Tristin Hopper: Carney is releasing tons of ‘strategic plans,’ with few results

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In a theme running across many of these strategies, it contains no new government policy. Rather, it’s simply a laundry list of existing federal actions that may help deliver cheaper food, including this summer’s suspension of the Fuel Excise Tax.

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Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy

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This is easily the most serious of the various strategies. Released in February, it itemizes a goal (build out the Canadian military industry), lays out a budget for that goal ($180 billion by 2035), and even specifies who will be responsible for achieving that goal (a new body called the Defence Industrial Agency).

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What’s more, defence procurement is one area in which it’s actually quite useful for Ottawa to release something in writing declaring its plans for the future. As the report states, “one of the fundamental challenges facing Canadian industry has been the lack of clear and predictable demand signals and commitments from government.”

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The strategy is thus a “clear, long-term demand signal” assuring Canadian military contractors will no longer be as flaky on procurement.

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In a critique published in the Financial Post, retired naval officer Vice-Admiral Mark Norman mostly had praise for the plan, saying its main drawback was only that Canada may not have the 125,000 skilled workers necessary to deliver what was otherwise “the most ambitious industrial policy this country has produced in a generation.”

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The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy

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The subtitle of this report, released June 8, is “AI for all.” The gist is that Canada should have more AI in more places, and that such AI should be made nicer to alleviate fears about its adoption. The motto is “safe, reliable, and sovereign AI.”

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To this end, several sections are devoted towards how artificial intelligence will help Canada reach its various “equity” and reconciliation goals.

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The strategy promises to “ensure Indigenous peoples have agency in shaping AI development locally and internationally,” and warns of “the disproportionate exposure and impacts of AI harms to equity-seeking groups.”

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“Given our diverse and multicultural society, our approach to AI must acknowledge and support this rich diversity,” it reads.

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The artificial intelligence sector is currently dominated by major firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy dismisses these providers as “hegemons and hyperscalers,” and pledges to instead help subsidize the development of a Canadian AI sector that will be kind, equitable and respectful to “our customs, our history, and our heritage.”

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The Walrus magazine published an entire feature summing up all the AI experts who hated the strategy. Their basic critique being that it encourages universal adoption of a new technology on the promise that the federal government will ensure said technology works as intended. As one said, “right now, we are encouraging people to fly, adding harnesses later, and accepting that sometimes the flight just goes somewhere completely random.”

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A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature

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This strategy is particularly heavy on declarative statements such as “nature is part of our daily lives,” “nature is foundational to Canadian identity” and “nature underpins much of our economic prosperity.”