The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Keynote Address on Technology, AI and Canadian Law

The presentation features the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, who maps how artificial intelligence and digital technologies reshape Canadian law, governance and democratic practice.

It highlights both the promise of AI in areas such as digitized health records, automated tax filing and more efficient immigration and permitting systems, and the parallel risks of privacy breaches, discriminatory outcomes, intimate-image abuse, deepfakes and algorithmic pricing tools that raise competition concerns in the rental housing market.

Within this context, the presentation surveys evolving Canadian legal and regulatory responses, including privacy and cybersecurity reform, criminal and competition law tools, online harms and age-verification initiatives, and the growing role of independent regulators such as privacy commissioners, the Competition Bureau, the CRTC and the Chief Electoral Officer. It underscores the democratic stakes of AI-driven foreign interference, targeted political advertising and data-rich party databases, and encourages lawyers, policymakers and advocates to help design and apply responsible AI and data-governance frameworks so clients and institutions can realize innovation benefits while managing legal and social risk.