Why Industry Minister Champagne Broke the Bill C-27 Hearings on Privacy and AI Regulation in Only 12 Minutes$1:
This secretive, non-transparent approach is unfortunately consistent with the privacy and AI reform process. Indeed, Champagne’s appearance came hours before he is scheduled to reveal another piece in the AI regulatory puzzle with the release of finalized non-binding Generative AI guardrails. This Code of Practice was negotiated in secret over the summer until its existence was inadvertently posted on a government site and I tweeted about it. The government then proceeded to release the draft document, but the consultation meetings on the document – I believe there were four in total – resulted in what is expected to be only minor modifications such as the inclusion of a hierarchy of use cases. In many respects, the document is very similar to a non-binding one released by U.S. President Joe Biden in July. For example, the U.S. has three commitment categories, while Canada has six outcomes, but they cover much the same ground. The Code is most notable for the secretive policy process, missing the big global AI companies as signatories, and for the government’s seeming need to invoke Yoshio Bengio’s stamp of approval as frequently as possible.
Canadians deserve better on such an important piece of legislation. The inclusion of both privacy and AI bills means that the committee has split the hearings as it will start with privacy and then shift after several weeks to AI (there are 13 sessions planned).
Ottawa rolls out voluntary code of conduct for AI$1:
“We have witnessed technology advancing at what I would say is lightning speed,” Champagne said.
“The mission we should give ourselves is to move from fear to opportunities.”
CKA Moderator 
CKA Moderator 
