'We have not kept pace': Former broadcaster Evan Solomon faces big challenge as first AI minister

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney has created Canada’s first cabinet post specifically responsible for artificial intelligence and digital innovation, a signal that improving Canada’s technological performance will be a key plank in the long-term plan to boost the sluggish economy.

As part of his comparatively slim cabinet of 29, Carney appointed rookie MP Evan Solomon to the new post for all things digital and AI. The former journalist, who will also be responsible for the regional economic development agency for southern Ontario, will face a range of thorny challenges.

While the specific mandates for the various cabinet ministers have not yet been released, Solomon’s to-do list will likely include at least three key items: re-igniting Canada’s technology sector, ushering in updated framework policies to deal with a wide range of digital issues, including finding the tricky balance between economic growth and security and privacy concerns, and improving the federal government’s own efforts to make better use of digital technology.

Many of these responsibilities have typically fallen under the minister responsible for industry or, more recently, innovation, science and economic development. Cabinet veteran Mélanie Joly is Carney’s new industry minister, moving from foreign affairs, and will likely also play a major role in digital and innovation issues.

A generation earlier, the federal government was seen as an international leader in shifting to the online world but that evolution has slowed in recent years, according to tech industry officials.

“There’s no question that we’re going in the wrong direction,” said Janice Horn, federal account leader with EY’s government and public sector operation.

In the most recent United Nations e-government development index, widely seen as the most comprehensive scorecard of its kind, Canada fell to 47th place globally in 2024, from third in 2010.

Viet Vu, manager of economic research at the Dais, said Solomon, Joly and others in government face three significant challenges in turning the tide: attracting top AI talent to work in government when the market for their services is very strong; the need to build an internal digital culture that is user-focused; and do better at enabling digital access for Canadians.

While the federal government did well in providing online access to high-volume services during the recent pandemic, Vu said, the government should do better in offering government decisions and applications online and making logins and authentication easier and more secure.

“We have not kept pace,” said Vu.

Finding the right balance in the fast-changing world of digital policy is another tough obstacle. On one hand, Solomon will want to promote economic growth and allow Canadians the online services they crave. On the other, governments are also responsible for dealing with security and privacy concerns, online hate and various tricky China-related matters, including how aggressively to deal with services such as the popular TikTok app.

Solomon, a former television program host, is also expected to be responsible for getting the Canadian government back on a stronger path in its own use of technology and innovation, or e-government as it’s often called.

A report last year from Canada’s Auditor General noted that two-thirds of the IT systems within federal departments were in poor health, including some that provide Canadians with services such as employment insurance.

According to a 2023 report from the Dais, an economic think tank within Toronto Metropolitan University, less than one-quarter of federal government services are available online end-to-end, while a meagre 61 per cent of them meet the government’s own digital services standards.

National Post

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