The Canada Future Party Platform Examined

We are continuing our series of examining different political parties. This time, we are looking at the Canada Future Party.

Our series into the different political parties platforms through the lens of digital rights is continuing. Already, we examined the platforms of the Green Party, the Liberal Party, the People’s Party of Canada, the Bloc Quebecois, and Open Media. As of this writing, we still don’t know where the platforms of the Conservative Party or the NDP are, so we started looking elsewhere to find additional party platforms.

This time, we decided, just for fun, to look at another political party – one you probably never heard of before. That is the Canada Future Party. No, I really don’t know much about them, either, but apparently, they are a registered political party and, yes, they have a party platform. You can check out their website here and find their platform under “Our Policy” (why it’s not in the menu bar is a bit unclear to me, but here we are). If you don’t know where to find it, you can, alternatively, download it here (PDF).

We don’t see much until we make it to page 20. That is where we see the following:

The CFP’s Digital New Deal is a bold strategy to reclaim Canada’s digital sovereignty, break the grip of U.S. tech monopolies, and ensure Canadians benefit directly from the wealth created by their data and innovation. For too long, foreign tech giants have extracted data, talent, and profits from Canada without accountability, turning our country into a digital colony. The Digital Sovereignty Act will reassert Canadian control over data, AI infrastructure, and digital platforms, making data the legal property of individuals and requiring tech companies to store Canadian data in Canada. The Digital Restitution Act will force Big Tech to pay billions annually into a national fund to compensate Canadians for years of uncompensated data use and invest in Canadian tech startups, creating a self-sustaining digital ecosystem that strengthens both privacy and national security.

This section is both odd and hard to follow. It looks like the party is envisioning different laws, though the specifics may be forthcoming. Still, there is broad hints like the idea of owning the personal data that is collected by others. This while requiring that data be stored in Canada.

With respect to the former, it would create a lot of legal problems because, by technical definition, an IP address is personal information. That means that if you visit literally any website, then that data could wind up on a server outside of Canada. Smaller websites wouldn’t have a hope in managing this by any means. If this was restricted to the largest platforms, I can see this being possible. What’s more, I can see it being a component of privacy reform, but I don’t believe it’s the complete picture.

With respect to the latter, requiring personal information to be stored in Canada is generally the European approach to protecting people’s personal information. It does help with enforcement, though Big Tech has been trying for years to reverse it. As a result, you can expect constant pushback and lobbying to such an idea – even though it’s not a bad idea.

With respect to the Digital Restitution Act concept, this follows the Liberal party’s bad “get money from Big Tech” plan that typically runs into major problems. For one, it would be a violation of CUSMA/USMCA simply because it is an additional fee for American companies operating in Canada. For another, it would probably drive the platforms out of Canada and deprive Canada of the benefits of having these platforms in Canada in the first place. It is more or less rent seeking and I’m not even sure it is compliant with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, Canada would easily be exposed to legal challenges over such an idea. As much as I like the idea of Big Tech making huge payouts to Canada for the use of Canadian’s personal information, I don’t see it being very feasible. This when a much simpler approach of reforming Canadian privacy law could easily be a much more direct and efficient approach to getting the platforms to respect privacy in the first place.

The next paragraph reads as follows:

The Digital Innovation Visa will turn Canada into a global magnet for top-tier tech talent, redirecting the flow of engineers, AI experts, and cybersecurity specialists away from Silicon Valley and toward Canadian shores.
Permanent immigration pathways will also be made to retain this talent. This policy will accelerate the creation of Canadian-owned, privacy-first platforms and AI systems, making Canada a leader in ethical innovation. The Digital New Deal is not only a policy of economic transformation—it is a declaration of digital independence, a rejection of exploitation, and a commitment to a freer, fairer, and sovereign digital future for all Canadians. It positions Canada as the first North American country to take back control of its digital economy—and sets the stage for global leadership in the 21st century.

So, for the first part of this paragraph, the party is more or less trying to wave a magic wand and make people want to come to Canada instead of the US. I think there’s no shortage of parties trying to find ways of attracting talent. The problem here is that you have to do more than just offer citizenship. You also have to consider housing and a reasonable pathway to have an actual good life. What’s more, just waving Canadian citizenship isn’t going to make people create platforms and AI systems that respect privacy. You’re getting into the business of telling people how to innovate which isn’t exactly the best approach to getting people to innovate.

As for the Digital New Deal, this is not offering any actual ideas to accomplish the goals the platform sets out. Instead, it’s once again, waving a magic wand and making all of these magical things happen. What’s more, it suggests that the internet respects physical borders. The reality is that the internet is more of a global village where physical borders don’t matter as much. The only real barriers between people are censorship laws and language barriers. With respect to language barriers, those are eroding somewhat as well with translation tools becoming more readily accessible. As a result, it looks like the party has gotten the concept of the internet backwards. They think the internet divides us by country when, in reality, the internet unites people.

Finally, there is this paragraph:

Canadians must be offered the opportunity to opt out of social media algorithms, and social media companies must subject their algorithms to, at the very least, government oversight and review

With respect to algorithms, I question whether or not the party knows what an algorithm even is. This suggests that an algorithm is some sort of nefarious thing that targets individuals. The reality is that an algorithm is a very broad definition. If you have a website that organizes comments by date, that’s an algorithm. Almost no one is saying that organizing posts by date is this evil nefarious thing.

A possible thing that the party was thinking of is social media data gathering which would make that make much more sense. Indeed, social media operating in Europe behaves very different than in North America where people are given the chance to opt out of data gathering. That is undeniably a good thing. You should have the option to opt out of that. Yet, lack of privacy reform in Canada means that Canadian’s are automatically opted into such things.

The only other possibility that comes to mind for what the party might mean by “social media algorithms” is that content is manipulated in various ways and presented to users in a very controlled and direct manner. For one, a big reason why people turn to social media is because of how much the algorithms tailor recommendations to the users preferences. For another, there is a broad risk of the government dictating how platforms operate in the country. That would expose the government to legal risks such as litigation.

Having algorithms subject to government review is actually something platforms (at least some, anyway) have been open to. The problem is that the Canadian government has refused to accept these open invitations. It raises the question of what it is that the party is hoping to find or prevent. The platform doesn’t really say (which has already left me to speculate what the party means by some of these things above).

Now, at first, I thought that this was all this platform had to offer, but after skimming a huge chunk of it, I ran into some other tidbits on page 44. For instance, this paragraph:

The CFP will establish a Ministry of Information as a strategic tool to support Canada’s sovereignty, democracy, and global standing by combatting disinformation and foreign interference. The CBC / Radio-Canada, as the national public broadcaster, will be refocused to serve the mission of aggregating and verifying national and international news, conducting investigative journalism, and contributing to a unified national narrative.

I really don’t think the party understands what they are proposing here. Basically, this is a proposal to create an entire ministry devoted to deciding what is true and what is false. This is a huge reason why the Online Harms legislation was so controversial in the first place. The government should not be in the business of deciding what is true and what is false simply because that is the building blocks to creating a government dictating what can and cannot be said. It is literally the exact opposite of the goals of fostering democracy where the government decides what you think and what you should not think.

This paragraph goes even further by basically directing the CBC to carry out such government certified narratives. I think the phrase “unified national narrative” should set off plenty of alarm bells for those who support free speech. After all, there will always be disagreement one way or another on different topics. Sure, some of it is scientifically proven stuff like how vaccines are safe and science denialists are actively harming society by arguing that they are not, but other issues out there are not so clear cut and dry.

I’m not convinced that the intended idea was to create a sort of “Ministry of Truth” with these proposals, but the way the ideas came out wound up suggesting as such. It’s just not a very well thought out idea by any means.

Later on, the platform says this:

As a flagship institution for promoting Canadian culture, our national broadcaster must reassess its role in delivering cultural content. The CFP proposes that CBC/Radio-Canada be fully government funded and withdraw from the advertising market, freeing up an estimated $350 million in ad revenue to be shared among private media companies. In exchange, the federal government will fully compensate the lost revenue and provide an additional $3 per Canadian to improve services in rural and underserved regions.

There are plenty of people who support the idea of adding funding to the CBC in exchange for getting the CBC out of the advertising network. I personally am one of them who thinks that’s actually a good idea. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what the party means by “an additional $3 per Canadian” when it would make more sense to mandate the improvement of underserved communities. That just seems like a figure largely pulled out of thin air.

Also, I noticed this paragraph in a different section on the same page:

As part of a wholesale reform of the RCMP and other federal police and security forces, Canada should strengthen CSIS, create an external security force, and penalize provinces and territories that tolerate expressions of extremism and hate. The federal government should use its moral authority to establish clear lines around what is and is not acceptable public political behaviour.

I’m… not entirely sure how constitutional that is. There is, after all, clear lines of what is within the jurisdiction of the province and what is within the jurisdiction of the federal government. I’m not entirely sure how that can even be accomplished without the federal government crossing that jurisdictional line. I’m mentioning this section because this also presents a possible risk to freedom of expression as well.

Conclusions

This is a platform that is big on solving goals and short on actual solutions. A part of me also wonders if a considerable amount of weed was involved in the writing of this platform. In some instances, the platform just invents new laws and says how those laws will magically fix everything with the wave of a magic wand. In other instances, there are methods to solve some of the problems that is clearly not thought all the way through. Consequences of policy decisions are clearly not considered in the forming of this platform. Meanwhile, other suggestions are clearly pie in the sky ideas that just skips a lot of details and comes to random conclusions. What’s more, it shows a clear lack of understanding of how technology work (which has, sadly, become a theme for a lot of these political parties these days).

The Good

Adding additional funding to the CBC and getting the CBC out of the advertising business

The Mixed

Possible suggestion of regulating targeted advertising (the hint is there, but it’s not exactly clear in the platform)
The protection of personal information (the proposals broadly bump up into the idea of privacy reform through vague notions, but that’s about it

The Bad

Mandating government to decide what is and isn’t true (I don’t think this was intentional, but that’s how it came out)
Suggesting that governments regulate “algorithms” (I doubt the party understands what algorithms actually are)
Problematic personal information ownership requirements (the concept is not well thought out)
No direct plan to reform Canadian privacy laws
No plan to expand broadband to rural and indigenous communities
No plan on helping digital first creators that are currently driving economic growth in the online space
No plan to break up advertising monopolies of tech giants (just an idea on cracking down on targeted advertising)
No plan to tackle abusive market practices of various carriers
No plan to increase competition in the cellular and internet space
No plan to crack down on scam calls
No plan to modernize the definitions of Cancon
No plan to fix the Online Streaming Act
No plan to fix/abolish the Online News Act
No plan to fix the problem of the Digital Services Tax
No plan to combat digital frisking at the border (US border patrol demanding passwords to devices, etc.)