One To Watch – Bill C-27 Digital Charter Implementation Act – Know How, the blog of the Great Library

With the quick rise of ChatGPT in November of last year, AI has become a prominent part of casual conversation. It is no surprise that the Government of Canada has also been thinking about Artificial Intelligence in the form of regulation. Bill C-27 or An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, was introduced in Parliament on June 16, 2022, about five months before the explosion of ChatGPT.

Bill C-27 comprises three separate statutes linked together by Canada’s Digital Charter, which “…sets out principles to ensure that privacy is protected, data-driven innovation is human-centred, and Canadian organizations can lead the world in innovations that fully embrace the benefits of the digital economy.” The first two draft statutes that make up Bill C-27 were originally introduced in Bill C-11, which died on the order paper prior to the federal election in 2021. The Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) is meant to reform Canada’s private sector data protection law while the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act will create a new adjudicative layer for proceedings under the CPPA. However, the most intriguing part of this bill is the potential enactment of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), which would be the first of its kind in Canada.

The purpose of AIDA is to establish obligations regarding the use of automized data through AI. These obligations will be integrated into the design, development and making available of AI systems. The responsibility for this Act falls to the Minister of Industry, who is also responsible for supporting innovation and economic development. The obligations in the Act come in the form of regulation. The core risks AIDA highlights appear to be discriminatory bias and harm; however, the response is tailored towards individual and quantitative harms rather than collective harms and systemic discrimination.

Dr. Teresa Scassa raises concerns about the AIDA in her recent article “Regulating AI in Canada: A Critical Look at the Proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act”. She notes that the proposed Act came out of the blue, without any prior public discussion or consultation.. It was only in March of 2023, 9 months after the initial reading of Bill C-27, that a companion document was released. In addition, the Act itself is quite short and lacks substance, which Dr. Scassa speculates is because several of the key elements are being left to regulations, which do not go through the same rigorous process as a bill.

The biggest concern Dr. Scassa identifies is the proposed Act’s lack of independence. While AIDA is primarily about the regulation of AI, the Act itself does not assign a regulatory body to this role. Instead, the Minister of Industry is responsible for regulation, and may then delegate all or some oversight powers to a new Artificial Intelligence and Data Commissioner. With both the economic development and the regulation of AI in the hands of the Minister of Industry, no other federal government body would be involved in Artificial Intelligence in Canada.

Bill C-27 has already passed through second reading debates during the winter of 2022 and spring of 2023 and is set to be discussed by the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology this fall. It will be interesting to see if any changes are made to the current Act as it moves through parliament. Given how much AI has transformed since the recent rise of ChatGPT, any Act that passes to legislate it will need to be adaptable.

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