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TORONTO – One year after Canada launched a voluntary code of conduct on artificial intelligence, tech organizations that signed on say they don’t regret the decision but wouldn’t mind some more company.

Cohere, the Toronto AI firm that was the buzziest name among the signatories, sees it as “imperative for everyone to kind of be involved” with the code, “if for no other reason than just to make sure that (it) has the impact that you want to have in the industry.”

“Of course, we want more people,” said the company’s director of legal Kosta Starostin.

“It’s disappointing when our fellow Canadian companies maybe don’t sign up, but they, of course, have their own reasons and that’s completely up to them.”

The code was launched by the federal government last September as a means to put some guardrails around the use of AI and to act as a precursor to eventual legislation. It included promises to bake risk mitigation measures into AI tools, use adversarial testing to uncover vulnerabilities in such systems and keep track of any harms the technology causes.

About a dozen Canadian tech firms including BlackBerry and OpenText signed on by launch day. Eight more joined in December, followed by another eight in May.

While many in the group now totalling 30 say they were content spending the last year collaborating with household names and tech heavyweights on an issue of growing importance, they also believe the more, the merrier.

Starostin refused to comment on any of the specificreasonscompanies have cited for avoiding the code, but some of the resisters have been the tech community’s most prominent names.

Tobi Lütke, founder and chief executive of Ottawa-based e-commerce giant Shopify Inc., has said he won’t support the code because he feels the country doesn’t need any more “referees” and instead needs to encourage people to build companies in Canada.

Mark Doble had qualms with the code, too.

“I was fairly skeptical at first and then, when I got into the details of it, it seems substantively nothing really meaningful or additive to what already exists,” said the chief executive of Alexi, a Toronto company building AI-based tools for the legal sector.

He feels Canada’s current employment, human rights, privacy and competition laws cover off most problems that could arise from AI and said the technology shouldn’t require the country to “re-evaluate, re-establish or add to those regulations.”

As a result, he labelled the code as both “performative” and “overreach.”

Yet Audrey Champoux, a spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, said the government sees the code as “an important first step towards ensuring that companies are respecting the importance of responsible development.”

“Significant players in the AI ecosystem continue to express their interest in signing the code and we’ll be ready to announce another round of signatories soon,” she wrote in an email on Sept. 11.

“We encourage all companies in the Canadian ecosystem developing and deploying AI systems to join their peers who have already committed to operating in a safe and responsible manner.”

Diane Gutiw, vice-president of analytics, AI and machine learning at CGI Inc., said she would also welcome more sign-ups to “make sure we’re all working in the same framework.”

The Montreal-based tech consulting business viewed signing the code as a no-brainer because CGI had long been using its own set of principles designed to ensure its use of AI was transparent, protective of data, secure and reliable.

When Gutiw reviewed the tenets of the code, she found a lot of overlap with CGI’s own principles, so she said the company was “quite comfortable signing.”

Over at Cohere, some of the motivation in supporting the code came from the “fuzzy landscape” around AI, which was “moving very quickly,” before the code.

OpenAI had released AI chatbot ChatGPT to the world, sparking a race to innovate in the sector and a flurry of investment as brands began experimenting with it.

At the same time, AI luminaries like Geoffrey Hinton were warning advances in the technology could exacerbate biases and discrimination, cause unemployment or even spell the end of humanity.

“It wasn’t clear to us or to anybody else what the priorities were going to be for different governments,” Cohere’s Starostin said.

Once the government put a code together, he felt it “crystalized” the way forward for the country and gave companies a framework to rely on while they wait for the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act to finish winding its way through the House of Commons and come into force, likely next year.

Also offering guidance to companies wasthe European Union’s AI pact, which asks businesses to agree to identify AI systems likely to be categorized as high-risk and ensure their ethical and responsible development.

With more than 100 signatories including Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Cisco, the EU pact has far more members than Canada’s code, but some companies including CGI, Cohere, IBM, Kyndryl, Lenovo, Mastercard and Salesforce have signed both.

Salesforce said both codes have sparked a “virtuous race to the top” because the agreements have given companies a clearer idea of what they can do to be safe and ethical with their AI.

Salesforce, for example, had always used adversarial testing — when companies simulate attacks on their systems to uncover vulnerabilities — but signing the code encouraged it to ramp up such efforts, said Paula Goldman, the company’s chief ethical and humane use officer.

“Once you’ve made a commitment like this and you’re part of the community, it ends up being a wonderful opportunity to keep accelerating the progress,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.

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OTTAWA – Current and former officials of Canada’s spy agency are slated to appear today at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.

Witnesses include Vanessa Lloyd, the interim Canadian Security Intelligence Service director, as well as David Vigneault, who stepped down from the role earlier this year.

Leaks of CSIS information about alleged foreign interference led to pressure on the Liberal government to set up the commission of inquiry.

The inquiry’s latest hearings are looking at the ability of federal agencies to identify and counter foreign meddling.

The commission is examining the practices of various institutions as well as the experiences of diaspora communities.

A final report is due by the end of the year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.

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VANCOUVER – A chemical firm based in Port Coquitlam, B.C., claims Health Canada wrongfully cancelled its licences to make natural health products after being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for alleged involvement in importing precursor chemicals that could be used in illicit drug production.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against Valerian Labs and its owner Bahman Djebelibak, who goes by Bobby Shah, in October 2023, and five days later Canada suspended and then cancelled Valerian’s licenses to make health products.

Valerian is now taking Health Canada to Federal Court, claiming in judicial review applications that the Canadian actions were solely based on a U.S. Treasury news release alleging it was involved in “the international proliferation of illicit drugs.”

Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo had said in a statement at the time that the targets of the sanctions included a China-based network involved in the manufacturing and distribution of fentanyl and “other substances that take thousands of American lives each year.”

Health Canada’s Office of Controlled Substances also revoked Valerian’s registration and certificate under the agency’s “Precursor Control Regulations,” which it says “provide a regulatory framework that allows Canada to fulfil its international obligations with respect to the monitoring and control of precursors used in the production of illegal drugs.”

A Health Canada guidance document defines precursors as “chemicals that are frequently diverted from legitimate activities to the illegal manufacture of drugs.”

Valerian Labs says the Health Canada decisions were unreasonable and unfair, having relied on an uncorroborated “foreign press release.”

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control named several China-based companies in the sanctions announcement, including Jinhu Minsheng Pharmaceutical Machinery Co., which sells equipment and materials allegedly used in the production of counterfeit oxycodone pills.

The department’s statement said Valerian Labs was a “major customer” of Jinhu Minsheng, receiving shipments of methylamine hydrochloride — which it called a precursor used to produce methamphetamine and MDMA.

Reached by phone and text message, Shah denied allegations related to the drug trade but acknowledged buying the chemical.

“I have bought Methylimine HCL, I have bought machinery,” he wrote in a text message.

His “only mistake” he wrote, was that he “didn’t just procure. I have them as commodities on my inventory that I offer as a chemical vendor.”

He said he had been instructed by his lawyer to “not engage” with The Canadian Press, and said he did not consent to the use of his remarks. He was told an off-the-record interview needed to be agreed upon from the outset.

Valerian’s applications filed Sept. 13 in Federal Court in Vancouver say Health Canada “has not set out any justification as to why the press release provides reasonable ground to believe that a suspension is necessary to prevent injury to the health of purchasers or consumers of products manufactured by Valerian Labs.”

A Health Canada spokesperson said no one was available for an interview about the company’s licence cancellations, and the agency would not comment on ongoing litigation.

In a written statement, Health Canada said its “top priority is protecting the health and safety of the people of Canada.”

“The department is committed to verifying that health products manufactured and sold in the Canadian market are safe, effective and of high quality. When there is information that could give rise to health and safety risks, Health Canada will determine if compliance and enforcement action is required and communicate the risks to the public, if warranted.”

Company registration records show Valerian Labs used to be registered in B.C. under the name Hollywood Vape Labs, and court records show he and his former wife, Ramina Shah, faced a civil forfeiture lawsuit from the B.C. government, but the case was dropped.

In 2021, a B.C. Provincial Court judge found police had breached the couple’s Charter rights against unreasonable search and seizure in a cheque fraud investigation.

Ramina Shah was murdered in January 2022, stabbed to death in a Coquitlam parkade, and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said in a written statement it could not comment on an “active ongoing investigation.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury did not respond to a request for comment on the sanctions against Valerian Labs.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.