Government behaviour as it relates to Artificial Intelligence - The complacency one is witnessing around this challenge is a degree of negligence unparalleled in our history

 

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April 22,2026

 

Neil E. Thomson

825 Alview Crescent

Kamloops BC

V2B 6C5

 

President of the King's Privy Council for Canada

Honourable Dominic LeBlanc

Privy Council Office

85 Sparks Street, Room 1000

Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A3

EMAIL - dominic.leblanc@parl.gc.ca

RE: Government behaviour as it relates to Artificial Intelligence

In reviewing the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the promise and the peril, one is compelled to seek government to get to the table. There is a consensus among nearly all the prominent members of the AI space that we will be to Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) within the next 10 years, and some suggest much sooner. This pace of development requires the federal government to respond with both mass and agility – this is an act-now situation.

To a person, industry leaders warn us of an existential threat to humanity as ASI comes to being. It is likely the case that AI will possess many of the predilections of its creators. It is reasonable to anticipate its potential for evil. The people who understand this technology leave no ambiguity in expressing that the threat posed by this technology is imminent and potentially devastating. Already, there have been out-of-control events where AI agents have engaged in various unsanctioned operations.

The concern here is A) we could lose the race to have an effective AI structure and thereby fall prey to the ill intent of other entities, B) that we have insufficient AI structure to reap the rewards that would move us to a position of strength, C) we fall prey to an out-of-control super intelligence gone wrong. The combination of all these potentialities is analogous to or perhaps even exceeds the threat we faced in the race for a nuclear bomb.

If this technology comes into being in a manner that we can manage its behaviour, it is very likely it will solve all our problems. The upside and downside are extreme, and now inevitable. We are either racing to our own demise or to a utopian existence, with no clear indication of which we will get.

Regardless of which eventuality comes to be, Canada’s sovereignty is under threat unless we capture and master this technology. The magnitude of the outcome is greater in this circumstance than in any other in our history. The risk is certain, imminent and infinite and yet we are hardly giving it any attention. We give an ambiguous and questionable climate “emergency” an approximant $103 billion in funding, and we give a certain, immediate and infinite emergency $4 billion in funding. One would think we’d be inverting those numbers.

The government should immediately strike a task force. We should fund accelerated research and development. There needs to be a Manhattan Project-style approach to this challenge. We need both a push and a pull structure to the program. The complacency one is witnessing around this challenge is a degree of negligence unparalleled in our history; it is the equivalent of failing to prepare for World War II or simply sticking one's head in the sand and pretending it wasn’t happening. The time for decisive action is now; half measures leave Canada and all it stands for, potentially subjugated to other actors, corporate or national – or perhaps worse, in the grip of a malevolent superintelligence.

Kind Regards

 

 

Neil E. Thomson