Solomon says delayed federal AI strategy coming soon, will address impact on jobs

OTTAWA – The federal government’s promised new national AI strategy will consider the technology’s impacts on the labour market, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said on Monday.

It’s been six months since the government wrapped up fast-tracked consultations on the strategy. Solomon initially promised it would be tabled by the end of last year.

Solomon said last fall Canada couldn’t afford to wait and had to move quickly. When he was asked Monday to explain the delay in introducing the strategy, he said it will be released “very soon.”

While Solomon initially signalled an adoption-focused approach, experts say the public conversation around AI has shifted since to focus more on concerns about safety and social impact. Canada has also strengthened relationships with other middle powers that are more pro-regulation than the United States under President Donald Trump.

Solomon said the impact of AI has been changing and he is still consulting on the strategy, citing recent meetings with labour leaders, environmentalists and young people.

“Even when we did our consultations, the industry has changed dramatically. The impact of AI has changed and we are consulting,” he said.

Solomon said the strategy will address AI’s impacts on labour.

“We are making sure that when we launch this strategy, there’s an element … that it will meet the changing needs of labour and all the stakeholder groups,” he said.

Last fall, the government appointed a task force to advise it on the new strategy — critics said that group leaned too much on the perspective of industry and the tech sector. It also held a public consultation that received more than 11,000 comments, which the government sorted through using AI.

“The ground has shifted somewhat under the government’s feet since they announced their lightning-fast consultation and plans for a quickly developed AI strategy,” Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in information law and policy, said in an email.

She noted the technology is evolving quickly, which means governments must consider new developments like agentic AI, which acts autonomously with limited human intervention.

“Perhaps most significantly, though, is the changing public profile of AI-related issues,” Scassa said, citing public opinion research that indicates Canadians don’t trust AI, and widespread concern over the role AI chatbots may have played in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

There are also ongoing concerns about a long list of AI-related issues, including social media addiction, cybersecurity risks and the cognitive, labour and environmental impacts.

“It is not that these issues were unknown before — but they have been gathering momentum and may be shaping public opinion in ways that demand more attention from government than it was previously prepared to expend, in a strategy that had seemed chiefly oriented toward moving boldly forward with adoption and development of AI,” Scassa said.

Florian Martin-Bariteau, research chair in technology and society at the University of Ottawa, said there are also geopolitical considerations.

While Canada may have been concerned initially with the U.S., where Trump has taken an anti-regulation approach, Prime Minister Mark Carney has set out to strengthen relationships with other middle powers, such the European Union, the United Kingdom and South Korea, he said.

“Those middle powers, they have a very different approach than the U.S. regarding big tech,” Martin-Bariteau noted. “They’re regulating. They’re not afraid.”

He noted U.S. states like California and New York have also moved to implement regulation.

In its spring economic statement released last week, the federal government outlined six pillars of the upcoming national AI strategy. They include previously-indicated priorities like new privacy and online safety laws, building sovereign compute infrastructure, supporting the growth of Canadian AI companies and co-ordinating with international allies.

The statement also said it would provide AI training and education for Canadians and that the “gains of AI will come from putting it to work across the Canadian economy and developing pro-worker, industrial AI technologies.”

Shortly after he became Canada’s AI minister a year ago, Solomon suggested Canada would move away from “over-indexing on warnings and regulation” to make sure the economy benefits from AI.

But the Liberal government has since moved to address some AI-related harms and plans to introduce a new online harms bill that could cover AI chatbots. Solomon has maintained recently that Canada must strike a balance between AI cheerleaders and those who are completely opposed to the technology.

“Our government is very pragmatic. This stuff is here. We’re going to do it safely and fairly and we’re going to find the right balance to do it,” Solomon said at an event in Ottawa last week.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026.