Last week we wrote about how Big Tech + other foreign companies can sneak their way into (onto?) "Canadian" business groups. These groups/councils can get super elevated in policy dialogue, absorbing and sometimes echoing interests that diverse from what truly 🇨🇦companies need.

I have a new essay - on the emptiness of sovereignty rhetoric behind "sovereign AI" - in the November issue of Le Monde Diplomatique. English version, paywalled, is here

🎤 Power, control technologies, & sovereignty in the AI age @IIPP_UCL Prof. @CeciliaRikap will be speaking at @BESI_Berkeley about possibilities and strategies for expanding digital sovereignty in the age of #AI today at 4-5:30pm (PDT). 🔗 Learn more: https://t.co/846SgEJ4ex

Here I explain why PM Carney is fortunate to have offended Trump away from negotiating a big tariff-cutting deal right now

"Unless Canada acts, we risk outsourcing not only our data but also our ability to govern wellness itself."

The “rip-off economy”, in which firms profit from opacity, confusion or inertia, is meeting its match. But the extent to which AI can eliminate this market depends on two things

Many coffee shops pay more to Visa/Mastercard for credit card fees than for coffee beans. Visa is hiking fees, that's not trade sensitive.

BlackBerry founder says tech is wreaking 'catastrophic costs' on society including 'mental health crisis, democratic erosion, societal polarization, lost economic dynamism and misinformation to name a few' https://t.co/bVrWvk1WRp

“It's well past time for a post-American internet. Every device and every service should be designed so that the people who use them have the final say over how they work.”

I'll just add: the policy problem that ticketing legislation aims to solve isn’t to make events any less appealing or special. Rather, ticket legislation can curb the ability of persons (+ computer bots) to independently capitalize on that, if that ability is something we value.

@VassB @doctorow

Only 12% of patents filed in Canada come from Canadians. Over 87% of our innovation is foreign owned. And 95% of university research never gets licensed. We’re funding the future for someone else. It’s time to protect what’s invented here and make sure it’s owned here.

Full lecture:

At @doctorow’s 💩Toronto book launch at TYPE and he is talking about legalizing jailbreaking as a power move in the trade war. Suggests Canada can build the independent firmware that gets exported elsewhere to take back tech power. Here’s more context

In light of the increasing devastation caused by wildfires across the nation, it is imperative that we reconsider what constitutes national defense spending. Wildfires pose a significant threat to our safety, economy, and environment, on par with traditional military threats,

Online now: Could healthcare also be a nation-building project? I tested universal pharmacare against Ottawa’s criteria to see if a case could be made.

Spirit Halloween, brought to you by the dead retail spaces left behind by private equity 🎃💀🪦

Today we're announcing a six-year bipartisan effort expand American capacity and competitiveness by transforming how our government operates. It's called the Recoding America Fund, and you can read more about it below.

Today, CCI is releasing Building At Scale: Innovation and Canada’s Housing Crisis, a new Policy Report that explores how innovators can help close the housing gap. Read the full report: https://t.co/OcctHjZhoV Register for the tomorrow launch event: https://t.co/C7MlgY41eG

Both the National Archives and Wikipedia remind us: sovereignty depends on public access to truth. When our records are underfunded or our knowledge infrastructures privatized, independence erodes quietly. Who gets to keep, share, and shape what we know?

And this @globeandmail folio where Historian Charlotte Gray speaks with Librarian and Archivist of Canada Leslie Weir and former U.S. National Archivist Colleen Shogan about how to preserve history and why it matters