50 Influential Thought Leaders on AI Ethics in Canada

Canada has always punched above its weight in artificial intelligence. The country built the world's first national AI strategy back in 2017, gave rise to deep learning pioneers who reshaped the global field, and assembled one of the most concentrated clusters of AI research talent on the planet across Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton. Yet as AI adoption accelerates and governance questions grow more consequential, the voices shaping how Canada thinks about the ethics of this technology deserve far more attention than they typically receive.

The stakes are real and immediate. Canada's AI adoption rate doubled from roughly six percent to over twelve percent of firms between mid-2024 and mid-2025, according to Statistics Canada data cited in PwC's 2025 Canadian business outlook.

The World Economic Forum has found that fewer than 35 percent of organisations deploying AI globally have a formal governance framework in place. That gap between adoption and accountability is exactly the gap that the fifty thought leaders on this list are working to close, through research, policy advocacy, legal scholarship, ethical practice, and community leadership.

Canada is at a pivotal moment in its AI governance story. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, which would have been the country's first major AI-specific legislation, stalled when Parliament prorogued in January 2025. Prime Minister Mark Carney subsequently appointed Evan Solomon as Canada's first Minister responsible for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation in May 2025. A national AI Strategy Task Force ran a thirty-day public consultation in October 2025, gathering input from over 11,300 Canadians and 28 expert Task Force members, with a renewed national AI strategy expected in 2026.

The Canadian AI Safety Institute became operational in late 2024. Canada's regulatory architecture is being rebuilt from the ground up, and the people on this list are among the most important contributors to that rebuild.

This list was compiled to bring together the voices genuinely shaping the field of AI ethics and governance in Canada right now. Every person included was selected on three criteria. First, substantive and documented contribution to the field of AI ethics, governance, or responsible AI through published research, policy advisory work, institutional leadership, or active practice. Second, current engagement with the field through roles held in 2025 or 2026.

Third, a genuine contribution to the specific Canadian context, whether through federal advisory roles, provincial leadership, research within Canadian institutions, or the governance of Canadian AI deployment. The list spans disciplines from computer science and law to sociology, Indigenous governance, environmental ethics, and enterprise practice, because AI ethics in Canada cannot be understood through any single lens.

If your leadership team is navigating AI governance, responsible adoption, or the human-side challenges of AI-driven change, Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, helps organisations build the trust, communication, and accountability frameworks that make governance work in practice. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why AI Ethics and Governance Matter in Canada

Canada's relationship with AI is distinctive in ways that shape its governance challenges. The country did not just stumble into AI leadership. It deliberately built it, through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy of 2017, through the three national AI institutes at Mila in Montreal, the Vector Institute in Toronto, and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute in Edmonton, and through the sustained investment in Canada CIFAR AI Chairs that brought world-class researchers to Canadian universities. That early leadership created both an opportunity and a responsibility.

The governance gap in Canada has become acute precisely because adoption has outpaced accountability. Sectors from healthcare and financial services to education and public administration are deploying AI systems with implications for how Canadians are assessed, recommended to, tracked, and served. Yet the legal and ethical frameworks for those deployments remain incomplete. The Treasury Board's Directive on Automated Decision-Making requires algorithmic impact assessments for federal institutions, but provincial frameworks vary enormously.

Ontario passed its Enhancing Digital Security and Trust Act in late 2024. Alberta's Privacy Commissioner called for dedicated AI legislation in August 2025. The regulatory patchwork is one of the defining governance challenges this list addresses.

There is also a distinctly Canadian set of equity questions at stake. Canada's AI ethics debate cannot be separated from the obligations of reconciliation and the rights of Indigenous peoples to sovereignty over their own data and knowledge systems. Nor can it be separated from questions about bilingualism and whether AI systems developed primarily in English adequately serve French-speaking Canadians. The voices on this list reflect the full complexity of those Canadian realities, not just the technical governance questions that dominate international discussions.

For organisations in Canada trying to build the internal leadership capacity to implement AI governance effectively, Jonno White, host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast with 230-plus episodes reaching listeners in 150-plus countries, helps leadership teams have the difficult conversations and build the accountability structures that turn governance frameworks into practice. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on the basis of three criteria: substantive contribution to AI ethics or governance through research, policy, practice, or advocacy; active engagement with the field in 2025 or 2026; and genuine engagement with the Canadian AI ethics and governance context. The list deliberately includes voices from across Canada's research hubs, federal and provincial advisory bodies, civil society organisations, enterprise settings, and Indigenous communities. It brings together the people who genuinely deserve to be widely known in this space, rather than recycling the same small handful of names that appear on every global AI ethics list.

Pioneers of AI Safety and Deep Learning Ethics

The leaders in this category built the technical and scientific foundations of modern AI, and then turned their expertise toward making it safer and more ethical. Their contributions sit at the intersection of cutting-edge research and urgent governance work, and their voices carry enormous weight in both academic and policy settings.

Canada produced the foundational research that made modern deep learning possible, and several of its most eminent researchers have subsequently become among the most important voices in the world on AI safety and responsible development. The people in this category combine scientific authority with a genuine commitment to ensuring that the technology they helped create is developed and deployed in ways that serve humanity rather than harm it.

1. Yoshua Bengio

One of the most cited computer scientists in the world by h-index, Yoshua Bengio is a Full Professor at Universite de Montreal, Scientific Director of Mila (the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute), and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair. He received the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computing, alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board.

Bengio chairs the International AI Safety Report and co-chairs Canada's Safe and Secure AI Advisory Group. His pivot toward AI safety, governance, and existential risk has been one of the most significant intellectual moves in the global AI field, bringing the credibility of a foundational researcher to the urgent task of ensuring that advanced AI systems remain aligned with human values.

2. Joelle Pineau

Chief AI Officer at Cohere and member of Canada's federal AI Strategy Task Force, Joelle Pineau is one of the most important senior industry voices in Canadian AI ethics and governance. An Associate Professor at McGill University on leave and a core member of Mila, she previously served as Vice-President of AI Research at Meta, leading the Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team across Canada, the US, and Europe.

Pineau is a recipient of the Governor General's Innovation Award and an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship from NSERC. Her research addresses planning, learning, and responsible deployment of large-scale AI systems, and her practical experience building governance into the product development lifecycle at global AI companies makes her perspective uniquely grounded in real-world implementation challenges.

3. Golnoosh Farnadi

An Assistant Professor at the School of Computer Science at McGill University, Adjunct Professor at Universite de Montreal, core academic member of Mila, and Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Golnoosh Farnadi leads the EQUAL Lab, dedicated to advancing algorithmic fairness and equity in AI systems. She serves on Canada's Safe and Secure AI Advisory Group and is a co-director of McGill's Collaborative for AI and Society (McCAIS).

Farnadi was named one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2023 and was a finalist for the Women in AI Responsible AI Leader of the Year award that same year. Her research on algorithmic fairness, privacy-preserving AI, and the ways that machine learning systems can embed and amplify discrimination is central to any serious conversation about ethical AI deployment in Canada and globally.

4. David Rolnick

An Assistant Professor at McGill's School of Computer Science, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, and core member of Mila, David Rolnick is the co-founder and Chair of Climate Change AI and Scientific Co-director of Sustainability in the Digital Age. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics from MIT and was named to MIT Technology Review's 2021 list of 35 Innovators Under 35.

Rolnick and his co-authors published a landmark paper on tackling climate change with machine learning that has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, establishing a rigorous evidence base for how AI can and should be governed with attention to its environmental dimensions. His work ensures that Canadian AI ethics conversations include the ecological stakes of AI deployment, not just social and legal ones.

5. Reihaneh Rabbany

A Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Mila and Assistant Professor at McGill's School of Computer Science, Reihaneh Rabbany is a member of the CAISI Research Program at CIFAR, Canada's AI safety research programme housed within the Canadian AI Safety Institute. Her research sits at the intersection of network science, data mining, and machine learning, with a particular focus on the health and safety of online spaces.

Rabbany's work on understanding and mitigating the risks that emerge from large-scale interconnected data systems is directly relevant to the governance of AI-driven information environments. Her expertise bridges technical AI research and the social and safety implications of how AI systems interact with connected human communities.

6. Gail Murphy

Vice-President of Research and Innovation and Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, Gail Murphy is also Vice-Chair of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada and a member of Canada's federal AI Strategy Task Force, specifically on the Research and Talent theme. She brings an important West Coast voice to national AI governance conversations that often skew toward Quebec and Ontario.

Murphy's academic research addresses software engineering and the usability of programming tools, but her role in shaping Canada's research infrastructure and her participation in the national AI strategy process make her one of the most consequential institutional voices in Canadian AI governance. Her perspective on how research systems and academic talent pipelines interact with responsible AI development is essential.

7. Michael Bowling

Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alberta, Principal Investigator of the Reinforcement Learning and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Research Fellow at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, and Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Michael Bowling is one of the most eminent AI researchers in the Amii ecosystem. He is a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Research and Talent theme.

Bowling's research on reinforcement learning, game theory, and AI safety has produced foundational contributions to how AI agents learn and make decisions. His work on programs that have solved complex sequential decision-making problems has direct relevance to how governance frameworks address autonomous AI decision-making.

AI Law, Policy and Governance Scholars

Canada has produced a remarkable cohort of legal and policy scholars whose work is directly shaping how AI will be regulated, governed, and made accountable. The people in this category include Canada Research Chairs, parliamentary witnesses, judicial advisors, and editors of the country's most important legal scholarship on AI. Their work translates the abstract questions of AI ethics into legal frameworks, policy instruments, and institutional accountability structures.

The depth of legal and policy scholarship on AI in Canada is arguably one of the country's greatest underappreciated assets. The cluster of scholars at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law and Centre for Law, Technology and Society, alongside peers at McGill, UBC, and SFU, is producing the research and policy analysis that Canadian legislators, regulators, and judges are relying on as they navigate the most complex technology governance challenge of the current era.

8. Teresa Scassa

The Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, Teresa Scassa is a full professor, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, and a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence. She is the co-editor, with Florian Martin-Bariteau, of Artificial Intelligence and the Law in Canada, published by LexisNexis Canada, and the author and editor of seven books and over 90 peer-reviewed articles.

Scassa testified before parliamentary committees on AI regulation and the national AI strategy in 2025 and 2026. Her research on automated decision-making, data governance, privacy law, and the evolving legal infrastructure of AI regulation is among the most cited and most influential in the Canadian legal scholarship on AI.

9. Florian Martin-Bariteau

University Research Chair in Technology and Society and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, Florian Martin-Bariteau is the Director of the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society and of the AI and Society Initiative. He is the co-editor of Artificial Intelligence and the Law in Canada, the peer-reviewed collection bringing together the leading Canadian scholars on law and AI policy challenges.

Martin-Bariteau appeared at the Ministerial Roundtable on Canada's AI Strategy for the Federal Public Service in 2024 alongside Teresa Scassa, directly shaping federal thinking on procurement, privacy reform, and whistleblower protections in AI deployment. His research on technology law, ethics, cybersecurity, and accountability is deeply integrated into Canada's ongoing policy conversations.

10. Celine Castets-Renard

The Canada Research Chair in International and Comparative Law of AI at the University of Ottawa and a collaborating faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Celine Castets-Renard is one of the few Canadian scholars with deep expertise in both Canadian and European AI regulatory frameworks. She contributed a chapter on AI and law in the EU and the US to Martin-Bariteau and Scassa's foundational collection.

Castets-Renard's bilingual capability and her expertise in comparative AI law make her indispensable for Canadian organisations navigating the intersection of Canadian regulatory frameworks and the EU AI Act, which affects Canadian companies operating internationally. Her research addresses fundamental questions about accountability, algorithmic transparency, and how democratic institutions should govern AI at the international level.

11. Jason Millar

Renewed in January 2026 as the Canada Research Chair in Ethical Engineering of AI and Robotics at the University of Ottawa, Jason Millar is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a Faculty member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. His research addresses the ethics of autonomous systems, the governance of agentic AI, and the engineering design frameworks that support responsible innovation.

Millar's research programme spans three interconnected areas: investigating emerging ethical issues in robotics and AI, developing practical ethical engineering design tools, and creating policy frameworks for responsible governance of autonomous systems. The renewal of his Canada Research Chair in 2026 signals the continuing significance of his work to Canada's AI safety and governance agenda.

12. Catherine Regis

A Full Professor at the Faculty of Law at Universite de Montreal, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Director of Social Innovation and International Policy at IVADO, and co-chair of the Global Partnership on AI's Responsible AI working group, Catherine Regis is one of Canada's most important voices on AI governance for the public sector. She is a member of the CAISI Research Program at CIFAR.

Regis brings bilingual capability and genuine depth in health law, regulatory design, and multi-stakeholder governance frameworks. Her book chapter contributions to Human-Centered AI, published by CRC Press and co-edited with Jean-Louis Denis and Maria Axente, reflect her commitment to governance approaches that centre human rights and public participation rather than regulatory technicality alone.

13. Gillian Hadfield

Chair of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Gillian Hadfield is one of the most important law-and-governance thinkers linked to Canadian AI policy. Her research addresses the foundational question of how legal systems and governance institutions must evolve to manage advanced AI, and her work is cited in both academic and policy settings across the world.

Hadfield brings rare depth to questions about the design of regulatory systems for technologies that evolve faster than legislation can accommodate. Her perspective on building adaptive governance frameworks that can track AI capabilities without being constantly rendered obsolete is essential reading for anyone working on Canadian AI policy.

14. Karen Eltis

A Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa and co-author of the Canadian Judicial Council's guidelines on AI for courts, Karen Eltis holds a unique position in Canadian AI governance. Her work directly shapes how Canada's judicial system approaches AI, addressing algorithmic decision-making in courts, the ethics of AI in legal proceedings, and the accountability structures that democratic institutions must build as AI becomes embedded in justice.

The Canadian Judicial Council guidelines that Eltis contributed to have practical effect across the country's court system, making her influence concrete and immediate in a way that purely academic work does not always achieve. Her governance focus on high-stakes public institutions is a crucial counterweight to discussions dominated by enterprise and commercial AI deployment.

15. Taylor Owen

Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications and Founding Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University, Taylor Owen is represented by Speakers Spotlight and is a member of Canada's federal AI Strategy Task Force, specifically on the Building Safe AI Systems and Public Trust in AI theme.

Owen's research addresses AI governance through the lens of democratic risk, public trust, media integrity, and institutional accountability. His positioning at the intersection of AI, democracy, and journalism gives his governance analysis a practical civic dimension that is often missing from technical AI policy discussions. He is among the clearest communicators in Canada on why the erosion of public trust in information systems is inseparable from AI governance challenges.

16. Michael Geist

Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa and a Faculty member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Michael Geist is one of the most consistently cited voices on AI policy, copyright, privacy, and digital regulation in Canadian public discourse. He has appeared before multiple parliamentary committees in 2025 and 2026 on AI regulation, and he runs the Law Bytes podcast, bringing AI governance analysis to a broad public audience.

Geist appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology in March 2026 and the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in April 2026, arguing for well-considered legal frameworks that balance innovation with safeguards rather than reactive legislation that risks creating more harm than it prevents. His public-facing scholarship is essential for understanding the contested terrain of Canadian AI regulation.

17. Jean-Christophe Belisle-Pipon

An Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, Jean-Christophe Belisle-Pipon co-authored the 2024 paper "Ethics Dumping in Artificial Intelligence," published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, which has become an important reference for understanding how AI ethics can be hollowed out or exported to vulnerable populations while maintaining the appearance of ethical compliance.

His work on the ethics of AI in health systems, bioethics, and the governance of AI in high-stakes human contexts brings a bioethics lens to Canadian AI governance conversations that are often dominated by computer scientists and lawyers. The concept of ethics dumping, applied to AI governance, provides a framework for understanding power imbalances in how ethical responsibility is assigned and evaded.

18. Maite Taboada

Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University and Director of the Discourse Processing Lab, Maite Taboada is one of Canada's leading researchers on the intersection of natural language processing, computational linguistics, and the ethics of language technologies. She is an active participant in the Canadian AI 2026 Responsible AI programme.

Taboada's research on sentiment analysis, discourse coherence, and the ways that language models can be biased in how they process and generate human language is directly relevant to AI governance conversations about fairness, representation, and the risks of deploying language AI systems that systematically misrepresent or marginalise particular communities or forms of expression.

National AI Strategy Leaders and Advisors

These are the people working at the intersection of Canada's federal and institutional AI leadership, advising governments, shaping strategy, and building the national infrastructure for trustworthy AI. Several serve on Canada's Advisory Council on AI or participated in the AI Strategy Task Force. Their contributions span from national AI ecosystem strategy to enterprise governance frameworks.

The governance of AI in Canada is not just an academic or legal question. It requires institutional leadership, strategic investment, and people who can translate research into policy and policy into implementation. The leaders in this category occupy exactly that space, building the national architecture of responsible AI development.

19. Elissa Strome

Executive Director of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR and a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, the OECD's Network of Experts on AI, and the Health Canada Expert Advisory Committee for AI in Health, Elissa Strome is one of the most strategically central people in Canadian AI governance. She received a Special Jury Recognition at the Women in AI Awards North America in 2023.

Strome holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia and brings a unique perspective combining scientific training, research strategy, and policy leadership to her role shaping Canada's national AI position. Her work on equity, diversity, and inclusion in science makes her one of the strongest voices for ensuring that Canada's AI ecosystem reflects the full diversity of the country it claims to serve.

20. Olivier Blais

Co-Chair of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Moov AI, and Chair of the Canadian Mirror Committee for Artificial Intelligence at ISO/IEC, Olivier Blais is a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Adoption across Industry and Governments theme. He has played an editorial role in the international ISO standard defining the quality of AI systems.

Blais brings bilingual capability, genuine enterprise deployment experience, and standards-setting authority to Canadian AI governance. His work at the ISO level means that his influence extends beyond Canada's borders, shaping international technical standards for AI quality that have direct implications for how AI systems are held accountable globally.

21. Diane Gutiw

Vice-President leading CGI's Global AI Research Centre and Co-Chair of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, Diane Gutiw is also a member of the federal AI Strategy Task Force on Research and Talent and an advisor to policymakers in Canada, the UK, and the EU on AI legislation. She holds a PhD in Information Technology Management and has over 35 years of experience in data, analytics, and AI solutions.

Gutiw's dual position bridging enterprise AI deployment at global scale and federal advisory work gives her governance perspective a practical, implementation-heavy credibility that is rare in the AI ethics conversation. Her expertise in applying research ethics rigour to clinical and business AI solutions, and in designing responsible AI standards across a global organisation of 93,000 people, grounds her contributions in the reality of how governance actually operates inside complex institutions.

22. Valerie Pisano

President and CEO of Mila, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Valerie Pisano is a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence and one of the most strategically significant ecosystem leaders in Canadian AI. Under her leadership, Mila has grown into one of the world's most important centres for responsible AI research and policy development, home to over 1,000 students and researchers.

Pisano began her career at McKinsey and Company before earning her master's degree in economics from HEC Montreal, then served as Chief Talent Officer at Cirque du Soleil before co-founding the Mobius Project on Bias. Her perspective on AI governance is shaped by a deep commitment to diversity and inclusion alongside strategic ecosystem thinking, making her one of the most multidimensional voices in Canadian AI leadership.

23. Benjamin Prud'homme

Executive Director of AI for Humanity at Mila, and an appointed expert with the OECD.AI Network, the United Nations Consultative Network of AI Experts, and UNESCO's AI Ethics Experts Without Borders, Benjamin Prud'homme is one of Canada's most internationally connected AI governance practitioners. He co-leads the Global Partnership on AI project on creating diversity and substantive equality in AI ecosystems.

Prud'homme began his career as a litigator in human rights and family law before serving as Advisor to the Minister of Justice of Canada in 2018, and his background in human rights law runs through everything he contributes to AI governance. His focus on marginalised communities, algorithmic bias, and the epistemology of interdisciplinary AI governance makes his work at Mila a bridge between ethical principles and policy action.

24. Melika Carroll

Head of Global Government Affairs and Public Policy at Cohere and member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, Melika Carroll brings a private-sector policy perspective to Canadian AI governance that is essential for understanding how enterprise AI companies engage with regulatory frameworks. She previously led corporate affairs strategy for Sonder's public listing on Nasdaq and built public policy functions for Fortune 500 companies including Intel, Micron, HP, and Salesforce.

Carroll has guest lectured at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University, and the Washington Campus on technology policy, and co-founded the Global Women's Innovation Network. Her position inside one of Canada's most prominent AI companies, combined with her deep government and policy background, makes her perspective on how responsible AI governance translates from regulation into corporate practice particularly valuable.

25. Glenda Crisp

President and CEO of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, Glenda Crisp is an independent board member at OCAD University and The Globe and Mail. She brings over 35 years of experience in data and technology leadership from financial services, including as Head of Data and Analytics at Thomson Reuters and Executive Enterprise Data and Architecture at National Australia Bank.

Crisp was named among the top 100 Global Chief Data Officers by Corinium in 2022 and 2023, and among the top 100 Chief Information Officers in North America by CIO Magazine. Her leadership of the Vector Institute, Canada's national AI institute in Toronto, places her at the centre of the country's efforts to translate AI research into responsible commercial and public-sector applications.

26. Shelly Bruce

Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo and member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Security theme, Shelly Bruce brings a national security, intelligence, and digital sovereignty perspective to Canadian AI governance that is missing from most ethics conversations. She is a former senior official in Canada's national security community with decades of experience in the intersection of technology and national security.

Bruce's participation in the AI Strategy Task Force on security specifically addresses the questions of AI safety infrastructure, cyber risk, and sovereign AI capability that are essential to Canada's AI governance but often treated as separate from ethical AI conversations. Her CIGI fellowship connects her national security expertise to the think tank's broader work on global AI governance frameworks.

Responsible and Ethical AI Practitioners

These are the people translating AI ethics from academic principles into the actual work of helping organisations, governments, and communities navigate responsible AI deployment. They are consultants, educators, researchers, and enterprise leaders whose daily work is making AI ethics operational rather than theoretical. This category represents some of the most practically important voices in Canadian AI governance.

The gap between AI ethics principles and implementation is where most organisations struggle most. The leaders in this category have built careers on exactly that gap, developing tools, frameworks, training programmes, and practical governance approaches that allow organisations of all sizes to engage with responsible AI in ways that go beyond abstract commitments. Their work is the connective tissue between policy aspiration and organisational reality.

27. Katrina Ingram

Founder and CEO of Ethically Aligned AI in Edmonton and adjunct faculty at the University of Alberta and MacEwan University, Katrina Ingram developed Canada's first micro-credential in AI Ethics in partnership with Athabasca University. She was named to the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics list, served as the City of Edmonton's Data Ethics Advisor, and is a current member of the Calgary Police Services Technology Ethics Committee.

In September 2025, Ingram was quoted challenging the uncritical rush toward large-scale AI infrastructure in Alberta, arguing that the province needed to slow down and ask fundamental questions about what it was building and why. Her practice focuses on helping organisations in all sectors make better ethical choices in the design, development, and deployment of AI systems, with particular depth in Alberta and Western Canada.

28. Shingai Manjengwa

Senior Director of Education and Development at Mila and founder of Fireside Analytics, Shingai Manjengwa is a recognised leader in AI education and responsible AI adoption whose online courses have reached over 500,000 learners on platforms including IBM's CognitiveClass.ai and Coursera. She developed Canada's first Ministry of Education-inspected high school data science course and serves on the University of Toronto's Schwartz Reisman Institute AI and Trust Working Group.

Manjengwa was recognised with the 2023 Womxn in Data Science Guiding Light Award and is a Public Policy Forum Fellow. In 2026 she described her focus as advancing "AI Socialization," a framework for ensuring that the adoption of AI tools and governance structures reflects genuine community engagement rather than top-down imposition. Her work bridges AI education and governance in ways that make responsible AI adoption accessible to organisations far beyond the research elite.

29. AJung Moon

An Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University and Director of the RAISE Lab (Responsible Autonomy and Intelligent Systems Ethics), AJung Moon is a Korean-Canadian roboticist who served as Senior Advisor for the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation. She is a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence and founded the nonprofit Open Roboethics Institute.

Moon's research addresses responsible autonomy, robot ethics, and the design of AI systems that respect human values in contexts ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to autonomous vehicles and defence. Her practical governance work at the intersection of robotics, AI ethics, and policy brings a systems-engineering perspective to AI governance that is rarely represented in predominantly legal and philosophical discussions.

30. Sasha Luccioni

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at the Sustainable AI Group, Research Scientist and former Climate Lead at Hugging Face, and founding member of Climate Change AI, Sasha Luccioni holds a PhD in AI and has spent a decade building the evidence base for understanding the environmental impacts of AI systems. In 2024 she was named to TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in AI, BBC 100 Women, and in 2023 to MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35.

Luccioni launched the Sustainable AI Group in April 2026 alongside former Salesforce executive Boris Gamazaychikov, to help businesses measure, compare, and act on the environmental costs of their AI deployments. Her work ensures that the Canadian AI ethics conversation includes the ecological and carbon-cost dimensions of AI governance that are too often treated as a separate sustainability issue rather than a core governance concern.

31. Nicole Janssen

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of AltaML, one of Canada's most prominent applied AI companies, Nicole Janssen is a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Woman in AI of the Year, was recognised as one of North America's Top 25 Women of Influence, and was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal in February 2025.

Janssen's experience spans the public sector, agriculture, financial services, healthcare, and energy, giving her applied AI governance perspective unusual breadth. Her position as an entrepreneur building AI solutions in regulated and public-sector environments, combined with her federal advisory role, makes her one of the most practically grounded voices in Canadian AI ethics and governance conversations.

32. Sandy Kyriakatos

A member of the Digital Governance Council's AI Ethics Advisory Panel and a former Chief Data Officer for the Government of Canada at Employment and Social Development Canada and at Canada Border Services Agency, Sandy Kyriakatos brings a federal public-service AI governance perspective built on decades of experience handling sensitive data at scale. She was the first CDO for the Government of Canada at ESDC.

Kyriakatos's career at the intersection of data leadership, AI governance, and government accountability gives her a concrete, implementation-level understanding of what responsible AI looks like inside large public institutions, where the ethical implications of algorithmic decision-making are most consequential for ordinary Canadians.

33. Renee Sieber

A Professor in the Bieler School of Environment at McGill University and a named member of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2025, Renee Sieber's research addresses the social implications of AI, the ethics of AI data collection, and the governance of AI systems in public and environmental contexts. She attended the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris in February 2025.

Sieber's perspective on AI governance is shaped by her environmental science background and her long-standing concern for who benefits and who is harmed by AI systems. "We should not accept that all AI is either good or bad, and that its result is only in application," she has said, articulating a position that resists both uncritical enthusiasm and blanket scepticism in favour of context-specific ethical analysis.

34. Cam Linke

CEO of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) and a longstanding leader in Edmonton's technology and startup community, Cam Linke is a member of Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence. He holds an MSc in Computing Science from the University of Alberta, co-founded Startup Edmonton, and has built Amii into a national AI hub that anchors Alberta's position in the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.

Linke's leadership of Amii, combined with his background as an entrepreneur, investor, and AI researcher in reinforcement learning under Dr. Richard Sutton, gives him a distinctive perspective on AI governance that connects research excellence with practical ecosystem development. His advocacy for responsible AI adoption in Alberta's energy, agriculture, and public-sector contexts addresses AI governance dimensions that are underrepresented in conversations dominated by Quebec and Ontario voices.

35. Sam Ramadori

Co-President and Executive Director of LawZero and a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Security theme, Sam Ramadori brings a legal and security perspective to AI governance from inside one of Canada's emerging AI safety organisations. LawZero works at the frontier of AI governance on the most consequential and least-understood risks of advanced AI systems.

Ramadori's participation in the national AI Strategy Task Force alongside Shelly Bruce and James Neufeld on the security theme signals the growing recognition that AI security and AI ethics are not separate conversations but deeply intertwined governance challenges. His work translates frontier AI safety concerns into legal and institutional frameworks that can actually be implemented.

Indigenous AI, Equity and Inclusion

No serious conversation about AI ethics and governance in Canada can be conducted without Indigenous voices at the centre. Canada's obligations under UNDRIP, the ongoing work of reconciliation, and the specific ways that AI systems can perpetuate colonial harms through algorithmic bias, data extraction, and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems make this category essential rather than supplementary to the list. The leaders here are doing some of the most important governance work in the country.

The intersection of AI governance and Indigenous sovereignty is one of the defining features of the Canadian AI ethics landscape. Questions of data ownership, algorithmic accountability, and the right of Indigenous communities to determine how technology shapes their nations cannot be answered through Western governance frameworks alone. The voices in this category are developing the frameworks, policies, and advocacy needed to ensure that Canada's AI future is genuinely inclusive.

36. Natiea Vinson

CEO of the First Nations Technology Council and a member of both Canada's Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence and the national AI Strategy Task Force on Education and Skills, Natiea Vinson is a Tk'emlups te Secwepemc leader who has spent more than a decade working across academia, social enterprise, and the public and private sectors to advance Indigenous digital equity. The First Nations Technology Council serves all 204 First Nations in British Columbia.

In April 2025, Vinson wrote publicly about the risk of digital colonialism in Canada's AI strategy, arguing that AI systems built on Western frameworks that do not reflect Indigenous community needs continue the erasure of Indigenous knowledge, values, and governance models. Her dual role in federal advisory structures and frontline Indigenous community leadership makes her one of the most important governance voices in Canada.

37. Ife Adebara

An Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, jointly appointed in Modern Languages and Cultural Studies and Media and Technology Studies, and a Fellow at Amii, Ife Adebara holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on building inclusive and explainable language technologies for low-resource and underrepresented languages, with particular emphasis on African and Indigenous languages.

Adebara's participation in the Canadian AI 2026 Responsible AI programme and her contributions to large-scale multilingual systems including AfroLID, Serengeti, and Cheetah, supporting more than 500 African languages, give her governance perspective a global dimension anchored in the practical realities of AI's impact on marginalised linguistic communities. Her work is published in leading venues including ACL, EMNLP, and COLING.

38. Denise Williams

A Fellow at SFU's Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, working with the Dialogue on Technology Project on AI governance, Denise Williams is a member of the Cowichan Tribes and formerly the CEO of the First Nations Technology Council. Her current work with the Dialogue on Technology Project places her at the centre of efforts to ensure that AI governance reflects Indigenous voices and public values rather than industry or government perspectives alone.

The Dialogue on Technology Project has engaged internationally, including at the Paris AI Action Summit, the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford, and events from Washington DC to Taiwan. Williams's foundational work building the First Nations Technology Council and her current governance advocacy through SFU's Centre for Dialogue give her a long-arc perspective on Indigenous digital sovereignty that is essential to understanding the AI ethics landscape in Canada.

39. Karine Gentelet

A Full Professor at the Departement des sciences sociales at the Universite du Quebec en Outaouais and Scientific Director of Civil Society Collaboration at OBVIA (the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology), Karine Gentelet is the editor of Les intelligences artificielles au prisme de la justice sociale (Presses de l'Universite Laval, 2023), one of the most important Francophone Canadian contributions to AI ethics scholarship.

Gentelet was the 2020-2021 holder of the Abeona-ENS-OBVIA Research Chair on AI and Social Justice, succeeding Professor Kate Crawford of NYU's AI Now Institute in the position. Her research on the recognition of Indigenous peoples' rights in the context of digital technology, AI ethics in an Indigenous research context, and the governance of AI systems from a social justice perspective is a foundational reference for anyone working on AI and reconciliation in Canada.

40. Melissa M'Raidi-Kechichian

An AI policy, frameworks, and regulation expert and member of the Digital Governance Council's AI Ethics Advisory Panel, Melissa M'Raidi-Kechichian is based in Montreal and works at the intersection of democracy, technology, and activism. She previously worked at Open North on civic tech, at the Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada, and at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, where she was a researcher, fellow, and team leader.

M'Raidi-Kechichian's research focuses on AI policy framework development and implementation, the ethics of algorithmic recommendations on social media, and data privacy in democratic contexts. Her work is distinguished by a commitment to ensuring that AI governance frameworks are developed through genuine democratic participation rather than technocratic consensus, a perspective grounded in her background in civic technology and social activism.

Industry, Innovation and Enterprise AI Governance

Responsible AI governance cannot live only in universities, think tanks, and government committees. It must be embedded in the organisations building, deploying, and commercialising AI systems. The leaders in this category are doing that work: translating governance principles into enterprise practice, building the economic case for responsible AI, and ensuring that Canada's AI industry is competitive precisely because it takes ethics seriously rather than in spite of it.

The enterprise dimension of AI governance is often underrepresented in ethics conversations dominated by academics and policy advocates. Yet the choices made by the people who build and deploy AI at scale, inside companies ranging from startups to national and global enterprises, determine most of the real-world ethical outcomes of AI systems. The voices in this category understand both the business imperatives and the governance responsibilities of AI development.

41. Ajay Agrawal

Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, founder of the Creative Destruction Lab and Next Canada, and co-author with Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb of Prediction Machines and Power and Prediction, both published by Harvard Business Review Press, Ajay Agrawal is a Member of the Order of Canada appointed in 2022.

Agrawal is a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on Scaling Champions and Attracting Investment, and he has advised the governments of the US, Canada, and Japan on AI policy and economics. His work translating complex AI governance concepts into clear frameworks for business decision-makers makes him one of the most effective communicators in Canada on the economic and governance dimensions of responsible AI adoption.

42. Louis Tetu

Executive Chairman of Coveo, one of Canada's leading AI companies, and a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Commercialisation of AI theme, Louis Tetu brings the perspective of a Canadian technology entrepreneur who has built and scaled AI-driven products in global enterprise markets. Coveo's work on enterprise AI search and relevance has been a reference point for discussions about responsible AI in commercial contexts.

Tetu's participation in the national AI strategy process on the commercialisation theme reflects the recognition that Canada's AI governance framework must support, not just constrain, the growth of Canadian AI companies. His perspective on how to build commercially competitive AI businesses while maintaining ethical standards is an essential counterpoint to more precautionary voices in the Canadian AI governance conversation.

43. Sinead Bovell

Founder of WAYE (Weekly Advice for Young Entrepreneurs) and represented by Speakers Spotlight, Sinead Bovell is one of Canada's most publicly visible voices on AI ethics, responsible technology, and the future of work. Based in Toronto, she combines exceptional communication skills with substantive engagement on AI governance questions that affect younger generations and broader public audiences.

Bovell's work connects AI governance to the lived realities of people who will spend their entire working lives in AI-shaped environments, making her one of the most effective translators of AI ethics principles into accessible public discourse. Her focus on the human experience of AI-driven change, and her ability to engage diverse audiences on governance questions that can feel remote or technical, is a genuine contribution to Canadian AI ethics conversations.

44. Mary Wells

Dean of Engineering at the University of Waterloo and a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Building Safe AI Systems and Public Trust in AI theme, Mary Wells brings an engineering education and research infrastructure perspective to Canadian AI governance. The University of Waterloo is one of Canada's most important engineering and technology institutions, with deep industry links through its co-op programme and startup ecosystem.

Wells's leadership of engineering education at Waterloo, combined with her participation in the national AI strategy process, positions her as a key voice in ensuring that the next generation of Canadian engineers and AI practitioners is trained with governance and ethics built into their technical formation rather than treated as an optional add-on.

45. Arvind Gupta

Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto and a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on Research and Talent, Arvind Gupta is a former CEO of MITACS and a former President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia. His deep experience in building research partnerships between academia and industry, and in developing AI talent pipelines across Canada, makes him a central figure in the governance of Canada's AI research ecosystem.

Gupta's perspective on research ethics, the commercialisation of AI knowledge, and the governance of AI talent development is shaped by decades of experience bridging university research, government policy, and private-sector application. His work ensures that AI governance conversations include the research integrity and training dimensions that determine what kinds of AI systems get built and by whom.

Emerging and Crossdisciplinary Voices

The final category brings together voices whose contributions to AI ethics and governance in Canada span disciplines, sectors, and perspectives that do not fit neatly into any single category. These are the thinkers bringing perspectives from medicine, education, security, digital policy, and public engagement that enrich and challenge the dominant frames through which Canadian AI governance is typically understood.

AI ethics is a field that cannot be understood from within a single discipline. It requires the contributions of people who have thought deeply about ethics from medicine, public health, democratic theory, security, and community engagement. The voices in this category ensure that the Canadian AI ethics conversation is as broad and as rich as the technology it addresses.

46. David Naylor

Professor of Medicine and President Emeritus of the University of Toronto, David Naylor is a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Education and Skills theme. As one of Canada's most eminent physician-scientists and former leaders of a G15 research university, Naylor brings a public health and medical ethics perspective to AI governance that is essential as AI systems are deployed at scale in healthcare settings across Canada.

Naylor's deep experience navigating the ethical governance of medical research, clinical trials, and public health policy translates directly into the governance challenges of AI in health, a sector where algorithmic decision-making has life-altering consequences and where the governance failures of AI can cause direct harm to patients. His participation in the national AI strategy process ensures that health equity and medical ethics are not marginalised in infrastructure and economic discussions.

47. Jim Harris

One of North America's most active keynote speakers on AI, generative AI, disruptive innovation, and strategic leadership, Jim Harris is recognised by TEC as one of Canada's top speakers and is represented by the Speakers Bureau of Canada. His work explicitly addresses the governance and strategic implications of AI adoption for Canadian organisations across sectors, framing governance as a competitive imperative rather than a constraint.

Harris has spent decades helping executive audiences understand how to lead through technological disruption, and his positioning on AI governance as an essential strategic capability rather than a compliance burden reflects a perspective that is both practically useful and ethically grounded. His accessibility to broad business audiences makes him a valuable translator of AI governance principles into strategic action.

48. Doyin Adeyemi

A JD/MBA Candidate at the University of Toronto and a 1834 Fellow, Doyin Adeyemi is the youngest voice on this list and a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Building Safe AI Systems and Public Trust in AI theme. Her inclusion in the Task Force reflects a deliberate effort by the government to ensure that emerging voices and the perspectives of young Canadians shaped national AI strategy alongside established experts.

Adeyemi's presence on the Task Force is significant not just for the perspective she brings personally but for what it signals about the governance process itself: that Canada's AI strategy must account for the people who will live longest with its consequences. Her academic focus on law and business, combined with her policy experience, positions her as a voice to watch in Canadian AI governance.

49. Mathias Lecuyer

An Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia and a member of the CAISI Research Program at CIFAR, Mathias Lecuyer is a technical AI safety researcher whose work addresses privacy-preserving machine learning, differential privacy, and the formal guarantees that can be built into AI systems to protect individuals from algorithmic harm.

Lecuyer's research provides the technical foundations for some of the governance claims that policymakers and ethicists make about what responsible AI can and cannot do. His work on certified robustness and privacy in machine learning bridges the gap between theoretical AI safety guarantees and the practical governance questions of how to audit, certify, and hold AI systems accountable.

50. Marc Etienne Ouimette

Chair of the Board of Digital Moment, Member of the OECD One AI Group of Experts, and Affiliate Researcher on Sovereign AI at the Cambridge University Bennett School of Public Policy, Marc Etienne Ouimette was a member of Canada's AI Strategy Task Force on the Infrastructure theme. His work on digital literacy, youth and AI governance, and the intersection of AI and sovereign digital infrastructure connects education and governance in ways that are essential for Canada's long-term AI leadership.

Digital Moment, the organisation Ouimette chairs, focuses on equipping young Canadians with the digital literacy needed to engage critically with AI systems, making him one of the few voices on this list who explicitly connects AI governance to the educational foundations that determine how the next generation of citizens and workers will participate in AI-shaped institutions.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several important Canadian voices on AI ethics and governance were seriously considered but did not make the final fifty. Yoshua Bengio's colleague and co-winner of the Turing Award, Geoffrey Hinton, is Canadian-born and made foundational contributions to AI research in Canada, though his primary focus has shifted toward global existential AI risk rather than specifically Canadian governance work. A small number of the voices who appear most prominently on global AI ethics lists, including researchers associated with global institutes rather than primarily Canadian institutions, were assessed as not meeting the Canadian context criterion that shaped this list.

Several civil society researchers from universities in Atlantic Canada and Manitoba who are doing important work in AI governance from underrepresented regional perspectives were close to making the final list, and the field in those regions deserves more attention than this list was able to give it. The late Abhishek Gupta, co-founder of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, whose passing in 2024 was a profound loss to the Canadian and global AI ethics community, would have been a natural inclusion. MAIEI continues his work in his memory, including through the AI Ethics Brief newsletter read by over 15,000 subscribers.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Canadian AI Governance

The first common mistake is treating AI governance as a compliance exercise rather than a strategic capability. Organisations that approach AI governance primarily as a risk minimisation task tend to produce compliance documentation that satisfies auditors but does not actually change how AI systems are designed, deployed, or monitored. Genuine AI governance requires embedding ethical thinking into the culture of the organisation, not just its paperwork.

The second mistake is ignoring the governance gaps between Canada's federal and provincial frameworks. Canada's AI regulatory landscape in 2026 is a patchwork, with federal directives for public institutions, provincial legislation at different stages of development, and sector-specific rules in financial services, healthcare, and other regulated industries. Organisations operating across multiple provinces, or in federally regulated sectors, need governance frameworks that can navigate this complexity rather than assuming a single coherent national framework exists.

The third mistake is excluding Indigenous voices from AI governance processes. The rights of Indigenous peoples over their data, the governance of AI systems that affect Indigenous communities, and the integration of Indigenous knowledge systems into AI ethics conversations are not optional add-ons to Canadian AI governance. They are foundational obligations under UNDRIP and the Canadian constitutional framework. Organisations that govern AI without Indigenous participation are not just ethically incomplete, they are operating at legal and reputational risk.

The fourth mistake is conflating ethics washing with ethical practice. The gap between publicly stated AI ethics principles and actual organisational behaviour has been documented extensively. Jean-Christophe Belisle-Pipon's work on ethics dumping, and the broader literature on the gap between AI ethics statements and implementation, makes clear that having an AI ethics policy is not the same as practising AI ethics. Governance frameworks need accountability mechanisms, not just aspirational principles.

The fifth mistake is failing to account for the environmental governance dimensions of AI. The energy consumption of AI systems, particularly large language models and generative AI, is a governance question as much as an environmental one. Sasha Luccioni's pioneering work on the carbon cost of AI models and the establishment of the Sustainable AI Group in 2026 reflects the growing recognition that responsible AI governance must include environmental accountability. Organisations adopting AI at scale without governance frameworks for their energy and carbon footprint are not practising responsible AI, whatever else they may claim.

Implementation Guide: Following These Voices and Acting on Their Work

The most immediate action you can take is to build a reading and following practice around the voices on this list. The thought leaders here are producing research, writing policy briefs, publishing blog posts, recording podcasts, and speaking at events that are accessible to anyone with an internet connection and a genuine interest in AI ethics. Following Michael Geist's Law Bytes podcast, reading Mila's policy publications, engaging with the work of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, and tracking the outputs of CIGI's digital governance programme will give you a grounded understanding of Canadian AI ethics that no single corporate training programme can match.

The second action is to assess where your organisation sits in relation to Canada's actual AI governance requirements. The Treasury Board's Directive on Automated Decision-Making applies to federal institutions. Ontario's Enhancing Digital Security and Trust Act applies to Ontario public-sector organisations. Alberta's Privacy Commissioner has signalled coming AI regulation.

OSFI has updated Guideline E-23 for financial institutions. Your regulatory exposure to AI governance obligations is probably greater than you realise, and the scholars on this list, particularly Teresa Scassa, Florian Martin-Bariteau, and Michael Geist, are the best sources for understanding it.

The third action is to ensure that your AI governance processes include genuine Indigenous consultation, not just formal compliance. Natiea Vinson, Denise Williams, Karine Gentelet, and Ife Adebara are among the clearest voices on what meaningful Indigenous participation in AI governance looks like in practice. The principle of self-determination means that Indigenous communities have the right to be involved in the design, deployment, and governance of AI systems that affect them, not just consulted after decisions have been made.

The fourth action is to take the environmental dimension of your AI governance seriously. Sasha Luccioni and David Rolnick's work provides the research foundation. The Sustainable AI Group is actively helping organisations measure and reduce the environmental footprint of their AI deployments. If your AI governance framework does not include energy use, carbon emissions, and the environmental impact of AI infrastructure, it is incomplete by the standards being established in 2025 and 2026.

Building your leadership team's capacity to have the difficult conversations that AI governance requires is as important as any technical or legal governance step you take. AI governance frameworks fail not because the policies are wrong, but because leadership teams cannot navigate the accountability conversations, the transparency demands, and the cultural resistance that responsible AI deployment invariably creates. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out (over 10,000 copies sold globally), and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast reaching listeners in 150 countries, helps leadership teams build exactly that capacity. Whether virtual or in person, international travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start the conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Canada distinctive in the global AI ethics and governance landscape?

Canada's distinctiveness in AI ethics comes from several intersecting factors. The country produced foundational deep learning research through Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and their collaborators, creating a scientific community with genuine authority on AI capabilities alongside its ethical concerns. Canada was the first nation to implement a national AI strategy in 2017. The three national AI institutes at Mila, Vector, and Amii created institutional infrastructure for AI governance that most countries lack.

And the specific Canadian context, including obligations under UNDRIP, the bilingual governance landscape, and the distinct regional contexts from Quebec's civil law tradition to Alberta's resource economy, creates AI ethics challenges that are genuinely Canadian in character.

What happened to Canada's AI legislation, and where does it stand in 2026?

Bill C-27's Artificial Intelligence and Data Act stalled when Parliament prorogued in January 2025. The core concepts of AIDA, including risk-based classification, human oversight requirements, and accountability frameworks for high-impact AI systems, continue to influence Canadian regulatory thinking even though the legislation itself did not pass. The government launched an AI Strategy Task Force and national consultation in October 2025, gathering input from over 11,300 Canadians. A renewed national AI strategy is expected in 2026.

In the meantime, federal institutions are subject to the Treasury Board's Directive on Automated Decision-Making, which requires algorithmic impact assessments for public-sector AI systems.

How was this list compiled?

Every person included was selected on three criteria: documented contribution to AI ethics or governance through research, policy, practice, or advocacy; active engagement with the field in 2025 or 2026; and genuine engagement with the Canadian AI ethics and governance context. The list deliberately spans disciplines, regions, and sectors to reflect the full complexity of what AI governance in Canada requires.

What are the most important organisations for AI ethics in Canada?

Several organisations anchor the Canadian AI ethics ecosystem. Mila in Montreal, the Vector Institute in Toronto, and Amii in Edmonton are the three national AI institutes, each with significant ethics and governance programmes. CIFAR administers the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy and the CAISI Research Programme on AI safety. The Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo is one of the world's most important AI governance think tanks.

The University of Ottawa's Centre for Law, Technology and Society is home to some of the country's leading AI law scholars. OBVIA connects researchers across Quebec on AI ethics. The Montreal AI Ethics Institute, continuing the work of the late Abhishek Gupta, publishes the widely read AI Ethics Brief newsletter.

Can I hire someone to facilitate AI governance workshops or leadership sessions?

Yes. While the thought leaders on this list provide the research and policy foundations for AI governance, building the internal leadership capacity to implement those frameworks is a distinct challenge. Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, works with leadership teams across Australia, the UK, the USA, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, India, and Europe to build the trust, communication, and accountability structures that make AI governance frameworks operational in practice. Book Jonno White to facilitate your next leadership offsite or governance implementation workshop at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Which of these thought leaders work in French?

Several leaders on this list are fully bilingual and produce significant work in French. Yoshua Bengio, Catherine Regis, Valerie Pisano, Olivier Blais, Melika Carroll, Benjamin Prud'homme, Golnoosh Farnadi, Karine Gentelet, and Melissa M'Raidi-Kechichian all work in French-language or bilingual contexts. Several others, including Celine Castets-Renard and Florian Martin-Bariteau, publish extensively in both official languages. For organisations in Quebec or needing bilingual AI governance voices, this list includes strong options across disciplines and sectors.

Final Thoughts

Canada built the world's first national AI strategy, produced the foundational research behind modern deep learning, and assembled one of the most concentrated clusters of AI research talent on the planet. The fifty thought leaders on this list are the people working to ensure that technical leadership translates into ethical leadership, that the country's commitments to reconciliation shape rather than merely gesture at its AI governance frameworks, and that the gap between AI adoption and genuine accountability is closed rather than papered over.

The most important insight this list offers is that AI ethics and governance in Canada is not a niche academic concern. It is a national project being carried out by researchers, lawyers, Indigenous leaders, enterprise practitioners, policy advisors, and educators who are doing consequential work every day. Following these voices, reading their publications, and taking their governance recommendations seriously is one of the most practical things any organisation can do as Canada's AI regulatory landscape is rebuilt in 2025 and 2026.

For your leadership team, the challenge is not just understanding what AI governance requires. It is building the internal culture and capability to implement it honestly. That means having difficult conversations about transparency, accountability, and what it actually means to be responsible for an AI system's outcomes. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out (available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com.au/Step-Up-Out-Difficult-Conflict/dp/B097X7B5LD), Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and trusted facilitator across Australia, the UK, USA, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, India, and Europe, helps leadership teams navigate exactly those conversations.

Whether virtual or face to face, reach out to jonno@consultclarity.org.

For more on ethical leadership and how to build teams equipped for the governance challenges of AI-driven change, check out my blog post '50 Best Ethical Leadership Speakers (2026)' at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/ethical-leadership-speakers.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements.

Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read: 50 Best Keynote Speakers Globally on AI Ethics and Governance (2026)

Finding the right keynote speaker on AI ethics and governance for your next conference, leadership summit, or corporate event is one of the most consequential decisions you will make as an event organiser in 2026. The regulatory landscape has fractured dramatically over the past eighteen months. The EU AI Act is now in phased enforcement, with high-risk system obligations applicable by August 2026.

Yet research from the World Economic Forum shows that fewer than 35 percent of organisations deploying AI have a formal governance framework in place. The gap between AI adoption and responsible AI governance is widening, and the right keynote speaker can help your organisation close it.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/keynote-speakers-ai-ethics-governance