Law Bytes

Canada’s pivot to Europe took another step at last week’s Canada-EU summit in Montreal, where the two sides launched what they call an “Alliance for the Future.” The announcements ranged from critical minerals and firefighting aircraft to supercomputing and payment systems. The digital commitments received less attention, but they raise many of the same sovereignty questions that have dominated the Canada-U.S. relationship this year. Indeed, the leaders committed to reciprocal access to each other’s cloud and AI markets and concluded Canada’s first Digital Trade Agreement.

Mikołaj Barczentewicz is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Surrey, where he is research director of the Surrey Law and Technology Hub, and a Senior Scholar at the International Center for Law & Economics. His recent work has examined how the EU has addressed cloud and AI policy and what it means for its allies. He joins me on the podcast to discuss Europe’s digital sovereignty push, its proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, and the implications for Canada.

Parliament is back in full swing and with it debate on a wide range of digital bills, including lawful access, social media rules, AI regulation, and privacy reform. This week’s Law Bytes podcast provides an update on recent developments and highlights what to watch for in the weeks ahead as both the Senate and House launch hearings on high-profile digital legislation.

The Lawbytes podcast returns after a brief hiatus in late summer and early fall by turning to the debate on data and digital sovereignty. Last week, I was pleased to deliver the dinner keynote speech at the NREN Assembly, an annual gathering hosted by CANARIE that brings together staff and leadership from CANARIE and all thirteen provincial and territorial partners of Canada’s National Research and Education Network. With their kind permission, this week’s episode features the keynote in full, titled Digital Sovereignty: Control, Choice, and Connection.

Sovereignty, whether digital sovereignty, data sovereignty, or AI sovereignty, has been the hot-button issue in Canada for months. Governments have shifted policies in hopes of addressing the issue, the public has expressed interest in Canadian alternatives, and the business community has rushed to meet that interest. But what does it actually take to create a true, sovereign alternative? We now have a live experiment with Gander, a new social network that looks a bit like X or BlueSky, but with data sovereignty. The company has worked to ensure that data remains in Canadian control and developed identity systems that may offer a preview of what’s to come if the social media ban takes hold. Leading the way has been Ben Waldman, Gander’s co-founder and CEO. He joins the Law Bytes podcast this week to talk about Gander’s origin story and to walk through the real-world challenges of creating a sovereign social network.

The Canadian government’s surprise decision to sign the UN Cybercrime Convention has sparked many questions about the convention, its risks, and what changed over the past nine months between Canada no-showing the signing in Vietnam and this month’s reversal. To help answer those questions, there is no one better than Kate Robertson, a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab, who has been vocal on the convention since negotiations began years ago. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss her concerns and how the Convention fits within the broader global political and policing frameworks.