Even if they don't mount another improbable comeback, this team is endlessly enjoyable to watch, and have been for several years now.

Cue the comeback! #LetsGoBuffalo

Canada Strong. Or something.

Great post that recalls policy howlers from Poilievre, Harper and (gasp!) Carney. Key point: "Economic credentials are not a talisman." Dumb policy is dumb.
Also appreciated the reminder that the indefensible Harper-era cancellation of the long-form census was a thing that happened.

After France, Denmark is moving too: its Digitalisation Ministry plans to phase out Microsoft, switching to Linux and LibreOffice in the coming months. The goal is clear—reduce dependence on a handful of global tech giants and strengthen digital sovereignty.

Banning surveillance pricing for groceries should be an easy yes and an easy win.

Among all the good reasons, legal scholarship on AI regulation has supported this kind of approach for decades. It’s specific & addresses an obvious harm that is enacted at scale only because of this underlying tech.

New at Debating Canadian Defence:

open.substack.com/pub/philippe...

The idea of prohibiting LLMs in many different situations is one of the most important. Setting norms.

It's not a textbook, and it's written to be accessible to a general audience, but I don't think there are any plans for an audiobook. Although it was just translated into Mandarin.

You can download it as an ebook for free, though: www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

The long and costly shadow of COVID-19 Infected Canadians are still suffering from symptoms, but we don’t know how many

The long and costly shadow of COVID-19 continues to haunt us. The pandemic will have an impact on our economic and personal health for years to come, by @picardonhealth.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/0fc7a92... via @theglobeandmail.com

The New Knowledge From the global geopolitical arena to the smart city, control over knowledge-particularly over data and intellectual property-has become a key battleground for…

The whole premise of @ntusikov.bsky.social‘s and my book The New Knowledge (available OA) is that to regulate tech like genAI, you have to understand what knowledge is and how it’s created. Most analyses skip that step and go straight to the commodification, derailing the entire public policy convo.

Precisely this.
The only safe way to use something like generative AI (but also algorithmic decision-making programs) is if you already have pre-existing expertise. But if you use these, you’ll erode your expertise. And if you come up using these things, you’ll never develop it in the first place.

I don't think it would make us more important than Ukraine b/c we'd be back to being a colony, and colonies are disposable, whereas Ukraine lies between the EU & Russia.
It's also about the fact that the discussion is very much "wouldn't it be nice," rather than it being an actual policy proposal.

It definitely is a conundrum, and one that hasn't been subject to nearly enough debate (e.g., where to draw that line). I'd be a lot more sanguine about the government's approach if they were taking basic steps to get out of reach, eg, by strengthening our regulatory capacity rather than cutting it.

There's more to say (e.g., how it's a terrible mistake not to pay attention to reinforcing Canadian culture and identity; and re neglect of governance/Indigenous issues and policies that make Canada Canada in favour of a one-eyed focus on defence and productivity), but I'll leave it there.

Incoherently, Carney and his government are insisting on the maintenance of US trade, regulatory & security relations while simultaneously arguing that these links are a weakness. This contradiction reflects the continentalist equivalent of the EU dream: both are seeking the protection of an empire.

Carney's strategy presumes an optimal level of economic autonomy that'll protect Canada. There isn't. Some (politically important) sectors will always be vulnerable. The crucial variable is mental: What are Canadians willing to stand up & sacrifice for? Carney hasn't answered that question yet.

That strategy can't work because the goal is to reduce vulnerability to US economic coercion. It's incomplete at best because decisions to resist coercion reflect values, what pain you're willing to accept, not your economic structure. And there will always be vulnerabilities in Can-US relations.

Carney is treating a sovereignty/autonomy/independence crisis as if it's a productivity crisis. The assumption: if the economy is productive enough, Canada'll be protected from the US. It substitutes a hyper-difficult problem for a familiar one that has obsessed right-leaning economists for decades.

Pursuing familiar but unworkable policies that avoid addressing the underlying existential problem describes not just the EU dream, but also Mark Carney's strategy.

The EU dream highlights Canada's deeper problem, which isn't addressed by any of Carney's moves, either: Should the US get handsy with Canada, there's pretty much zero chance Europe would intervene in Canada's defence. Ukraine is important to the EU in a way Canada never can be.

Canada's long-term problem: faced with an unstable/potentially expansionist United States, we don't have an empire backing us up this time. Joining the EU is a comforting but unworkable attempt to process & deal with this very unpleasant reality.
But pro-EU Canadians aren't the only ones doing this.

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

Cuts at Global Affairs Canada marks an 'end of Pearson's dream,' report says Budget cuts at GAC could "shift Canada's foreign policy focus away from peacekeeping and development to self-interested trade and defence."

I don't think the budget cuts at GAC "could" signal a shift away from peacekeeping and development towards self-interested trade and defence. The government has literally said this is what it intends to do. That is the very clear plan

But 0.17% of GNI. Ouch

ottawacitizen.com/public-servi...

Yes. "Independent Senator Yuen Pau Woo said Canadians expect the federal government to say whether or not the use of force is legal"

Troy McClure — “Lead Paint: Delicious but Deadly” and “Here Comes the Metric System” YouTube video by The Golden Circle

Sounds like someone missed a certain Troy McClure educational film in elementary school.

youtu.be/epsFCa4jHL4?...

Hard to overstate the importance of this point. Especially when AI is introduced as a cost-cutting measure.

I’m giving a talk about this next week. I’m arguing for a focus on specific problems — e.g., the specific security risks from Canadian overreliance on US tech companies — while highlighting that issues of control don’t stop at the border (eg, the push for Indigenous data sovereignty).

Buffalo! Believe!

I had an opportunity recently to make a submission to the People’s Consultation on AI, a Canadian grassroots response to a chaotic gov consultation. I focused on 2 points and this was one - if there’s no space for rejection, consultation is performance.

www.peoplesaiconsultation.ca/wp-content/u...