The AI hype-machine: Canada’s ill-advised ‘national sprint’ on artificial intelligence
Release Date: 11/27/2025
The AI hype-machine: Canada’s ill-advised ‘national sprint’ on artificial intelligence
Needs No Introduction
In episode six of the Courage My Friends’ season nine, we welcome impact strategist with Animikii, Indigenous Technology, Jeff Doctor, technology and human rights lawyer with Tekhnos Law and senior fellow with The Citizen Lab, Cynthia Khoo, senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood. We discuss Canada’s accelerated approach to artificial intelligence and the mobilization of civil society groups against it, multiple impacts of largely unregulated AI on people, planet and democracy, Indigenous perspectives on data sovereignty and...
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You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: Author Saeed Teebi on Palestine, writing and imagination
Needs No Introduction
In episode five, we are pleased to welcome award-winning author Saeed Teebi who speaks to us about his powerful new book, You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times. In our annual focus on the power of storytelling, we discuss what it means to be a Palestinian writer in these times, the challenges of writing against dehumanizing narratives, complicity in the attempted erasure of Palestinian life, identity and art through both violence and silence and how imagination, story and writing become profound acts of resistance in a time of genocide. On the...
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Bills C-2 and C-12: How Canada’s border security acts endanger refugee rights
Needs No Introduction
In episode four, we welcome co-executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Karen Cocq, advocacy and media relations coordinator at The Refugee Centre in Montreal, Alina Murad and President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Aisling Bondy. We discuss the Carney Government’s new border security acts, Bill C-2 and its questionable make-over with the recently tabled Bill C-12, how they effectively rewrite Canada’s approach to refugee rights and protections, whether this new security regime is a response to the Trump tariff demands or an opportunity to continue...
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Crisis or scandal? The deliberate dismantling of Ontario's public college system
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In our third episode we welcome support staff president for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 418 at St.Lawrence College. Amanda Shaw, second vice president of OPSEU Local 415 at Algonquin College, Martin Lee and from George Brown College, member of OPSEU's part-time and sessional divisional executive, Ben McCarthy. We discuss the mass layoffs and program and campus closures across Ontario's 24 publicly funded colleges, impacts on college workers, students, and wider communities, what this means for the future of public post-secondary education and how what has been publicized...
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On September 20: Draw the line for people, for peace, for planet
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In this episode we welcome, climate justice and Indigenous rights organizer from Stellat’en First Nation and senior advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation, Janelle Lapointe; member services and movement building manager with Climate Action Network Canada, Lauren Latour and Canada organizer for World Beyond War, Rachel Small. We discuss the Draw the Line National Day of Action taking place across Canada on September 20, the reasons for this historic cross-movement coalition and the urgency of drawing the line now in this moment of converging and overwhelming crises, for people, for peace and...
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Lawless: The complete decriminalization of abortion… only in Canada
Needs No Introduction
In our season nine premiere, we welcome Martha Paynter, nurse, scholar and author of . We discuss Canada’s complete decriminalization of abortion (the only country to do so), the fascinating and often fraught history that brought us to this point, abortion as a public good, the influence of the anti-choice lobby here and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US, and what it takes to make abortion truly equitable when decriminalization is not enough. Reflecting on the need to understand abortion as a public good, Paynter says: “We have these major cultural forces that just reiterate...
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Palestine and the weaponizing of hunger and the climate crisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode nine of the Courage My Friends series, we welcome visiting professor and dean of the faculty of agriculture and veterinary medicine at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, Dr. Ahmed Abu Shaban. We discuss the weaponization of already fragile food systems in Gaza, the acceleration of the climate crisis through conflict and Palestinian resilience under occupation. Reflecting on the nexus of food, climate and occupation, Abu Shaban shares: “My father passed away in 2021 and we had a farm in Gaza. This farm was destroyed several times. And this farm is an olive trees farm. And...
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Labour Fair 2025: Labour now: Union responses to the polycrisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode eight, we return to the George Brown College Labour Fair and a discussion with Ontario Federation of Labour president Laura Walton and chief steward and second vice president of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 556 Jeff Brown. We discuss the multiple issues facing the labour movement, union priorities and, in this age of polycrisis, what exactly we are working for. Speaking to the upcoming federal elections, Walton says: “I think we all can agree it's not going to be an NDP federal government. It's either gonna be Liberals or Conservatives. And I call them cancer and chemo; one's gonna kill you,...
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Labour Fair 2025: Building a workers' first emergency response to the tariff crisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode seven, we are pleased to feature executive director of the Workers’ Action Centre, Deena Ladd. In her keynote address for the 33rd annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College, No One Left Behind: Building a Workers’ First Emergency Response to the Tariff Crisis that Unites Us, Ladd discusses the current trade war, the dangers facing workers and a solidarity-driven plan that puts workers first. Reflecting on what’s needed in a workers’ first approach to the tariff crisis, Ladd says: “Our communities are already in trouble. And we know that the tariffs imposed are...
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Labour Fair 2025: The critical need for labour education
Needs No Introduction
In episode six, we feature the opening discussion of the at Toronto’s George Brown College. Under this year's theme, What Are We Working For? JP Hornick, president of OPSEU/SEFPO, (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), speaks on the critical need for labour education, labour organizing amid the changing nature of work and the crisis facing Ontario colleges. Reflecting on the need for labour education Hornick says: “These are the spaces where we learn how to organize, where we learn how to build community – it provides the critical analysis that people need to understand why there are...
info_outlineIn episode six of the Courage My Friends’ season nine, we welcome impact strategist with Animikii, Indigenous Technology, Jeff Doctor, technology and human rights lawyer with Tekhnos Law and senior fellow with The Citizen Lab, Cynthia Khoo, senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood.
We discuss Canada’s accelerated approach to artificial intelligence and the mobilization of civil society groups against it, multiple impacts of largely unregulated AI on people, planet and democracy, Indigenous perspectives on data sovereignty and digital colonialism and the meaning of AI beyond the hype.
Reflecting on the government’s accelerated AI development, Mertins-Kirkwood says:
“There's definitely a distinct moment that's happening right now. A particular hype cycle, a push to adopt this current iteration of ‘artificial intelligence’, whatever that means … The question is why are we doing it. The way that the federal government in particular talks about AI is frankly very ideological … We need to adopt it for its own sake, independent of what that actually means … We're just kind of rushing without having a clear sense of where we're going.”
On civil society’s objection to the “national sprint” consultation on AI, Khoo says:
“...As people who are familiar with this field and topic … we’re kind of appalled … AI has spread through so many spheres of society, it’s not just a tech issue anymore, it’s a whatever issue you care about … This 30-day “sprint” with leading language and incredibly narrow scoping from our government, it’s frankly embarrassing. And just shows they’re not really taking seriously the … empirically demonstrated … harms of AI and what’s really at stake for everyone across the country. ’"
On the subject of data sovereignty, Doctor says:
“Every technology has politics, Every technology is a product of its time … And enter this current moment where this magic bean of AI, this bundle of excuses comes together, that, oh we have to extract more, we have to mine more, we have to use more energy. As an Indigenous person this is nothing new to me … Indigenous territories, lands and peoples as sacrifice zones … for the greater good or for national sovereignty … Who’s national sovereignty?”
About today’s guests:
Jeff Doctor is a Cayuga Nation citizen from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. As an Impact Strategist with Animikii, Jeff works with Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island to develop web applications that support their self-determination and digital sovereignty. Jeff also volunteers with Protect the Tract: a Haudenosaunee grassroots project that promotes healthy land stewardship of the Haldimand Tract, and is an artist-in-residence at the University of Toronto as a member of the Akni:ho’gwa:s Artist Collective.Jeff has an MA in sociology and a decade of experience supporting Indigenous data sovereignty from the ground up. His focus is improving practical Indigenous data governance through advocacy, counter-mapping, and building appropriate, ethical software that helps Indigenous Peoples get their land, cash, and data back.
Cynthia Khoo is a technology and human rights lawyer at Tekhnos Law, and a senior fellow at the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto). Previously, she was a senior associate at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology in Washington, DC. Cynthia's legal practice, research, and expertise focuses on how the Internet and emerging technologies impact the human rights of historically marginalized groups, in particular their rights to privacy, equality, and freedom of expression. She holds a J.D. from the University of Victoria and LL.M. (Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, where she worked as junior counsel at and represented the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) as an intervener in cases before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood is a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where he focuses on climate, artificial intelligence and economic policy.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute.
Image: Cynthia Khoo, Jeff Doctor, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy)
Courage My Friends podcast organizing committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu.
Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca.
Host: Resh Budhu.