Publications: Lawrence Zhang

Opposition to AI automation at the Canada Revenue Agency misses the point. Smarter systems can improve targeting, boost compliance, and deliver better results with fewer resources than a labour-intensive enforcement model.

Canada is considering banning social media for teenagers, but the evidence suggests this approach is misplaced. Harm is not driven by access alone, but by specific online experiences, and a blanket ban would do little to address them.

Canada Post’s cost structure no longer scales in a low-volume world. Labour flexibility, automation, work sharing, retail consolidation, and parcel growth are necessary to reduce the cost of reaching every address while preserving universal service.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness (CCIC) appreciates the opportunity to contribute to Global Affairs Canada’s consultation on a potential Canada-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement.

Canada should prioritize boosting productivity through the adoption of advanced technologies across its firms and governments, rather than pursuing domestic ownership of existing infrastructure in the name of “digital sovereignty.”

Canada’s path to lasting competitiveness lies in strategic indispensability: specializing in a small number of high value-added goods or services that the world can’t do without. Ottawa must continue making explicit decisions about what gets built and what does not; otherwise, it risks spending heavily with little to show for it.

Treating cars like canola is not strategy. Using industrial platforms as bargaining chips for commodity access risks locking Canada into a permanently resource-heavy economic structure, one in which manufacturing capacity cannot be easily rebuilt and its absence reshapes the economy for decades.

Canada’s first major test of its reformed competition law centers on Amazon’s pricing rules, but the Competition Bureau’s case risks punishing a policy that lowers prices for consumers and mistaking competition on the merits for anticompetitive conduct.

Real sovereignty in digital systems isn’t about where servers sit. Canada should build sovereignty into contracts and cryptography, embedding control and security through procurement rules, Canadian-cleared personnel, and encryption safeguards.

Canada should approach exploratory talks regarding a Canada–EU digital trade agreement with caution. Greater alignment with the EU may appear to provide a hedge against U.S. influence, but in practice it risks importing a framework that impedes the potential for Canada’s digital economy and industries while raising compliance costs.