Manitoba intends to ban children from using social media and AI chatbots, Premier Wab Kinew announced over the weekend. It’s something you might think was in no way possible for a provincial government to accomplish. Perhaps that’s why British Columbia’s government, also NDP, “paused” a similar effort two years ago in favour of discussions with the companies that run these services. Read More

Did you hear? The federal government is “building the first public AI supercomputer.” It will be “owned and operated in Canada,” thank goodness, and it will “power innovation across every sector … from healthcare to clean energy to startups scaling here at home,” AI Minister-bot Evan Solomon burbled on Wednesday. (“Startups scaling here at home”? Who writes this stuff?) Read More

In August of last year, the Nova Scotia government enacted a ban on going into the woods — any woods, anywhere on public property, for any reason — on pain of a $25,000 fine, because of extreme wildfire risk. To many Canadians, it seemed more than a bit bonkers on its face, never mind taking into account the exceptions. Read More

With the very notable exception of promising to learn French, then failing to do so, Mary Simon has not been a terrible Governor General. She spent money rather freely, of course, but they all do, and Parliament makes the budget, after all. You didn’t hear much from or about her, which is Job One for a governor general. That is, except in the francophone media, where she is a constant thorn in nationalists’ side because of her linguistic shortcomings. Read More

Ontario Premier Doug Ford had had a borderline absurd run of good luck: For most of his nearly eight-year tenure, according to the Angus Reid Institute’s polling, he has been Canada’s least or second-least popular premier — and his main rival in that race to the bottom, Quebec’s François Legault, is now an ex-premier. Read More

In a recent ruling, Court of Quebec judge Antoine Piché tore a strip off Crown prosecutors who appear before him for discounting sentences based on offenders’ immigration status, to avoid non-citizens being flagged for deportation — which is supposed to happen after a criminal sentence of six months or more is handed down. Read More