For months, Canadians waited for Mark Carney to say something meaningful about artificial intelligence (AI). After the buildup around his leadership and the election, his government's national strategy finally arrived last week, and it is a letdown that reveals far more about the man and the interests he serves than it does about the technology reshaping our lives.
The “AI for All” strategy promises hundreds of thousands of new jobs, massive economic growth, and a brighter technological future. What it refuses to confront is why so many people approach AI with a healthy skepticism, not of every possible use, but of the big corporations racing to embed it deeper into our economy, our information systems, and our daily existence.
The press release says almost nothing about AI's proven capacity to generate convincing misinformation and fabricated content, making it harder to know what is real. It offers no serious response to the displacement of artists, writers (like myself), and other creators whose work is being scraped to train models that now compete with them directly. And it has very little to say about the disruption of industries and the elimination of entry-level positions that once gave young people a foothold in the workforce. These are not fringe worries. They are the concrete reasons many of us view unchecked corporate AI development with suspicion.
Instead, the Carney Liberals have offered us the familiar elite reassurance: "trust us, the benefits will trickle down." There are aspirational targets for new AI-related jobs, but no credible plan to protect the jobs and livelihoods being undermined today.
There is talk of "upskilling" and literacy programs, but no mechanism to slow deployment, regulate harmful uses, or give workers across our country real power over how this technology arrives in their lives and in thjeir communities. The numbers are thrown out; the hard questions about power and accountability are left unasked.
This flows directly from Mark Carney's background and worldview. This is a man who spent thirteen years at Goldman Sachs, governed two of the world’s most important central banks, and later held senior roles at Brookfield Asset Management.
Carney lives in a professional universe where concentrated corporate power is normal, legitimate, and usually profitable for people like him; in that world, human costs are externalities to be addressed later—if at all—through retraining schemes and public relations. The lived experience of watching an algorithm reject your job application, seeing your creative output replicated without consent, or struggling to trust what you read online simply does not register as a central problem. It registers as a communications challenge.
I voted for Mark Carney in 2025 because I hoped his arrival might mark a genuine shift from the patterns of the previous Trudeau Liberal government. On AI, that hope has been dashed. He is not failing to understand public concern because the issues are too complex. He is choosing not to centre them because they challenge the assumptions of the class and institutions he has moved through his entire adult life.
For him, unaccountable corporate power is the water in which he swims. For most of us, it is the thing we are trying to keep from swallowing more of our economy, our culture, and our public sphere. This is not a case of Avi Lewis or Pierre Poilievre manufacturing outrage for political gain. It is a prime minister and government that appears fundamentally out of step with the legitimate apprehensions of the people they govern.
The strategy treats widespread distrust as something to be overcome through better messaging and training rather than as evidence that AI's development requires far stronger democratic constraints on the corporations driving it.
Canadians deserve leadership that starts from the same place most of us do: a clear-eyed recognition that concentrated corporate power, whether in finance, tech, or anywhere else, tends to serve itself first. Until that basic insight shapes policy, "AI for All" will remain what it is: another glossy publicity stunt that leaves the real distribution of power untouched.
This piece was written by an individual contributor and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.
