Carney’s AI-for-All Strategy Needs a Receipts Ledger

Before Ottawa spends billions scaling AI, Canadians deserve the public ledger: who gets the money, who controls the data, what power and water are used, and how many jobs are at risk.

Mark Carney’s new “AI for All” strategy is being sold with the right words: trust, opportunity and sovereignty. The accountability problem is that the receipts are still catching up to the rhetoric.

In his June 4 launch speech, Carney promised new legislation, regulations and standards to protect Canadians’ data, privacy and children. He said Ottawa would modernize privacy and online-safety laws, table consumer privacy legislation, expand the Canadian AI Safety Institute, and create protections against deepfakes and surveillance pricing. Those are serious promises. They should not be treated as a press-conference backdrop while the spending starts first and the text arrives later.

The money is already big. Carney’s speech listed $500 million through the Regional AI Initiative, another $700 million for the Compute Access fund, a $500-million Canadian Tech Growth Fund taking equity stakes in AI firms, nearly $350 million for AI institutes in Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton, and a $200-million first “AI mission” in health care. Global News also reported a $500-million BDC package through the LIFT program to help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI.

That ledger should start with a line-by-line funding table: program authority, total envelope, application rules, recipients, equity terms, repayment terms, conflict screens, lobbyist contacts, procurement exemptions and measurable outcomes. If Ottawa is going to take equity stakes, Canadians deserve to know what downside risk taxpayers carry and what upside returns taxpayers receive.

The infrastructure side needs the same daylight. Global reported that the strategy contemplates large-scale AI data centres that can scale to at least 100 megawatts, with an aim of 850 megawatts of computing capacity by 2030. Carney said Canada would build sustainably by linking data-centre development with clean energy and robust environmental standards. Fine. Then publish the electricity, water, grid, ratepayer and emissions tests before the projects are finalized, not after communities are told the decision is already made.

The jobs file is even less acceptable. The government promotes 250,000 AI-related jobs and more than 90,000 youth opportunities. Global reported that, when officials were repeatedly asked whether Ottawa had an estimate for how many jobs would be lost through AI adoption, they did not answer. A strategy that counts promised new jobs but dodges displaced jobs is not a jobs plan; it is a sales pitch.

None of this requires rejecting AI. Conservatives should welcome tools that improve health care, productivity, security and Canadian competitiveness. But a serious country does not confuse “sovereignty” with blank cheques, vague privacy promises and industrial policy for insiders. If Carney wants AI governed by Canadian values and accountable to Canadians, the next step is obvious: publish the spending, privacy, job-loss and data-centre receipts now.