Ottawa’s recently released strategy for Artificial Intelligence, ‘AI for All,’ paints a rosy picture of gains — $200 billion in economic growth, 250,000 new jobs.
It’s an ambitious target, but if efficiency promises are to materialize, implementation of the plan will be critical.
Indeed, the Carney government estimates that to achieve these projections, business adoption of AI must go from a tiny 12 per cent today to 60 per cent by 2034 — no small feat given Canadians aren’t sold on AI. In a recent Ipsos poll, among the 32 countries surveyed, Canadians were among the most nervous about AI.
Only 11 per cent of Canadians believe that AI will improve the job market — hardly a surprise, given 60 per cent of Canadian workers could be impacted by AI job transformation, with 31 per cent at high risk of displacement, according to the Labour Market Information Council.
And employee distrust of AI isn’t just hypothetical, with nearly a third of workers admitting in a FastCompany report to trying to sabotage their company’s AI strategy.
For a government set on more AI adoption, that’s a problem.
And despite talk about the jobs government hopes to create, there’s little discussion in the document over jobs that will be lost.
Policymakers must take job-loss concerns seriously
To encourage AI adoption, and achieve the projected economic benefits, policymakers must take job-loss concerns seriously.
This starts by ensuring labour protections and business governance tools are in place. There are plenty of instruments to manage emerging technologies.
In response to grid build-outs and telecom expansion, for instance, governments took a proactive approach, relying on public ownership, resulting in some of the most iconic Crown corporations like SaskTel and Hydro-Quebec.
In instances where governments took a laissez-faire approach, like industrial expansion, labour unrest often culminated in strike action and, at times, violence.
The lesson is clear: Workers won’t accept new tech, and economies won’t reap their benefits, without countervailing governance and ownership tools.
The Carney Government’s AI strategy seems to forget that.
Policymakers will need to be creative to encourage AI adoption, and Canadian companies must embrace tools that will give employees a say in how it is implemented, and how its benefits are distributed.
Co-determination mandates worker reps on company boards
This means promoting new models of governance and ownership, like ‘co-determination,’ and doubling down on employee-owned business models.
Co-determination, which mandates worker representatives on boards in companies above a certain size, ensures workers have a say in how and when new tech is implemented, and that road maps are in place, to retrain and upskill workers in-house, without throwing workers out on the street.
In Germany, known for its adoption of tech and its efficiency, co-determination laws have been in place since the ‘70s.
For smaller companies, more collective ownership models must be explored.
As Canada faces a succession tsunami — more than 70 per cent of Canadian small- and medium-sized business owners plan to retire in the next decade — the economy is well positioned for this transition.
Employee ownership trusts, stock plans, and worker co-operatives all incentivize tech adoption.
As partial owners, employees don’t see new tech as a threat to their job, but as an opportunity to increase collective income.
These models give workers a say in how technology is implanted, helping in adoption rates. They also create organic structures for internal retraining and upskilling.
If this government wants more AI adoption, it must promote democratic governance and ownership in the economy.
If not, we can expect more of the same: top-down tech implementations, forced on unwilling and uninterested employees, with gains going to the select few.
