Priorities and concerns

In a nutshell

The Canadian Bar Association is responding to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s survey on AI leadership, launched to solicit feedback on how the government should define its AI strategy going forward. The submission from the CBA’s Intellectual Property Law and Privacy and Access to Information Law Sections offers a broad scope of recommendations to enhance Canada’s edge in the AI field, including bolstering its research capacity in AI, improving commercialization, strengthening public trust, building safe AI systems, and in particular, enhancing intellectual property rights. 

Key recommendations

To retain and grow its edge in AI, the Sections jointly submit that the government should take a wide-ranging approach to defining its national AI strategy, with a particular focus on hardwiring AI safety and human-centred, IP secure innovation into law, backed by secure compute and data infrastructure and stronger commercialization tools. 

Suggestions include (but are not limited to):

• Ensuring Canada’s AI research remains globally competitive and ethically grounded by building stronger IP and trade secret protections, transparent standards, and well-thought-out regulation of text and data mining and use of personal data, copyright content and public legal documents.
• Ensuring that Canada’s legal and regulatory infrastructure keeps pace with technological advances to help us attract, develop and retain top-tier talent.
• Creating a modern, risk-based statute applicable to both public and private sectors should establish the foundational rules: inform people when AI is involved, offer meaningful explanations, provide an easy path to human review, and ensure real redress when decisions have significant consequences.
• Consider making a national AI Help Centre that would give people and small businesses a place to turn to that could host practical FAQs, templates for impact assessments, examples of good explanations, and straightforward routes to complaints and appeals. 

The Sections also recommend five IP reforms that could be put in place so Canada can grow globally competitive AI companies while retaining ownership, IP and economic sovereignty:

1. Introduce a Federal Trade Secrets Act to provide consistent, national protection for trade secrets, including AI-related information.
2. Create a government-backed fund providing 50–75% coverage of international patent prosecution costs.
3. Implement EU AI Act–style protections enabling companies to test AI systems without exposing trade secrets or competitive intelligence.
4. Consider a framework that recognizes human-generated data, including biometric and neurodata, as a protected interest to ensure ongoing consent and oversight.
5. Consider allowing AI-assisted inventions with demonstrable human inventorship, where the AI is used as a tool in the inventive process, and human contribution is central and verifiable, in the absence of infringement to preserve the integrity of inventorship while recognizing the evolving nature of innovation.

Why this matters

Through this submission, the CBA was able to identify its priorities and concerns about Canada’s approach to AI. Its success depends on coordinated standards, clear assurance mechanisms, public education, and trackable results. In particular, The CBA urges the government to bolster its intellectual property rights, including a broader understanding of patentable subject matter, authorship, and better opportunities for enforcement and licensing to make Canada more lucrative for those innovating in the AI space.

Read the full submission.