On March 23, 2026, we submitted a report to the People’s Consultation on AI based on a hybrid event hosted jointly with the Tech Workers Coalition Canada on March 9, 2026.
Our submission is below, followed by participants’ concluding demands:
The People’s Demands to the Government of Canada
We asked the participants to grapple with what their demands are for how the Government of Canada can reconsider their National AI Strategy.
- Co-develop regulations with communities: Currently, AI is developed and concentrated among a small number of market players that are built for a global optimum at the expense of optimizing for local community needs. There is an opportunity to have more local community input to shape rules on how this technology is produced and deployed.
- Develop AI as publicly-owned infrastructure: Much in the way that utilities are often publicly-owned, we can institutionally entrench AI as a public good by having publicly-owned AI that is democratically controlled.
- Ban AI from being deployed for surveillance: There are serious concerns with how AI can be used to surveil workers in the workplace and across society in general. With privacy being critical, the people demand
that AI not be used for surveillance purposes. - Stronger labour protections for workers: There are many workers who will be impacted by this technology. The people believe that any claims of productivity gains will accrue to investors at the expense of workers. The people support the idea of a bill of rights for specific workers involved in the production of AI, such as data workers. The people also support collective bargaining agreements that would govern the use of AI in the workplace.
- Regulatory bodies must protect themselves from regulatory capture by big tech: With the far-reaching impacts AI has had, the people demand that AI be regulated. Such demands include: monitoring how AI is deployed, requiring safety audits of AI models, and co-developing a bill of AI safety directly with
communities. It is critical that workers and representatives from the community be directly involved in the governance of these bodies, and that they do not become captured by industry. - Enforce existing laws: There are many existing laws that are not being enforced that enable the proliferation of AI, such as privacy legislation, intellectual property legislation and competition legislation. The people demand that these existing laws be enforced.
