Canadian Shield Institute leader talks digital sovereignty ahead of CUSMA review.<\/p>\n
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Imagine: just before heading into renegotiations of the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), President Donald Trump shoots Microsoft a request. Could you grab Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s briefing notes from his team\u2019s Outlook, or Office, and share them with the White House?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could have compelling governance strategies for the data-driven digital economy, and we\u2019ve just chosen not to, for whatever reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
That hypothetical is one of the possibilities that Canadian Shield Institute<\/a> managing director Vass Bednar and her colleagues want Canadians to think about as the country heads into trade talks this summer with its southern neighbour. Last week, the Toronto policy think tank published the first chapter<\/a> in its eight-part Foundations of Digital Sovereignty series, which proposes a blueprint that would allow Canada to build full ownership over its citizens\u2019 online lives.<\/p>\n Amid the recent talk about digital sovereignty, BetaKit took the opportunity to sit down with Bednar to unpack what the term actually means, where we sit today compared to our global peers, and what the consequences might look like if Canada does not take the right steps to ensure we own and control our digital economy.<\/p>\n The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n Why did the Canadian Shield Institute launch this Foundations of Digital Sovereignty project?<\/p>\n Digital sovereignty seems like a fancy, esoteric, and abstract phrase, maybe a nice-to-have. But the digital economy is increasingly how value is created and captured.<\/p>\n We understand that we\u2019re in an attention economy, and we wanted to invite more readers and thinkers to feel like they could wrap their minds around digital sovereignty.<\/p>\n It is aimed towards a wonkier audience; any think tank is trying to influence policy decision makers, but we are also mindful of people who are one or two degrees away from them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Does Canada have a working definition of what digital sovereignty means? Or is that definition something you\u2019re hoping to help address?\u00a0<\/p>\n We want to help.<\/p>\n There was an update federally<\/a> on March 31. But the original federal document<\/a> on digital sovereignty brushed aside a lot of risks: that the US can access our data or compel companies to give data to the government. That the mere possibility of that has persisted is hugely problematic.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: Evaluating Canada\u2019s Defence Industrial Strategy<\/a><\/p>\n The other element is the same hyperscalers that already dominate these marketplaces want to be a part of building our sovereignty. If we\u2019re licensing away compute space to American-owned hyperscalers, is that a sovereign solution?\u00a0<\/p>\n Why is digital sovereignty so important in this moment?<\/p>\n We\u2019re much more awake to the interdependencies and vulnerabilities we have with the US as a function of both their platform dominance and weak provisions in CUSMA. Those vulnerabilities always existed, but the Trump administration is much more willing to exploit them. And we also see this alignment or fusion between the US government and Big Tech.<\/p>\n We could have compelling governance strategies for the data-driven digital economy, and we\u2019ve just chosen not to, for whatever reason. We can\u2019t keep doing that.<\/p>\n Chapter One of your Foundations of Digital Sovereignty series is out now. What are the biggest takeaways for BetaKit\u2019s audience?<\/p>\n Sovereignty is kind of tricky-to-spell, fun-to-say, dangerously vague, kind of hot right now, but meaningless on its own. In practice, sovereignty is just whether or not you can govern the economy you have.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of poor provisions in the digital chapter of CUSMA, we are governing with one hand behind our back.\u201d<\/p>\n Other jurisdictions are ahead of Canada in terms of appreciating that governing the digital economy\u2014so, intangible assets, both data and IP\u2014in smart ways creates competitive advantages.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because of poor provisions in the digital chapter of CUSMA, we are governing with one hand behind our back. We gave away a lot of rights and abilities, and that sucks. And it looks like there\u2019s likely to only be more slippage in that regard, but that\u2019s not inevitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n We have all these things and we\u2019re not using them to our full capacity. When you don\u2019t use the resources and the policy levers that you have, it\u2019s kind of a sovereignty fail.<\/p>\n We\u2019re really overfocusing on residency\u2014where data is held. It\u2019s part of the story, for sure. But who has built and governed these systems, what the rules are, as well as those vulnerabilities in the US CLOUD and FISA Act are also important.<\/p>\n What can we expect from the coming chapters?<\/p>\n We\u2019re releasing it in a snack-sized, chapter-by-chapter way. It\u2019s giving Goosebumps. It\u2019s giving Choose Your Own Adventure. Come back next week, learn a little bit more. You can join in, you can catch up, you\u2019re not behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n A lot of the time, we\u2019re focusing on these downstream effects of a poorly governed platform economy, when, if we were thinking more structurally, or earlier and upstream, we could have stronger and better outcomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Canada is investing heavily in building sovereign computing infrastructure. What will the impact of those investments be without the right governance underpinning them?<\/p>\n They\u2019ll be minimized. We are investing more in data centres and sovereign compute, but again, in service of who and what? If it is going to serve extractive foreign platforms that are spying on us and influencing us and extracting value from us, then we\u2019re just using public dollars to invest in what they would otherwise build for themselves.<\/p>\n