September 2,2025
RED FM News Desk
Dozens of experts, academics, and organizations have issued an open letter urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to take immediate action to “defend Canada’s digital sovereignty” and shield the country from the influence of the Trump administration.
The letter criticizes Carney for focusing on making Canada an energy superpower and pushing large infrastructure projects while giving little attention to securing the digital economy.
“Empires once built railways. Now they build algorithms,” said Barry Appleton, a Toronto-based international trade lawyer and one of the signatories. “If Canada cannot govern the code that governs Canadians, we are no longer a sovereign democracy—we will simply be tenants in Trump’s regime.”
The letter calls on Carney to establish protections for social media platforms, cloud services, AI systems, digital payments, and other data that could be “weaponized by a Trump regime seeking technological dominance.” It warns that 90 per cent of Canada’s internet traffic currently passes through the U.S. or U.S.-based tech companies, which earn more than $20 billion a year tax-free from Canadian digital creators—at the expense of Canadian artists.
The signatories also highlight the influence of foreign-owned platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook in shaping Canadian political debate without domestic oversight. They note that U.S. giants Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control most of Canada’s cloud infrastructure, while CUSMA trade rules block Ottawa from requiring those firms to store Canadian data within the country.
Prominent Canadians backing the letter include authors Margaret Atwood and John Ralston Saul, filmmaker Atom Egoyan, and former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, along with groups such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Medical Association.
They urge the federal government to:
- Launch a national consultation on digital sovereignty,
- Publish an independent threat assessment of Canada’s digital infrastructure,
- Update the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and revive the shelved Online Harms Act, and
- Reconsider its decision to scrap the digital services tax (DST), which was cancelled in June after threats from the Trump administration.
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