Sharan Kaur: The world needs a neutral host for data; Canada can be it

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Sharan Kaur served as the deputy chief of staff for former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau and is currently a principal at Navigator.

For the past two decades, Canada has been a polite bystander in the global digital economy. We have allowed foreign technology companies to build empires on our soil, extracting value from our intellectual property and our data, while giving little back beyond sales offices and public relations campaigns.

We have signed trade deals that tied our own hands, applauded when foreign firms opened shiny new offices, and called it “investment.” Meanwhile, real innovation, ownership of intellectual property, and sovereign control over critical digital infrastructure have slipped through our fingers.

That was then. This is now.

The truth, long known in Canadian technology circles, is becoming impossible to ignore: Foreign laws governing foreign companies will always take precedence over our own.

Just this summer, in sworn testimony before the French senate, Microsoft France’s legal affairs director admitted he could not guarantee that French citizens’ data would never be transmitted to U.S. authorities without France’s permission.

If a major European power cannot enforce sovereignty over its citizens’ data, how naïve have we been to believe Canada could?

And yet, here lies our chance.

For the first time in its history, Canada has the opportunity to build a truly sovereign digital infrastructure that serves our national interests, strengthens our democracy, and positions us as a trusted broker on the world stage.

This would mean going beyond simply funding research projects that are eventually bought out by foreign investors, or supporting start-ups that never see commercialization at home. It means building, owning, and deploying the digital backbone of our future.

The investment

The proposal is straightforward but transformative: A national, Canadian-built, secret/top secret cloud infrastructure, layered with world-leading artificial intelligence, supported entirely by Canadian companies.

The investment, about $1 billion, would not only modernize our healthcare, education, research, and service delivery, but would also strengthen national security and potentially count toward our NATO spending commitments.

We already have the talent and the companies to do this. Canadian companies like OpenText, Bell, ThinkOn, Cohere, and others are ready to build a “stack” that could serve government, banking, energy, and critical infrastructure within months. This could be developed under defence procurement and then extended to provinces, hospitals, and private industry.

For this truly to lead to a sustainable made-in-Canada technology ecosystem, it must be led and operated by our key strategic Canadian operators, not by consultants and financiers.

The key is speed and political will.

What would set Canada apart is not just the technology, but the law. If we position ourselves as a truly neutral host, a nation where domestic laws prevent the mining of foreign citizens’ data, we can offer something no other country currently does: A safe haven for digital sovereignty.

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This would give Canadian companies a rare first-mover advantage in a sector where we have historically been behind. It would also align with Canada’s long tradition of serving as an honest broker globally.

If we do not act, Canada will continue to operate as a digital colony, grateful for scraps while others build fortunes from our data. But if we seize this moment, we can correct decades of mistakes and establish Canada as a leader in digital sovereignty, trusted by our citizens and respected abroad.

The opportunity is right in front of us. It is now up to this government to decide whether Canada will continue to play catch-up, or finally step into a position of leadership.

More from Sharan Kaur:

• Poilievre pushing a toxic narrative on Canada’s foreign worker policy
• The world has moved, and Canada must move with it