Canada’s AI imperative:
Public
policy’s critical moment
Artificial intelligence (AI) prosperity means that AI improves business productivity, government
effectiveness, and Canada’s future.
It means using AI to advance Canadian values like fairness and a reasonable expectation of privacy while protecting
our rights, such as freedom from discrimination.
And it means making sure that Canadians who are negatively affected by the transition to an AI
economy are protected and offered new opportunities.
It means building a world where Canadians and Canadian businesses understand, trust, and use AI
throughout their everyday lives.
Achieving AI prosperity depends on public policy leadership.
Our report identifies three action areas for such prosperity, describes the foundations needed for
AI-driven growth and success, and sets out recommendations for government and business to achieve
them.
Read Public policy’s critical moment to learn more.
Achieving AI prosperity for all Canadians
Canada needs to take a broader approach to achieve and preserve AI prosperity, one that addresses the full set of conditions needed to stimulate an AI economy, respond to social change, and mitigate risk.
economy
Canadians
for change
build trust
Key actions for government:
- Foundation for growth: Unlock the value of data. Reform intellectual property laws, privacy laws, and data policies, and lay the groundwork for data trusts.
- Create operating certainty by clarifying how existing laws apply to AI, to enable businesses to make large, strategic investments in AI.
- Maintain our lead in AI research by helping top talent start AI businesses in Canada.
- Help companies commercialize and scale by facilitating their access to capital and global markets.
Key actions for business:
- Collaborate on the development of industry standards for AI. Business-originated standards can often be established faster than government regulation.
- Make better use of your own data—and share it. Pooling data can create far larger datasets than any one company could achieve solo, and can be done in a way that preserves the privacy and trust of Canadians.
Key actions for government:
- Foundation for growth: Promote AI literacy. Invest in public education for AI literacy from kindergarten to postsecondary studies. Provide training in AI to public policy decision-makers too.
- Equip workers for a changing labour market by preparing them for jobs in the industries that will grow in an AI economy, such as health care.
- Upgrade our social safety net, adjusting eligibility rules and program design to handle short-term surges in AI-driven unemployment and the realities of a gig economy.
Key actions for business:
- Provide professional development that supports AI literacy. Give ongoing training to leaders and employees about how AI works and how to use it.
Key actions for government:
- Foundation for growth: Build systems for transparency and accountability by setting guidelines for AI “explainability,” developing standards for procedural fairness in AI-assisted decision-making, and developing guidance for government use of AI.
- Tackle bias in machine learning by clarifying how Canada’s anti-discrimination laws apply in an AI context.
- Modernize privacy rights by updating Canada’s privacy regime to reflect the realities of the AI economy.
Key actions for business:
- Build internal AI accountability through, for example, external algorithmic audits, reports to the board, internal oversight bodies, or voluntary industry self-regulating bodies.
Canada’s AI imperative series
Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to be one of the leading economic drivers of our time, and Deloitte believes Canada has a responsibility to be a global leader. As a country, we have the research strength, talent pool, and startups to become a leading AI supplier, but that’s not enough if we truly want to lead in an AI-driven world. Our ambition as a nation should be to shape what that world will look like. True leadership is required―that means taking steps now to establish a world-class AI ecosystem in Canada. Deloitte’s multi-part series on Canada’s AI imperative provides a platform on which to engage business and policy leaders about what it will take for our country to claim a global leadership position in AI and to explore different dimensions of what an AI prosperity strategy could look like.
Explore the first report from our series: From predictions to prosperity
Explore the second report from our series: Overcoming risks, building trust
Canada’s AI imperative: Start, scale, succeed
Get in touch
At Deloitte, we believe AI has the power to improve Canadian organizations in transformative ways—and we’ll work with you to make your business better. Deloitte’s artificial intelligence practice, Omnia AI, leads all others in starting, enabling, accelerating, and sustaining the AI journey.
Talk to us. You’ll see the difference.
