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Tag: tech

  • Tell the MTO: Say NO to Surveillance Taxis

    April 2026 — Now

    Waymo is an autonomous vehicle company founded by Google and owned by its parent company, Alphabet Inc.

    They are lobbying politicians to deploy their vehicles across Ontario.

    We believe this is a problem.

    Sign our petition below!

    1. Digital sovereignty and privacy is at stake. As US law enforcement and tech companies share data, we are concerned that this could put Canadians’ data at risk.
    2. Ontarians’ jobs risk being outsourced to software engineers in California, data labellers in Kenya, and support staff in countries like the Philippines. We are concerned that local Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers risk losing their jobs as Waymo outcompetes them.
    3. Public transit could lose riders as people with more discretionary income will spend it on Waymo and ridesharing apps in general, instead of taking the subway.
    4. Congestion may worsen as Waymo adds more cars to the roads, with reports indicating that Waymo cars drive significant distances without any passenger.
    5. Ontarians are not getting their voices heard! From reports of zooming past school buses in Austin, Texas, to shutdown of services during blackouts and heavy rainfall, Ontarians deserve a fair assessment of driverless taxis.

    Let’s move people, not profits!

    Check out our open letter below and sign our petition to
    say no to surveillance taxis!

    TfD – Surveillance Taxis – Open Letter – Second Release

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    Thank you for signing!

    Petition to Say NO to Surveillance Taxis

    By signing, you consent to your information being sent to the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) and related parties. Also see our privacy policy.

    I am signing as an …

  • Joint Submission to the People’s Consultation on AI

    Joint Submission to the People’s Consultation on AI

    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:

    PCAI_Option2_TWCandTFD_20260309
    Download Report

    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.

  • Platform Politics: Reflecting on Toronto’s History with Tech Giants

    What: A discussion of Toronto’s history with tech giants
    Location: University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall
    Date: September 4, 2025 from 5 – 7pm

    Register here!