Questions and responses 45th Parliament, 1st session May 26, 2025, to present

With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency's use of artificial intelligence: (a) which sections (auditors, call centres, etc.) of the Agency currently use artificial intelligence; (b) how does each section of the agency currently use artificial intelligence, and for what tasks; (c) what are the details, including the timeline, of the Agency's plan to expand their use of artificial intelligence over each of the next five years; (d) has the Agency conducted an analysis on how artificial intelligence could be used to improve call centre wait times, and, if so, what were the results of the analysis; and (e) has the Agency conducted a full benefit versus drawback analysis on the new or expanded use of artificial intelligence in the future, and, if so, what were the detailed findings of the analysis, including the potential cost savings associated with each new or expanded use?

With regard to the Government of Canada’s investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure projects, including budget 2025’s allocation of $925.6 million over five years, starting in 2025-26, to support a large-scale sovereign public artificial intelligence infrastructure: (a) what formal commitments has the Government of Canada made in its memoranda of understanding for artificial intelligence infrastructure projects with private sector firms or governments to (i) protect workers from layoffs and unemployment associated with artificial intelligence, (ii) limit environmental impacts of artificial intelligence data centres, (iii) prevent the spread of harmful misinformation, particularly among children and youth, (iv) uphold academic integrity in school and postsecondary institutions, (v) eliminate or prevent sexually explicit deepfakes and other forms of sexual harassment or violence perpetuated via artificial intelligence technology; (b) how many meetings has the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation taken to discuss artificial intelligence infrastructure development with representatives of (i) labour unions, (ii) environmental organizations, (iii) educational institutions, (iv) women and gender equality organizations; (c) what private technology firms has the Government of Canada thus far invested in or entered into partnership with to develop Canada’s artificial intelligence infrastructure; and (d) with reference to the firms in (c), what measures has the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation taken to ascertain that firms receiving public resources are not implicated in human rights violations or violations of international law by supplying weapons technologies to militaries of governments guilty or plausibly guilty of committing these offenses?

With regard to the Canada Summer Jobs program and artificial intelligence: (a) does the government use artificial intelligence in any way in relation to the program, including the application process; (b) if the answer to (a) is affirmative, (i) when did it begin using artificial intelligence, (ii) what artificial intelligence programs are used, (iii) for what purpose is each program used; (c) how many government officials' positions related to the summer jobs program have been made redundant or unnecessary as a result of the use of artificial intelligence, in total, and broken down by position; (d) how much money does the government estimate it saves each year by using artificial intelligence in relation to the summer jobs program; and (e) what safeguards are in place to ensure that applicants are not wrongly denied program acceptance or eligibility due to mistakes made by artificial intelligence programs?

With regard to the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy and all related federal artificial intelligence funding initiatives since inception: (a) what is the total amount of public funds allocated and expended to date, broken down by fiscal year and recipient organization; (b) what portion of those funds was spent on administration and operations, including amounts provided to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and affiliated artificial intelligence institutes; (c) what products, services, technologies or companies have been commercialized by Canadian firms as a result of publicly funded artificial intelligence research; and (d) what products, services or technologies have been commercialized by foreign firms or foreign-controlled subsidiaries as a result of such research?

With regard to the government's procurement and use of artificial intelligence systems, including large language models and generative artificial intelligence tools, since January 1, 2023: (a) what requirements, if any, has the government established regarding (i) Canadian data residency, (ii) Canadian ownership or control of cloud infrastructure, (iii) retention of prompts and outputs, (iv) secondary use of government data by vendors, (v) subcontracting to non-Canadian entities; (b) what are the details of each agreement or contract signed by government departments or agencies related to the use of artificial intelligence systems, including, for each, the (i) date, (ii) vendor, (iii) value, (iv) description of the goods or services provided, (v) start and end dates of services, (vi) manner in which the contract was awarded (sole-sourced or competitive bid); (c) for each contract or arrangement in (b), did the government determine whether any government data, prompts, outputs or metadata could be stored, accessed or processed outside of Canada; (d) for each contract arrangement in (c) to which the answer is affirmative, what are the details, including, for each, the (i) summary of the situation, (ii) jurisdiction, (iii) type of data, (iv) mitigation measures; (e) what direction has Shared Services Canada issued concerning sovereign cloud hosting services for artificial intelligence workloads; and (f) what departments or agencies have received exemptions, waivers or special approvals to use non-sovereign artificial intelligence or cloud services, and what are the details of each?

With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada assessments and artificial intelligence: (a) does the government use artificial intelligence in any way in relation to the assessments; (b) if the answer to (a) is affirmative, (i) when did the department begin using artificial intelligence, (ii) what artificial intelligence programs are used, (iii) for what purpose is each program used; (c) how many government officials' positions related to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada assessments have been made redundant or unnecessary as a result of the use of artificial intelligence, in total and broken down by position; (d) how much money does the government estimate it saves each year by using artificial intelligence in relation to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada assessments; and (e) what safeguards are in place to ensure that applicants are not wrongly denied acceptance or eligibility due to mistakes made by artificial intelligence programs?

With regard to the Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and Alberta dated November 27, 2025, and the project targeted by the agreement, intended to produce thousands of megawatts of artificial intelligence processing power, much of it dedicated to the sovereign cloud for Canada and its allies: (a) how many megawatts of power are planned and how much greenhouse gases per year would be associated with the production of various scenarios of “thousands of megawatts of artificial intelligence computing power”; (b) what is the estimated total cost of this project, and what is the breakdown of its costs by (i) the estimated cost to be borne by the private sector, (ii) the estimated cost to be borne by the public sector; (c) what portion of the estimated cost in (a) is to be borne by the federal government, including any federal partner agencies and including any tax measures to support such a project; (d) what is the impact of this commitment and this targeted project on the modelling of greenhouse gas emissions projections, for each emissions projection scenario and for all milestone years from 2030 to 2050; and (e) for all documentation related to this commitment and this targeted project, including scientific opinions, briefing notes, studies and briefs used by or provided to the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the Department of Finance Canada, the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister's Office, what are the details, including (i) the date, (ii) the sender, (iii) the type of document, (iv) the title of the document, (v) a summary of the content of the message?

With regard to intellectual property generated through federally funded Artificial Intelligence research under the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy: (a) how many and which patents have been generated by funded Artificial Intelligence institutes and affiliated researchers; (b) of the patents in (a), how many are now owned by (i) Canadian entities, (ii) foreign entities, broken down by country; (c) what intellectual property has been generated by funded Artificial Intelligence institutes and affiliated researchers; (d) of the intellectual property generated, what is the breakdown by that which is owned by (i) Canadian entities, (ii) foreign entities, broken down by country; (e) for each patent or intellectual property generated, what is the breakdown by entity which currently owns it; and (f) what measures, if any, are in place to stop intellectual property generated through Canadian government funding from ending up in the possession of foreign entities?

With regard to the government's use of artificial intelligence, and broken down by department or agency: (a) how is the government's guide on the use of generative artificial intelligence applied; (b) how does each department or agency ensure they are aligned with the Treasury Board's "FASTER" principles; (c) what specific internal safeguards are in place, and what methods are used to ensure compliance with the usage guide; (d) what policies are in place regarding the usage of artificial intelligence; and (e) what training, if any, has been provided to departmental or agency staff regarding the use of artificial intelligence and what percentage of employees have undergone the training?

With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency's virtual assistant technology chatbot "Charlie": (a) what are the expenditures to date associated with the development, operation and maintenance of Charlie, in total and broken down by (i) fiscal year, (ii) type of expense (software, training, licensing, etc.); (b) how many taxpayer interactions have been handled by Charlie since 2021, broken down by (i) month, (ii) topic area (individual taxes, business taxes, benefits, etc.); (c) what are the details of any contracts or agreements with third-party artificial intelligence providers or consultants for developing and maintaining Charlie, including, for each, (i) the vendor, (ii) the value, (iii) the date and duration, (iv) the description of the work performed, (v) whether the contract was sole-sourced or competitively awarded; and (d) what metrics, data or performance measures does the Canada Revenue Agency use to evaluate Charlie's effectiveness, including (i) how many times the chatbot has been used, (ii) how many questions it has answered correctly, (iii) how accuracy is measured, (iv) what improvements have been made as a result of those evaluations?

With regard to the government's use of artificial intelligence, broken down by department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity: has artificial intelligence been used in the development of any petition (including e-petition) responses, and, if so, (i) how was it used, (ii) which artificial intelligence program was used, (iii) what was the subject matter, sponsoring member of Parliament, and date of the related petition?

With regard to contracts, subscriptions, pilot projects, memoranda of understanding, task authorizations, statements of work, licences or other arrangements related to artificial intelligence technologies, including generative artificial intelligence, entered into by the government since January 1, 2023, and broken down by department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity: (a) what are the details of each arrangement, including (i) the vendor or counterparty, (ii) the date of signature, (iii) the start and end date, (iv) the total current value, (v) the original value, (vi) the procurement method (competitively awarded, sole-sourced or entered into through a standing offer or supply arrangement), (vii) a description of the goods or services provided, (viii) the file or contract number, (ix) whether the arrangement remains active; (b) for each arrangement in (a), what specific artificial intelligence systems, models, applications or services were procured, licensed, tested or evaluated; (c) for each arrangement in (a), what was the intended use case, including whether it was for (i) client-facing service delivery, (ii) internal drafting or summarization, (iii) search or retrieval, (iv) fraud detection, (v) call centre or chatbot functions, (vi) classification, triage or decision support; (d) for each arrangement in (a), what privacy, security, legal or algorithmic impact assessments were completed before deployment or testing; and (e) for each arrangement in (a), was any government data input into a third-party model or system, and, if so, what classes of data were involved?

With regard to all agreements, including contracts, grants, contributions, memorandums of understandings and any other arrangement between the government and Cohere Inc., since January 1, 2024, and broken down by department or agency: (a) what are the details of each agreement, including the (i) date, (ii) value, (iii) summary of the terms, (iv) type of agreement, (v) duration, (vi) file number; (b) what departments or agencies have tested, evaluated or used any Cohere model, product, Application Programming Interface, platform or service, and what are the details of each instance, including whether the tool was used for (i) summarization, (ii) transcription, (iii) search, (iv) drafting, (v) chatbots, (vi) internal productivity; (c) for each arrangement in (a) or test in (b), what privacy, security, sovereignty, data residency, legal or conflict-of-interest reviews were completed; and (d) did any department or agency compare Cohere against alternative Canadian or non-Canadian vendors, and, if so, what were the results of those comparisons?