Artificial intelligence | Quebec and Alberta sign a partnership
(Montreal) The governments of Quebec and Alberta plan to collaborate to implement artificial intelligence in public administration, which, according to Quebec’s Minister of Cybersecurity, will help the two provinces leverage their respective experience to develop new tools.
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France-Élaine Duranceau, Quebec Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Technologies, announced Tuesday the conclusion of an agreement between the two provinces alongside Nate Glubish, Alberta Minister of Technology and Innovation.
This agreement, which lasts five years, does not provide for any financial commitment, but rather is based on knowledge sharing between the two administrations.
“Everyone is making progress on AI; it’s new and it’s changing at phenomenal speed, explained Mme Duranceau during a telephone interview with La Presse Canadienne. So why start from scratch, each on our own? We chose to work together and exchange more freely to learn from what the other jurisdiction has done. »
She explained that discussions between the two provinces on AI have been ongoing since 2022, with Tuesday’s agreement making this partnership “official”, and praised Alberta’s interest in AI development.
“They really made it a priority to transform their public administration to set the tone “from the top” and I think that this is a desire of Quebec too,” she said.
Alberta has embraced AI and is at the heart of Canada’s emerging data center landscape, according to a recent York University study. Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook and Instagram, recently announced an investment of more than $13 billion to build a data center in Alberta, its first in Canada.
Mme Duranceau suggested provinces could share AI tools they have developed, such as the one developed by Alberta to facilitate budget authorization or the one developed by Quebec to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities. She also points out that civil servant training is an area where provinces could exchange ideas, noting that Quebec is currently rolling out training to help its employees use Microsoft Copilot, for example.
“Citizens are currently using AI to organize a trip in record time, or write a letter quickly […] These are examples where citizens can be more effective in their personal lives. Well, at the state level, we need to automate tasks in this way,” added M.me Duranceau.
The deal could help find ways to use AI to speed up public services by performing certain administrative tasks or facilitating research, she added.
Vass Bednar, executive director of the think tank Canadian Shield Institute, sees the announcement as continuing the general direction of AI policy in Canada.
Mme Duranceau asserts that this parallel has little to do with the agreement, except in terms of a common political philosophy. “We share the same desire to take the lead on issues that affect our population and not to wait for the federal government on these issues,” she declared.
For Mme Bednar, the agreement announced Tuesday does not include significant discussions on digital sovereignty and the establishment of a Canadian digital infrastructure.
Rather than focusing on using AI to save money, she says governments should consider the cost-reduction potential of owning digital infrastructure that allows, for example, video calls and emailing.
She criticized Canadian governments’ reliance on AI and American technological tools, and encouraged them to invest instead in Canadian innovation.
