able to build a business, make a piece of art. And what we've ended up with is the biggest companies that humanity has ever seen in Silicon Valley. And so the centralization of the global economy around companies that are bigger than the Dutch East India Company or the India East India Company ever were both by economic power and global reach. Like that centralization of power of the thing that fuels the economy now is at the heart of it. And of course, we all benefit. I mean, you have these huge or we get stuff we like. In any case, these huge companies are really good at producing great consumer products, but there's just too much power in one place, which is the West Coast of America. And so, you know, you do see that starting to shift. China is said, "We're not down for that. We're going to build our own tech economy." And they have the resources to do that. Really, I think the opportunity now is to say, is there a third option? And that third option is where I think you know in India last week Carney's middle power kind of framing is really helpful.

Well can that we could build something that competes with America. >> Well that's what I'm wondering because China is really the only other country in the world that could compete with America >> on its own >> on its own. Correct. Doesn't need any help. They've got the resources. They've got the people. They've got the frankly authoritarian style of government where they can pull that kind of thing off. Do you buy this new middle power coalition that Mark Carney wants to put together? >> I do. I was on a panel last week with the global head of policy for open AI and he's like, you know, everybody in this room, you're going to choose America and there's a lot of that out there in this conversation right now. Or choose China. Those are your options. I I just don't buy that, >> right? I mean, I I then in that same panel said it's a little bit nerdy because it was a nerdy audience. Like you know how many of you think that you know your governments or your you know companies in your country use Linux right open source everybody's hand goes up it has to and how many of you think that people in your country whether it's your governments your companies help build the Linux ecosystem everybody like we know how to create global public goods the digital economy runs on them and what's happening is a set of centralized players are trying to kind pull things back into their court. We just need to kind of go back to a model that has worked in great part for the last 20 years, okay? Which is doing it together.

Let me give this audience just uh if this were a football game, we'll call it the two-minute warning here. And that is we're going to do one more round of questions up here and then you see we've got a microphone on the floor there. Those who would like to ask questions, and I hope there will be, you can start to line up right now because we're going to do one more round and then we'll start to take your questions. Let's get some recommendations. We've talked about what ordinary Canadians can do. People here in the province of Ontario. Um, okay. Governments, businesses, people, they should, as a result of being more informed now on this issue, do what? Fast. >> I would pay attention to a recent leaked memo where the Trump administration advised ambassadors and diplomats to go hard fighting any efforts on data sovereignty. Right. Hard locally. And I would say to governments, let's recognize as Anne said, the data is an asset that we should be thinking about how to use this to our advantage in Canada while we move towards building and owning and co-owning and making those, you know, immediate switches uh through procurement or through design so that we can have a more resilient country.

That was an extraordinary memo. Who how do you think that got out there? Yeah, >> I think that people I mean, you know, maybe there was a server and we leaked it. No, no, no. I think that it's really tricky and tough to be an American right now, too. And I think that people also have a conscience and see the weaponization of information and the impetus or the desire to use those choke points um to subordinate. It's almost like the Trump administration is is running a platform economy where they're the platform and we all have to, you know, access it for our everyday lives. >> Got it, Craig. >> Well, from the public sector perspective, the first thing I would tell people is um make sure you actually have control of your data. What I mean by that is, is it backed up? Is it just available in the event that you don't have access through your preferred choice? I would tell you right now 90% of the data in Ontario sitting in any public sector environment is not backed up. >> What? >> Yeah. Outside of the outside of if it's running on a US cloud, it's not backed up. >> Not backed up here. >> Correct. >> They've got it, but we don't. >> Correct. So if something were to happen, you would not only would you not be able to function, you would not actually have the data in order to reconstitute. >> You could not rebuild. Exactly. And uh I you know I think I can stand behind that number pretty solidly. Um so that's just a fundamental. It's insurance. It's like you're driving around your car without insurance, right? You've got to have some coverage here. Um okay, but if I were to say to you, who do I call at the government of Ontario to make sure that what you just described somebody's on it? I wouldn't have the first idea who to call. Who would you call? >> Flash the number at the bottom of this. I would actually start with your local MPP asking the question and force the question to be asked. I mean the the the folks over at uh MPBSDP do a good job with what they're charged to do.

That is a terrible acronym. That is you can't even make it a >> ministry of MPBSDP is Ministry of >> Oh, don't ask me. >> Procurement >> procurement something like procurement business services development. But I think that's the the really interesting and boring part at the same time in terms of the public sector part of it is focus on what you're buying, >> right? The policy stuff does matter. But if you want to say like what to do today, which I think was your question, focus on what governments are buying, right? Are they buying services that mean that we can rebuild? Are they buying services that are open source, which means nobody can take them away and we can rebuild? There's probably a list of just three, four things in what governments buy that if we can get our politicians and then our senior bureaucrats to buy in. A, you know, let us rebuild and b get us off Microsoft. But I I think I want to also say, you know, on the what can people do today, this isn't everybody, but you said, you know, people, businesses, governments. I I think we got to play offense, too. And so for entrepreneurs in this country, for businesses in the country, do what you've been doing since 2018. There is a global market growing for governments and companies that don't want to buy Chinese tech and don't want to buy American tech. There is a huge I don't know how long it'll last business opportunity in sovereign tech right now. So build your company to fill that market here and in the world that there is a market growing for this.

Last question which is do you have any idea whether or not Dominic Leblon and company who are engaged in the trade negotiations with the United States right now are satisfactorily up on this to ensure that we are actually talking about this at the table in a meaningful way. Uh I had the opportunity to brief uh many of our ambassadors in the fall and I do think we are alive to these interdependencies. I also think there's a fascinating tension right now where we're courting more foreign direct investment than we have ever before. So we also want to send a signal that Canada is a safe place to bring your capital and invest and for companies to come to. So that balance over favoring domestic hometown firms and and building here and moving away also comes at saying to other economies that they should be participating in what we're building here. Good. Okay, friends, it's your turn now. If you would like to tell us your name and where you're from and who you would like to put your question to. Get us started. >> Uh, good evening. My name is Alan Rob. I'm from Kitchener, hometown here. And uh my questions really goes out to the panel. Uh academia and the media often frame uh threats to digital sovereignty from coming from American neoc colonialism. Um my concern is more with uh the Chinese and what what do you think about Mr. Carney's decision to allow an influx of Canadianmade electric vehicles uh into this country to >> You mean Chinese-made electric? >> Chinese uh sorry, yes, Chinese-made electric vehicles, which some contend are roving data gathering platforms. >> Well, the premier calls them spy cars. >> I don't always agree with Mr. Ford, but uh yeah, we'll we'll go with that, Steve. >> Okay. Who wants in on this? >> I'll start. >> Sure. Our second oldest regularly used federal polic or federal law is the privacy act. Hasn't been updated in uh a very long time. And a car like that is a platform. >> Mhm. >> And if we're using privacy laws that are 35 years old to try to regulate a platform that is literally didn't exist 5 years ago, we have a fundamental gap there. So I think that when we bring platforms into the country, we have to have the corresponding laws that allow us to regulate those. And I fear that our laws don't allow us to regulate those the same way that we expect them as citizens to be regulated. >> So you're cool with bringing 56,000 Chinese-made EVs into Canada as long as we update our privacy laws and have that >> as long as we have a way of regulating those cars from the from Mr. M Mr. Ford's opinion that they're spy cars. Yeah. Like they're spy cars because they actually communicate somehow. >> Well, they're computers >> and they collect information that they shouldn't be collecting.

Fasten mark. >> We let plenty of super dangerous things come to the market when they're digital, right? Because we haven't had these thresholds that we used to with testing. So, I would put that in the same context to echo you on privacy. You know, I think I like to do quizzes in magazines when it's like, you know, which Ninja Turtle are you? Who knows? But um sovereignty is that question like can you govern the economy you have? Yes or no. We've been talking a lot about the no. But there are lots of things on the yes side where we have again made decisions not to do it. Can we govern privacy and data? Uh yes we can. And then there's another question on the quiz where it goes okay are you? Woo. That's hard when we're on the no side. And that's something else that we have to be accountable for and take ownership for and take action on. >> Mark, and I think cars are a really interesting one. So I appreciate the question because you know auto safety. >> Yes. Like we know how to regulate that. And so looking at those environments, those paradigms, those parts of industry that we know how to regulate as they adapt, hold ourselves to the same standard. We put out uh we put out these things called privacy not included which are these like consumer reports on different product categories. All of the car makers suck up your data. It's not just the electric cars and all of them are the worst in all of the consumer kind of product categories in terms of how much they suck up and their privacy rules. And so we need to take the same kind of attitude we have for auto safety to how these cars work with our data.

But if I can draw out an inference from the gentleman's question, and Craig, I'll do a follow-up with you. It sounds like he's saying we ought to be a lot more concerned about what potential pitfalls there are dealing with China than we should be visav the Americans right now. >> Oh yes. I think the Chinese are have much more nefarious plans with the data that they're hoovering up. And it took, you know, like for instance, uh I was thinking about getting a genetic uh test and I asked the doctor where the raw material went and they said California. Okay. So that's makes me feel uncomfortable. And then I said, "Well, what equipment is doing the testing?" And they had to they took a day to get the answer and they came back and said, "It's Chinese equipment." And then I went and looked online and it's Chinese equipment that's been known to call home, >> right? >> So I don't know what it's doing when it's calling home. It's probably acting under the idea of a some sort of maintenance routine, but we don't have any easy way to unless we consciously look inside that data that data transfer to determine what it's really doing. We don't really know. So, look like that took me two days to figure that out. Then it was an easy no because I don't I don't know where that data is going and I don't care enough about it for my own edification to risk it. >> So, he's right to be as suspicious of China as absolutely the United States on this. >> Absolutely. >> Gotcha. Yes, please. Second. Hi uh Stuart from Cambridge, Ontario. Hi Stuart. >> Hi. I have um 30 years actually uh managing data center and building data center type systems. Uh so from a project standpoint around data sovereignty, I actually have a two-part question here. First one is to the panel is if you were to approach this as a project, what would be your number one priority? For me, it would be get the data on Canadian hard drives. Get the data on into Canada. The second question is >> Well, hang on, hang on. Let's just Can we get confirmation on that? >> No, that would not be my first priority. >> I I think we need to do that. But I, as I say, I do think the data is a bit of a look squirrel because it's I'm not worried about people coming and taking those hard drives. I'm a little bit worried about that. I'm worried that we don't control all of the software to manage that, that the whole kind of what we call the stack, all the pieces of software are not under our control. So I think getting to the point that we have a reliance on an open stack, whether it comes pieces from Germany or pieces from America or pieces from Canada, I think controlling the software infrastructure that sits on those data centers is actually just as urgent and it's where I what I would put at the top of the list.

Does our friend from Cambridge want to argue with that? >> Oh, I'd love to have a good debate with him about that one, but >> Well, you you do have the microphone. Go ahead. Uh, no it's I don't want to bore the audience because we'd get really nerdy really quick. >> Okay, second question. >> Uh, second question is is we've been talking an awful lot about government >> for our private sector that is just at risk of being held hostage having a switch flipped off. How important is it for government policy to basically force our private sector to start taking do data sovereignty as a goal and maybe move back to on premise or whatever has to be done to get us away from the Microsoft, Amazon, Google world that we're all stuck in. >> Who wants in? >> I'll start. Sure. >> Um, many of many Canadian companies compete internationally like ourselves. 53% of our revenue comes from outside of Canada by the way. So, uh I can appreciate the the challenge and the point of the question. I think we would all benefit by having uh updated policies that we could that we could operate our business in without having to feel the pressure of foreign influence. So for instance, if I was mandated to ensure that I had a copy of my data that was not subject to any foreign interference, that's a policy. I may not be happy about it, but at least I know that I'm operating now environment where all of my contemporary competitors have to deal with the same exposure and therefore you would you would generate the best outcome or the best capabilities to satisfy that policy. So that's just one example of what of what I think you could do. I think the other the other reality is Canadian companies uh the the commercial companies view the world as their market and therefore they need to cooperate and and collaborate with international footprints. So it's not really appropriate necessarily to say you have to use a Canadian provider for that. There has to be a a level excuse me a level of balance. But I think that ties back to your software message quite a bit too. Well, and I heard another thing in there which was not just that we pick Canadian providers or Canadian vendors, but that we actually maybe control the technology itself. And so, you know, you talked about on-rem, which means on the premises. And so, I think you actually do see private sector companies when they have to work in those heterogeneous environments or just here wanting to like own the hardware where they can. And so, you know, Coher, which we haven't mentioned so far, and we should. >> Coher, it's an amazing. Why don't you >> Well, Coher is a Canadian, it's one of the the worldleading AI companies. Uh, it's in Toronto. >> You know what it's worth now? >> And uh, I don't know what it's worth, but I know that they beat their earnings, which were supposed to be 200 million, I guess, for the last quarter, and I think they're like 280. So, this is a Canadian sort of competitor. >> Mark, it's a The reason I know this. Yeah. What? I know this because I was at the Toronto Region Board of Trade dinner last night and somebody from Coher got an award. I swear he was 25 years old. He probably more than that, but >> these are closer to 30. >> 30 closer to that. Okay. He's a very young guy. These three partners are very young guys. The company is worth $7 billion. >> Yeah, >> these guys are worth a fortune and they've created something quite extraordinary. And the key thing in that though, so you know, they're a competitor in many ways to an open AI or an anthropic, but a big focus like where they've been able to grow that value and grow that revenue is by building models that are run on premises by businesses. Businesses are actually buying this stuff now. And so I think that's the thing that is to make that available and you know tap into that market and they are. >> We host that for the Canadian government.

Huh. >> We host cohhere. They're and we've worked very closely with them. And what I love is it's two Ontario-based companies working together to deliver services to the public sector. Vast. >> May I just go back to that earlier point like what would the first thing on my agenda to do be once I'm finished that quiz and I've turned my mind back to digital sovereignty? I've appealed to public policy. I'm a wonk. That's where I'm going to go. Right? Laws are the software of society. They set the rules. So, I didn't mean to be dismissive earlier when it's like what can everyday people do or what can everyday companies do to sort of strengthen their own sovereignty? Those are important decisions. But one of the things I'd also be interested in recognizing is that on the political side, you alluded to us taking a very long time to update our privacy laws. And once again, Canada is anticipating new privacy law coming soon. Uh hope so. Um our political parties are very data hungry beasts and they are also part of that data economy. So, we've got a little bit of natural tension there when we're going to hopefully set a high bar for companies and nonprofits when it comes to how we expect them to handle and minimize the data that they take from us. And consistently, we've seen over time that political parties just don't want to hold themselves to that same standard. And you can't separate that from the digital sovereignty conversation.

Right on. >> Yes, please. You're next. >> Uh Tim King from Allora, Ontario. Um I'm I'm gonna ask an impossible question. So, um, I I teach computer technology in high school. I'm secounded right now. So, I get to travel all over Canada doing that. I'm supposed to be teaching cyber security, but to get there, people need to know fundamentals and no one does anymore because they've all gone to the cloud. So, I go into a classroom and I'm trying to teach cyber and it just doesn't stick because the kids don't have any context. Um, part of that is because everyone lives their life on the cloud now. So the big question I've really got is how do you make people care when that's the easy way out and it's the way everyone has taken and that includes the education systems. Every morning we teach our kids how to become Google and Microsoft customers. >> That's your only choice. So at the end of the day what do we do to make people care when there's an easy way out and we've already taken it? >> H that is a deep question. He did say it was an impossible question to answer >> but I don't think it is impossible. I mean I am the play offense you know kind of person on this and I think it is you know I didn't invent Firefox I came to Misilla well after that but it is the lesson in something like Firefox or something like Signal which if people use that as like an alternative to WhatsApp is you can build different stuff and one of the things you need to do and that's why I kind of say like companies entrepreneurs stepping forward is making stuff that is secure that has humans in mind and is really just simple Awesome. And so, you know, I I think the answer to it is not an easy one. We don't have, you know, a thousand Firefoxes out there you can pick from or signals, but I do think actually we we need to build alternatives that are great for people. >> What are your hopes for Gander, which I gather is the new Canadian. >> Oh, yeah. They re those guys social media platform. Social media is such a tricky one. People have tried it in so many uh countries. Blue Sky has tried to be an alternative, which is, you know, American but trying to be different. I mean I I think the the thing about Gander that is interesting is they're built on the same sort of architecture as blue blue sky which is you know for is a little too nerdy maybe but is like federated social networks >> nicer than X is the idea >> and basically well nicer than X but also federated if I'm on Gander I can connect to blue sky and so that actually is the thing that gives me hope is these smaller social networks setting up where I don't have to pick one but I can connect to them all and I think that's actually promising.

Terrific. Yes, please. Next question. >> Hi, my name is Bella. I'm from Kitchener. Um, you spoke a lot about the threats that we are now facing due to um this new age where digital sovereignty is a is a bigger issue. And basically my question is just do you think that the recent advances in technology are a greater asset or threat to our Canadian economy? Hm. Okay. >> Yeah, maybe I'd start with that and say it until society catches up to the technology, I think it's a detriment. I think that the technology is moving so fast and doing things with your data without you even understanding it or knowing about it. Uh you can look at uh you can look at what happens when your when your phone, social media, the ads are changing so fast and ad tech's old now, right? But that still was still ahead of most most of us humans. So I I don't I don't think it's a benefit yet. I think the potential is there, but technology always falls into the hands of the people looking to do most the most harm. I think I think just just it just naturally falls into those people's hands

best. >> I was mentioning earlier how it's hard for me to sleep at night sometimes, but let me tell you one of the things I I dream about once I do fall asleep. I think we're in a really interesting moment when it comes to our shifting attitudes towards technology as well as individuals, as consumers. I think we've seen these big and often kind of bad companies get comfy with their dominant positions. We've seen that in shitification. You've had that interview on your show of the products that we experience. >> Cory Docro's book. >> You got it. Cory Doctoro. So, you know what gives me optimism is that those tides are turning. Our expectations are higher. People are frustrated. People don't want junk. And when I go back to the dangerous products that have come to the market, there's some really interesting case law happening again back in the US uh but through class action lawsuits etc. using the principles of product liability to say hey you brought this digital product to our marketplace to the app store to my life and made a particular promise about its quality that you just haven't been able to uphold. And I don't think it's out of scope back to the country we want to be and what we want to stand up for and what we want to protect for us to say no more often because we expect a higher standard and we should be setting that standard not accepting it. >> Gotcha. >> I would add too just one quick story. Um >> in general we are slow to punish bad actors especially corporations. So, I mean, I I realize this week Open AI has been in the news because of what happened in in Tumblr Ridge and they're not ability their decision to not report. I don't know any of the details behind that. Just it's an example that I bring up only because I think that the government has an opportunity to punish organizations that want access to our markets but don't want to follow our rules. And instead, when they don't follow our rules, they're given a slap on the wrist or they're allowed to excuse themselves from not being transparent.

And we as a society should be holding our elected officials more to account to hold those bad actors to account. >> Yes, please. Next. Oh, that got a hand. >> Hi. Uh, my name is Ryan. I'm a PhD student here at the Bossley School of International Affairs. Uh I just have a question for the panel. One thing that I think hasn't been discussed tonight has been the environmental implications of these data centers. Uh especially AI data centers which are much bigger than uh regular data centers that we've seen. Uh and the Canadian government is planning on investing lots of money uh in the coming years for these infrastructure projects. uh my specialty is on water conflict and AI data centers take up a lot of water and we're seeing it in the United States in local communities that they can't turn on their taps when these big data centers are next door. So how do we square that circle with this Pandora's box that in my opinion shouldn't have been opened but it's opened and now we have it. How do we protect our environment while protecting our sovereignty? >> Ryan, what's your PhD in >> uh global governance? uh but I uh specify in transboundary water governance, climate change and water conflict. >> We seem to be very hot to trot to get these data centers right built here regardless of the environmental considerations. >> Well, we don't talk about it. Uh most of the reporting is on the like the electrical uh strain but not a lot of reporting on the water that is being consumed that these data centers consume. you know more about this probably in detail but I'll offer I mean data centers I think are very interesting in terms of being a foundational element of achieving some of the more that higher bar that we're working towards in terms of data localization and right I know you like see that as a squirrel I was like why the hate for squirrels um but I'll just say I'll just offer a quiet part out loud which is like I wonder if data centers are a necessary evil in this future right so if we're going to be putting public dollars towards Some of them again what are they in service of? How can we set that bar and those expectations environmentally and again they shouldn't be rented to hyperscalers and other companies. They should be for us. They should be about building Canada and making our sovereignty stronger. I think that's exciting. Um and maybe part of that conversation and thank you for bringing it up because it has to be a conversation that's based in the realities and not uh daydreams. Ryan seems to think they're helping kill the planet at the same time though. >> Well, you know, one of the things I wanted to say is they're not talking about it is what Ryan said. And I think the they is people who should be in in government in companies balancing the public interest and and private interest. And we do need to have a way to control the data. But who's talking about it, as Ryan alluded to, is the communities where these data centers are being built. I mean, that is just a huge thing happening as they're growing in the US. There's a massive push back and protest. Yeah.

Against data centers. And I think that actually is really helpful to bring into the to light that if you're going to kind of go and build this thing that only has 20 jobs, how are you held to account upfront, we have planning laws to make sure that the environmental impact is managed and not, you know, just a kind of bulldozer. >> Right. I think we've got time left for a couple questions. So, let's do you and then one more. Go ahead, sir. You have the mic. >> Greetings. My name is Justin and I'm from Kitchener, Ontario. >> Hi Justin. >> I believe that the internet and digital platforms should be regarded as public utilities under democratic uh control. And um so I guess when there's all this talk about sovereignty, I wonder because sovereignty is about uh exercising authority like sovereignty for who is kind of what I'm wondering about. And also like how do we um how do we know that made in Canada options for digital platforms aren't going to be in shitified just like um our US neighbors uh platforms who use their users. >> This has become a real word now apparently. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Uh okay Craig this one's got your name on it I guess. So I something to think about too is in the the context of sovereignty we have to think inside Canada itself. Our indigenous communities have their own desire for sovereignty and they have diff slightly different definitions over sovereignty but fundamentally we have this this these multiple levels of a need for sovereignty in Canada. I do think that the more complicated we make it the less likelihood we have of achieving it. M so we have to start with very basic black and white rules that can be interpreted by anyone you know the person on the street and then we can earn the right to be more sophisticated because right now we just have to fundamentally ask >> can someone take away my access to my data yes or no >> if the answer is yes then it's just not sovereign it doesn't matter what anyone says it's just not sovereign right we have to really make sure that the entire country understands that question and then we can start getting into I think more nuanced approaches.

Okay. Sir, you have the last question tonight. >> Hi, I'm Adrian. I'm a PhD student at the University of Wateroo. >> What are you taking? >> Uh, psychology. >> PhD in psychology. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, back in 2024, we had these new vending machines placed around our campus. There was about 30 of them. They had these big digital screens and they'd show you ads when you walk by. Somebody walking by. One of them noticed a blue screen and it said facial processing.exe has crashed. They did a little bit of investigation. They managed to find where the secret spy camera in all of the vending machines was. There was a big rigomear roll. It hit like the BBC and the end of the thing was they ended up removing the facial processing vending machines. When it comes to dealing with bad actors, uh, the company removed their vending machines. Turns out they were violating several different flavors of pirate privacy laws. I don't know which ones. Maybe you guys do. >> It seems like maybe they should have faced some kind of punishment. >> I think that's Craig's point. Yeah, >> I was hoping you guys could speak to like what do you think an appropriate punishment would have been? What would that have looked like? Vasaliki, go ahead. >> I love how you were like they should have faced some sort of punishment. Uh I wrote about this case uh in one of my columns for the Globe and Mail. And I think it's also a reminder purchasing power, procurement decisions, but also that back to the squirrel, we can be easily dazzled by these layers, these digital layers that end up seeing seeming fancy again. advertising data, what's valuable that product, which we also saw a similar version at malls, right? At the when you walked up to a mall or through the Wi-Fi and you were like looking trying to find your way, it's always so hard. Um, a scan of your face. Why? They wanted to proxy the ages of people using vending machines. I could tell you the ages of people that use vending machines on a university campus pretty easily. I can tell you right now. So again, like zooming back, it's just this sort of what are we really trying to accomplish here? That doesn't answer your penalty, but I'm interested in what yours would be. >> Well, you said the word procurement. >> Mhm. >> And in the context of breaking privacy laws or or just Yeah. Let's say breaking privacy laws. The the easy quick fix is you're not eligible for any form of public procurement for a period of time that's commensurate with the the act that you performed without knowledge. Uh there's no quicker way to get the attention of a company than to tell them they cannot sell you anything for a period of time. You're not eligible to go on campus. You're not eligible to sell things. As an entrepreneur, I live by that too. If you said to me tomorrow, if you do this, I will not allow you to sell to me for a period of time. I guarantee that's done because it's just it's just too much risk. Uh so that's that's the in my opinion that's the easy answer. And it's it doesn't require us to break any human rights. It doesn't require us to break any other laws. It's just a matter of saying very simply, you don't get to sell to us for a period of time. >> Right? >> And I think that's the simple answer, economic consequences, right? There needs to be real accountability when you kind of break these laws that there's some way you're paying a big fine, they do it in Europe, you're not able to sell to government, you can't sell, you know, you're out of the procurement economic consequences.

I'm going to give each of you 30 seconds to send the folks home tonight with a little pearl of wisdom. start us off. >> Well, there was actually a a CG um article on sovereignty recently and the headline was sovereignty is not solitude. And I think that is the key piece of wisdom is nobody, not even can, not even the US or China builds all of this tech itself. And so looking for other like-minded c countries, building companies that are selling to those countries, making trade deals with those countries, looking for the right people who want to do this middle power play, but it's really just like a third economic option for tech, not big tech, not China. Like sovereignty is not solitude. We need partners. We need people to play with together to get what we're talking about here.

I think you just branded Prime Minister Carney's new thing. You call it the what did you call it? The middle power play. >> The middle power play. >> Yeah. It sounds like a hockey term, but I it's not. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, for him that makes sense. >> Okay. Great, Greg. >> So, first of all, we live and work in, if not the best, one of the best countries in the world. We have phenomenal guard rails. Say that again. But here's here's the risk. If we don't protect those guardrails and if we don't support those guardrails and demand those guard rails, people's trust in Canada globally diminishes. And if you work for a company that exports anything, I guarantee you part of the reason why you're successfully exporting things is because the buyer trusts you. And we as Canada have this amazing amount of trust globally and we have to work extremely hard to defend that. And sovereignty is part of that. Standing up for ourselves and being able to justify our own decisions around those key tenants that are make us different than other countries close or far away are really the our the trademarks of being Canada and maintaining that trust.

Vass put a bow on it for us. >> Sovereignity now I mean that's how one of my girlfriends pronounces it. Never has a word been so hot, so on vogue, so challenging to spell, and so dangerously meaningful at the very same time. But I'll I'll say it in a light-hearted way because I think to to echo my incredible co-panelists, this is a big moment for Canada, right? A big opportunity in terms of what we want to build and the standards we want to set. And I think we'll look back on this time and my hope is that we'll realize like we are smoking indoors right now. we are smoking in the hospital, right? And we didn't make the cigarettes, but we know what the cigarettes do and we're still lighting up. Um, we need to look back on this period of time in terms of how we were dealing with email, how we were dealing with payments, how we were storing information, how companies were functioning, and say, "Mom, you were smoking inside the hospital." and say, you know, it was it was just a little different then, but things changed and they got so much better and we did it together and it took a minute, but it was worth it. >> It when you say it took a minute, that's like with the >> That's slang. >> When the kids say it a minute, it really means a long time. >> Yeah. It's it's a big project, but how how do you uh what are the cliches? >> At a time. Exactly. >> Thousand miles begins with the first steps. Okay. >> Begins in 2018. >> Yeah. Right on, friends. indulge me for a second here because we got to do a few thank yous before we go away. First of all, I want to thank all the people who had the guts to go up to the microphone and ask a question. That's not necessarily easy to do on television, but they did. So, well done. I want to thank the folks here at CG. I'm talking Hillary Weaver and Blay. Major thank you and a real pleasure to return here to CG where TVO has done so many I hope good shows over the years. To our TVO crew, you see them around the room here. Mark Ford who heads it all up. Yeah, you can applaud if you like. director Sheldon Osman, Tina Zeano for keeping us on track. Uh, all these TVO Today live episodes are produced by Hillary Clark, who is just A1, and Britt Weaver, who I guess I can call A2. Well done, team. That was great. And, okay, here's where I want to say a little word about Red Wilson, who was really our first and foremost benefactor of this series. And how much did you all pay to come to this tonight? >> Nothing. Exactly. Zero. Because Red Wilson has underwritten this TVO today live series for a few years right now. And Red just died not too long ago. Um, what a life, a great life. The man was an absolute legend. If you consider this, this is a guy who was a deputy minister in the Bill Davis government at Queens Park 40 plus years ago. and just because of his love and commitment to Canada, he wanted to go back and forth between the public and private sectors. And so he went from being a deputy minister to being a true captain of industry, was the CEO of some of the biggest companies in this country. And over the years, bought shares in those companies and did very well. And by the time Redd Wilson got to the end of his 85 years, I think he'd given away $100 million in the service of Canada, democracy, charitable endeavors, good works. I tell you, the guy is top drawer in my shelf. And Red always used to say, "My mission is a better Canada." And Red up there in heaven, you know, you left footprints, my friend. You made it happen. And for decades, your legacy will be felt in this country. So, I wanted to put that on the record. Thank you, Red Wilson. There may be people here tonight from the Jackman Foundation and we want to express our gratitude to you as well for joining Red in this philanthropy. For more on this series, you can go to our website tvo.orgtvoive. We've also got a YouTube channel where we archive all of this. It's youtube.comtvo today. And last, but certainly not least, I know this audience wants to join me in thanking these three excellent guests for being here tonight in Waterl, Ontario. Thanking you three. Wonderful job. I'm Steve Pacin. Thanks everybody and we'll see you next time. Good night. TVO Today Live is made possible by the generous support of the Wilson Foundation.