{"id":168553,"date":"2026-08-14T22:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/168553\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T22:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:20:25","slug":"can-canada-function-without-american-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/168553\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Canada function without American tech?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian Shield Institute\u2019s Vass Bednar on the best ways to evaluate Canada\u2019s push for digital self-reliance. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What would happen if, overnight, Canada suddenly lost all access to American tech?<\/p>\n

That question was posed by our friends at the Canadian Shield Institute, who have put together an infographic outlining<\/a> what the average day might look like without the economic and technological integration Canadians have come to expect\u2014maybe even depend on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about sovereignty, we\u2019re talking about strategic capacity. Can you govern yourself with the tools that you have?\u201d<\/p>\n

You can play with the infographic yourself, but the TL;DR is not great: while there are some viable Canadian alternatives, our country just doesn\u2019t have a complete \u2018sovereign tech stack.\u2019 It\u2019s part of the reason why our 2026 BetaKit Most Ambitious issue<\/a>, which tells stories of Canadian innovators strengthening our security, autonomy, and prosperity, has an entire section dedicated to the companies trying to fill those gaps.<\/p>\n

In that section, we also have an op-ed from Canadian Shield Institute managing director, Vass Bednar, asking another important question: how sovereign is sovereign enough<\/a>? Do we really need a Canadian version of every app or service or technology, or is there a better way? <\/p>\n

This week on the podcast, Vass joins to answer that question and a whole bunch of others, like what does minimum viable sovereignty for Canadian tech look like? How should we evaluate recent \u2018elbows up\u2019 federal policy initiatives? And maybe the biggest question of all: what does sovereignty really mean for Canadians in an ever more interconnected digital world?<\/p>\n

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, Overcast<\/a>, Pocket Casts<\/a>, RSS<\/a> <\/p>\n

The answers might be as tough to parse as the questions, but Vass is an apex-level policy wonk and has an incredible way of explaining complex subjects so that Canadians can engage with them.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s do that! Let\u2019s engage. Let\u2019s\u2026 dig in.<\/p>\n

PRESENTED BY<\/p>\n

\"BetaKit<\/a><\/p>\n

The BetaKit Podcast is presented by BetaKit Most Ambitious<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amid global uncertainty, the path forward is clear: Canada\u2019s moment to build is now.<\/p>\n

Presented by Uber Canada, DMZ, and National Bank of Canada, BetaKit Most Ambitious is back, telling stories of nearly 100 Canadian innovators strengthening our nation\u2019s autonomy, security, and prosperity.<\/p>\n

Read BetaKit Most Ambitious<\/a> now.<\/p>\n

Recorded and edited by\u00a0Toronto Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian Shield Institute\u2019s Vass Bednar on the best ways to evaluate Canada\u2019s push for digital self-reliance. What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,8052,3841,25915,737,41355,8051],"class_list":["post-168553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-canadian-shield-institute","tag-govt","tag-most-ambitious","tag-sovereignty","tag-the-betakit-podcast","tag-vass-bednar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}