AIDA (AI & Data Act)

AIDA would not have covered every AI system. It focused on high-impact systems, a category that would have been defined later. Draft guidance pointed to hiring, essential services, biometric identification, content moderation, and health uses.

Organizations responsible for those systems would have had duties around risk checks, bias reduction, records, and incident reporting. Much of the detail was left for later rules. Critics said that gave too much power to cabinet and officials. Supporters said flexible rules were needed because AI changes quickly.

After the April 2025 federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney's government created a Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation role and named Evan Solomon. Solomon has said AIDA will not return as drafted and that any future AI framework should be 'light, tight, right'.

By June 2026, Ottawa had moved on narrower but important rule paths: Bill C-36 would create the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, and Bill C-34 would create digital-safety duties for regulated services, including certain AI chatbot services. Neither bill is an enacted comprehensive AI law, but both now matter more to live federal AI governance than the lapsed AIDA text.

Canada still has no comprehensive federal AI law in force. The practical rulebook is a patchwork of privacy enforcement, proposed privacy and digital-safety statutes, public-sector AI directives, voluntary codes, and provincial rules.