TLDR: The Canadian federal government is developing a public registry to track its artificial intelligence projects, aiming to enhance transparency for citizens and improve internal oversight. This initiative comes as AI adoption rapidly expands across various government departments, with applications ranging from finding lost fishing gear to automating administrative tasks and processing satellite data for crop yield predictions. While the registry is still under development with no set launch date, it signifies a move towards a more coordinated and accountable approach to AI integration within the public service.
OTTAWA – The Canadian federal government is moving forward with plans to establish a public registry dedicated to tracking its burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) projects. This initiative is designed to offer greater transparency to Canadians regarding the government’s increasing reliance on AI technologies, while also providing an essential internal tool for monitoring and managing these diverse applications.
Stephen Burt, the government’s chief data officer, highlighted the significant surge in AI activity across various federal departments and agencies. Echoing this sentiment, Kara Beckles, executive director of privacy and responsible data at the Treasury Board, acknowledged the current lack of a comprehensive list of AI platforms in use, noting that ‘departments have really started experimenting more and more with implementing AI in different ways.’
Examples of AI integration are already evident across the public service. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is leveraging AI to locate lost fishing gear, Agriculture Canada is utilizing it to process satellite data for more accurate crop yield predictions, and Transport Canada employs AI for screening high-risk air cargo. These projects, however, have largely been implemented on a piecemeal basis by individual departments.
In response to this decentralized growth, the government is now pursuing a more coordinated strategy, building on an AI framework launched earlier this year. This push aligns with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s spring federal election campaign promise to enhance public service efficiency through AI. Furthermore, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne has tasked colleagues with identifying program spending cuts of up to 15 percent by the 2028-29 fiscal year, with AI expected to play a role in achieving these efficiencies.
In August, a significant step was taken with the federal government signing an agreement with Cohere, a Canadian artificial intelligence company. This partnership aims to pinpoint areas where AI can further improve public service operations. Burt emphasized that while AI is a crucial instrument for government efficiency, it is not the sole solution, stating, ‘We are still plumbing the extent to which artificial intelligence as a specific technology is going to deliver specific savings and efficiencies.’
Consultations for the AI strategy revealed a strong demand from departments for a central hub to support AI projects and facilitate knowledge sharing. An initial pilot project, a collaboration between the Treasury Board and the Translation Bureau, successfully developed an automated translation system for low-risk and low-value documents. This tool is currently being rolled out across Public Services and Procurement Canada and is slated for staged deployment across other departments and agencies.
Beckles explained that the AI hub’s purpose is to identify successful AI applications that can be scaled government-wide, thereby preventing duplication of effort. ‘We don’t want five different departments working on the same type of tool all at the same time,’ she said. ‘We want to be able to consolidate those efforts and make sure that we’re building something once and then deploying it across the system.’ This approach is expected to foster a more ‘mature’ use of AI as its adoption grows, moving from ‘a handful of projects across the system’ to ‘a handful of projects in every department.’
The government’s AI strategy explicitly committed to prioritizing the creation of a public registry of AI systems to ensure transparency. This builds on previous independent efforts, such as a database compiled by Joanna Redden, an associate professor at Western University, which last year documented hundreds of AI uses within the federal government.
A ministerial briefing document from Shared Services Canada, released last month, further detailed government AI applications. It mentioned an internal alternative to tools like ChatGPT, designed to assist SSC employees with tasks such as email composition and information summarization within a secure, controlled environment. Other examples include Canadian Heritage using ‘automation and generative AI to refine the ministerial correspondence process,’ and the Canada Revenue Agency employing facial recognition technology for secure taxpayer account access via smartphones and government-issued IDs. The Finance Department also developed an AI tool to automate the collection and processing of tariff consultations, summarize industry data, and draft initial responses for analysts and stakeholders.
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The registry remains under development, with Burt confirming no specific timeline for its launch. A key aspect of this ongoing work involves determining the scope of information to be included. Beckles clarified, ‘We don’t want to capture every time an analyst uses Copilot to help write an email, but we do want to capture all the projects and systems that have AI embedded in them.’ The ultimate goal, she added, is to ‘make sure that it’s built for transparency for the public, but also internally, so that we can use that full and complete list for our own purposes as well.’
