Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills

7/6/2026 at 1:18:52 AM

I don’t know the specifics of this case, but in Canada, calls like this (all wrapped up in the flag), usually come from Canadian companies hoping for some sort of sole sourced contract that they have no business getting.

So so perhaps we should be excluding American companies at this time, but in the name of competition and openness, we should allow bids from our real allies, such as the Europeans or the Asians.

by tomComb

7/6/2026 at 2:15:13 AM

"America or not" is a red herring. Palantir is the specific problem.

The kind of people running these companies don't have true allegiance to anything but their own objectives. If necessary, they'd move all operations to Europe or East Asia in a month, and you'd have "Palantir 2" under a different name with no better ethics or privacy.

Increased emphasis has to be on running things domestically with on-premises hardware. As long as the vendor is elsewhere and not subject to oversight, the risks remain.

by ronsor

7/6/2026 at 2:14:13 AM

Excluding China, I hope.

by soupbowl

7/6/2026 at 2:27:08 AM

Why?

by singpolyma3

7/6/2026 at 2:53:35 AM

Because they are a communist country aligned with Russia.

by soupbowl

7/6/2026 at 4:38:43 AM

Been a whole lot longer since their last genocide

by dogcomplex

7/6/2026 at 7:46:57 AM

There's an ongoing one

by inemesitaffia

7/6/2026 at 9:20:34 AM

Gaza? That’s the other ally

by gmerc

7/6/2026 at 9:20:45 AM

They are no longer communist. Its state controlled capitalism with a tendency to personality cult, racism, and the destruction of minorities and the systematic destruction of minority cultures.

by graemep

7/6/2026 at 4:37:15 AM

China is the most sensible current superpower. They are barely communist at all since Deng and have a better recent track record in terms of maintaining global trade. And at least in recent years they are probably the least worst super power in terms of imprisoning minorities.

Oh and Premier Xi lives under your bed.

by protocolture

7/6/2026 at 5:21:38 AM

> least worst super power in terms of imprisoning minorities

It's amazing how fast everyone forgot about Xinjiang. These things don't stop simply because journalists get bored.

by ronsor

7/6/2026 at 6:53:15 AM

What do you think happened in Xinjiang?

by pphysch

7/6/2026 at 6:36:13 AM

>It's amazing how fast everyone forgot about Xinjiang. These things don't stop simply because journalists get bored.

Havent forgotten. Its not that China got better, its that its competitors got worse.

by protocolture

7/6/2026 at 9:43:36 AM

Worse to the level of Xinjian?

by graemep

7/6/2026 at 3:13:27 PM

The recent real war crimes of the US-Israeli entity are only comparable to the fake war crimes they conveniently accuse their opponents of while carrying out the real war crimes.

For example, it's okay to butcher 160 Iranian school girls because Iran just butchered 100,000 innocent protestors in a single day (trust me bro).

by pphysch

7/6/2026 at 3:29:22 AM

China is more capitalist than the USA these days

by Georgelemental

7/6/2026 at 12:28:36 AM

Canada shouldn't include Palantir at all.

by jschrf

7/6/2026 at 1:03:53 AM

Why not?

by gatvol

7/6/2026 at 2:12:37 AM

They’re arguably a US based technoauthoritarian think tank masquerading as an enterprise software and data analytics firm.

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/palantir-posted-a-manifest...

https://www.newsweek.com/us-draft-update-major-tech-company-...

France, Germany, Spain, and Britain have or are in the process of disassociating from them.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/16/france-ai-data...

https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-offices-snub-us-ba...

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/andy-burnham-drop-spy-tec...

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-tells-state-backed-fir...

by toomuchtodo

7/6/2026 at 2:58:20 AM

America shouldn't even include Palantir.

by ronsor

7/6/2026 at 1:18:20 AM

It's pretty obvious this comment didn't come from a Canadian. Because if it was, you'd know that Palantir is elbow-deep in the Trump administration, the same one that has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. That is not a threat to be taken lightly, and the Canadian public agrees, which is why the trump-opposing Liberal party is currently enjoying a parliamentary majority. A more relevant question would be "Why would anyone with Canada's interests in mind even consider Palantir in the first place?"

by free_bip

7/6/2026 at 2:09:21 AM

> Palantir is elbow-deep in the Trump administration, the same one that has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. That is not a threat to be taken lightly, and the Canadian public agrees

Are they making any preparations for war, at all, that they weren't also doing in 2021?

by thaumasiotes

7/6/2026 at 3:40:09 AM

Did the US make any preparations for war before abducting Maduro from Venezuela or before getting into a war with Iran that cost them freedom of passage in the Strait of Hormuz?

Right up until Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia maintained that, no, that troop buildup wasn't meant as an invasion force, and a good chunk of the world believed Russia because it was a moronic idea to invade Ukraine. Trump is far more moronic and power drunk than Putin, and would perhaps not even organize troops befre invading Canada, all because somebody in the inner circle goaded Trump into it.

by epistasis

7/6/2026 at 5:04:44 AM

I'd say yes. Things like increased military spending (2% of gdp, largest since the end of the cold war), buying more non-US weapon systems (like Saab's GlobalEye, instead of US AWACS), exploring other alliances (with Europe and China), and lessoning dependencies on US companies (like Palantir).

Are you thinking that the Candian public doesn't care about Trump's annexation threats?

by mikem170

7/6/2026 at 5:37:29 AM

I'm thinking that they care in only the most minor ways imaginable, yes. They find the threats offensive, but not threatening.

by thaumasiotes

7/6/2026 at 2:20:17 AM

[flagged]

by jmye

7/6/2026 at 2:35:33 AM

Assuming the answer is "no", that is sufficient to demonstrate that the Canadian public sees the threat as one to be taken lightly, and indeed one to which the most appropriate reaction is to ignore it.

by thaumasiotes

7/6/2026 at 3:41:20 AM

Ah yes.. the threat to invade us... should be taken lightly. Right. We should fall in line, let them bully us, do nothing, keep sending our money there.

I'm sure that your dear leader would also take lightly any threat of invasion against the United States.

by jeromegv

7/6/2026 at 5:36:24 AM

You're taking it lightly right now. If you believe it isn't something to be taken lightly, why do your actions contradict your beliefs so badly?

by thaumasiotes

7/6/2026 at 4:06:19 AM

Because it’s a company with no ethics beyond “might makes right,” owned by a person of dubious sanity who travels around the world to warn anyone who’ll listen about how the Antichrist is bad for their business.

Why would anyone in their right minds do business with a company like that?

by antonvs

7/6/2026 at 5:27:36 AM

To be fair the Antichrist, being a prophesied entity from several millennia ago, is probably not super up to date on twenty-first-century business best practices. They probably still use waterfall.

by kingofmen

7/6/2026 at 7:19:07 AM

There is a fantastic book to be written about the Antichrist finally rising to lay waste to the world, only to be astounded by air travel, the internet, etc. A demonic horde of a thousand flaming knights riding through Rome is largely written off as a new burning man thing, etc.

by brookst

7/6/2026 at 9:10:46 AM

Are you familiar with Pratchett & Gaiman's "Good Omens" (book and TV series)? It has a certain amount of that general spirit.

by antonvs

7/6/2026 at 1:19:06 AM

[flagged]

by jmye

7/6/2026 at 12:04:48 AM

Instead, buy domestic product, and out in the open.

by ClearwayLaw

7/6/2026 at 12:38:09 AM

Better yet, build a domestic product for government use and tightly regulate and oversee it so that you can be sure it's being used lawfully, only when needed for government use, and only when necessary. Democratic nations have power over their government but not over corporations. I know which one I'd rather have ruling over me and spying on my every move.

by autoexec

7/6/2026 at 12:57:34 AM

> ... build a domestic product for government use and tightly regulate and oversee it ...

Government to tightly regulate and oversee itself, I perceive.

> Democratic nations have power over their government but not over corporations.

Democratic governments and corporations have been around about as many centuries, and both have long ago perfected techniques to make sure the people have no direct power over either of them, often in tandem. That said, it seems remarkable that you're less anxious about the partner in this age-old dance that has the warplanes and myriads of armed enforcers.

by Exoristos

7/6/2026 at 5:36:38 AM

In my country more people are killed by corporations than by their government's "warplanes and myriads of armed enforcers". Corporations have literally poisoned you and your entire family already. They've contaminated every living creature on earth and every source of water. Even the rain that falls is no longer safe to drink. (https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...) No one has spent even one day in jail for it. You can't vote them out of power.

by autoexec

7/6/2026 at 1:07:15 AM

I don't think there's a government in the world, including the US, that should allow Palantir anywhere near their data or systems. I consider Palantir a national security threat. I also feel this way about McKinsey (and Bain, BCG, etc).

I also think any form of platform AI usage to be a national security threat in the absence of stringent controls over that data and the platform. At some point I think governments and companies will wake up to this and demand local LLMs or, in the very least, a cloud platform within their jurisdiction, ownership and control.

The 1980s and 1990s ushered in this idea of "small government", privatization and public-private partnerships that I think was a huge mistake with catastrophic consequences. It's simply letting the foxes into the hen house. It leads to regulatory capture, a revolving door and a massive government-to-private wealth transfer.

What's funny is that a lot of this stems from a now throughly debunked idea of the "tragedy of the commons" [1].

[1]: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/03...

by jmyeet

7/6/2026 at 9:59:39 AM

I don't think the Canadian government is dropping a big contract on a company that is 24 months old vs one 24 years old, more or less.

by nickdothutton

7/6/2026 at 11:35:23 AM

Wtf does Palantir have to do with AI. Nobody at Palantir can train an LLM from scratch or even fine tune.

by another_twist

7/6/2026 at 12:13:29 AM

I mean no public strategy should include secret bills, Palantir or no Palantir.

If you're idealogically opposed to Palantir, how will a home-grown Palantir help? It would likely do the same things Palantir does but with a Canadian Alex Karp

by altmanaltman

7/6/2026 at 12:50:17 AM

Well there's a clear difference between a creepy company spying on you and a creepy company closely aligned with a government that has threatened to annex you spying on you.

Neither are great, but one is worse.

by gpm

7/6/2026 at 3:52:37 AM

There likely isn't a Canadian Alex Karp. Karp is a unique byproduct of American culture. The specific brand of arrogance, hunger for war, and callous disregard for human life, all in service of a right wing ideological project, is simply not as present in Canada because Canada is a middle power with more liberal values who prefer diplomacy over war.

by dreambuffer

7/6/2026 at 2:47:43 PM

He fills a niche, particularly successfully ,but the required substrate exists in every society. In societies that superficially reward other qualities, these people mold themselves to fill other niches that provide power: politics, tech, press. When the niche appears in Canada, or Germany, or the UK, these people will come out of the woodworks wearing whatever face they need to at the time.

Granted, America's been leading on encouraging the worse angels of our nature for the last, what, 70 years? But these personalities exist everywhere.

by constantius

7/6/2026 at 7:21:24 AM

I think you can't really measure a country's approach to war unless that country is already quite powerful. This is the reason that it's said that power corrupts. It's easy to have good values when it's difficult to have bad values, or there is minimal benefit to such. But give a man (or country) tremendous power, and suddenly having bad values can be immensely rewarding on short to medium time scales.

by somenameforme

7/6/2026 at 5:44:29 AM

I appreciate that you think so highly of Canada, but no. There are still plenty of people that fit that description born in Canada.

I think the main thing is they all move to California or New York as soon as they can, because they can't achieve their sociopath ambitions as easily here.

by bluefirebrand

7/6/2026 at 7:32:53 PM

The idea we're going to stop people like special forces and intelligence buying the software they want to run on on prem, air gapped stacks that they control in the name of sovereignty is silly.

by crimsoneer

7/6/2026 at 1:18:21 AM

[dead]

by bamei8ai

7/6/2026 at 12:50:48 AM

The sovereign initiative in Canada is laughable, most if not all critical infrastructure are 100% relying on US cloud products, from the usuals like MS and google all the way to cybersecurity and other products, and we are not even talking about supply chains and the likes. So practically speaking, the US can in a click, turn off Canada’s grid and banking, in minutes without a single bullet, the country will collapse. That’s why whenever I see all that buzz words of “sovereign xyz” I know it’s a just a way to funnel tax money back to some companies or programs, without having so much questions about it.

by tamimio

7/6/2026 at 12:56:04 AM

Step by step we need to de-Americanize, for sure. Can’t just happen overnight.

by Waterluvian

7/6/2026 at 1:15:42 AM

There’re no steps taken, when I brought it to different managers in both utilities and banking, they laughed and some even rolled their eyes, because everything (and I mean everything from operations to hr to all) is built on top of these products, no way to rebuild the multi billions company from scratch and train the employees on a whole new systems only to find out they are not reliable or at least not how they used to do their work.

For example in some power utility companies, to install few auxiliary sensors to monitor xyz only in a pilot project is a 3 years work.. upgrading old 3G modems is done in stages over years just not to interrupt the operations, and all of these are terminal devices, not core or servers where a tiny mistake in that foundation migration will send the city into dark ages.

by tamimio

7/6/2026 at 1:23:09 AM

You can throw a rock and hit another company (for example, HR/Payroll companies), these aren't exactly industry secrets that can’t be swapped out. Half of the IT depts current existence is replacing systems software just because “hip new thing”.

by righthand

7/6/2026 at 1:46:42 AM

Canada and Europe call for banning American companies in their the name of sovereignty: upvoted and praised as necessary

America tries that for valid reasons (unfair subsidies, human or labor rights violations, BYD): get called fascist or stupid

by thesmtsolver2

7/6/2026 at 4:40:55 AM

Canada and Europe call for banning American companies in their the name of America Threatening to go apeshit and do stupid stuff: upvoted and praised as necessary.

America tries that for stupid xenophobic reasons, gets called stupid or xenophobic.

by protocolture

7/6/2026 at 7:25:43 AM

Yes, intent matters. Call the police on the crack house next door, neighbors celebrate you. Call the police to harass the Black people door, neighbors shun you.

This shouldn’t be surprising.

by brookst

7/6/2026 at 12:23:52 AM

What a title. I misread and thought an "AI Vigier" was an official tasked with being vigilant about AI.

by userbinator

7/6/2026 at 3:20:11 AM

Palantir is giving me "Samaritan" vibes from the show: "Person of Interest".

For the ones who haven't watched this amazing show, here is a small Google AI summary:

Samaritan is the primary antagonist of the later seasons of the sci-fi series Person of Interest. It is a fictional, totalitarian artificial superintelligence created by Arthur Claypool. Unlike its counterpart, the Machine, Samaritan has no moral constraints, viewing human free will as a flaw requiring aggressive control and mass surveillance

by freakynit

7/6/2026 at 12:45:29 AM

Canada and domestic product simply not possible The only two countries who can run domestic products of this kind are USA and China . The rest is just gimmick or a lie.

by maxdo

7/6/2026 at 12:48:29 AM

Palantir's software stack is not really that complex, and their FDE workforce is famously... undereducated. Canada should be able to pull it off, there's much to improve on.

by bigyabai

7/6/2026 at 1:17:25 AM

If that's true then why hasn't Canada managed to produce a credible competitor already? What are they missing? Will the opportunity to win domestic government contracts change that situation or are there other obstacles?

by nradov

7/6/2026 at 2:32:53 AM

Because govtech is notoriously difficult to break in to.

by maximilianburke

7/6/2026 at 4:16:52 AM

How did Palantir break in? What's preventing a Canadian competitor from doing the same?

by nradov

7/6/2026 at 2:31:05 PM

Time, money, and size.

Government procurement takes a lot of time to see through to completion; Palantir is not a new company, they're over 20 years old now. To succeed you also need money for lobbyists; regardless of what you feel of them they are a necessary part of the system. Also at the government level, especially at the level of federal governments, you are competing with Oracle, IBM, and other similarly large companies which is difficult to do if you are a new, small company.

by maximilianburke

7/6/2026 at 5:46:09 AM

Lack of investment probably. No one is investing in Canadian companies. A stupid amount of Canadian investment is in America or overseas, very little is domestic

by bluefirebrand

7/6/2026 at 9:23:19 AM

Canada should make some rules to fix the lack of investment. If Canadians were not allowed to invest in American companies the problem would be solved.

by mieses

7/6/2026 at 5:02:31 AM

> How did Palantir break in?

Peter Thiel abusing government backchannels.

> What's preventing a Canadian competitor from doing the same?

A lack of access to corrupt government backchannels.

by bigyabai

7/6/2026 at 1:30:16 AM

Canada do have an ai company Cohere that has potential to be big. Personally I do think they are one of the credible competitors.

by gloryjulio

7/6/2026 at 2:36:32 AM

are you seriously believe in that? when was last time they produced a model, that is at least in top 20?

by maxdo

7/6/2026 at 3:54:31 AM

Remind me which of Palantir's models would it be competing with?

by mitthrowaway2

7/6/2026 at 4:07:39 AM

You know Palantir is not an LLM company, right? Their core product is just data integration systems.

by dreambuffer

7/6/2026 at 9:29:53 PM

it is not an llm company, but it's part of independent ecosystem. one of two. canada is not part of it. it's part of very dependent ecosystem. isn't that 2+2?

by maxdo

7/6/2026 at 3:59:44 AM

I think they are in b2b enterprise model space. Privacy is way more important. Not sure if Sota models are needed.

by gloryjulio

7/6/2026 at 2:35:48 AM

we are talking about LLM+hardware.

You as canada have only two options:

1) use closed sourced systems

2) use chinese models, with their own risks

3) hardware, i think it's clear.

Cohere is not even in the list of top competitors .

by maxdo

7/6/2026 at 1:06:45 AM

You overestimate the willingness of Canadian software engineer employers to pay anything beyond peanuts.

Any competent developer already immediately flees to the US to triple their take-home pay at first chance and Canadian employers are fully aware of this.

by ihsw

7/6/2026 at 3:57:08 AM

I know lots of competent developers in Canada. Some better than any I have yet met in the Bay area. They know they could triple their income by moving to the US, but they have other attachments, priorities, and concerns.

Lots do move to the US too, but it's a filter for ambition, not competence. Don't confuse the two.

by mitthrowaway2

7/6/2026 at 6:17:29 AM

They didn’t pay well before the AI hype, now software developers are seen far worse. The other day I was looking at embedded/robotics engineers jobs in canada, the salaries are CAD$60k to CAD$90k (far less than USD for who doesn’t know), and the job description I swear is enough to send rockets to the space, what an absolute joke. Meanwhile in the US they are paid $250k USD, with defined scope (say only vision or autonomy). Canada is a based on service economy, nursing or plumbing or similar will make better than staff software engineers, hell, a heavy equipment operator who moves few joysticks and listens to music all day make CAD$115k and unionized too.. and the delusionals think that will replace US decades of investment in tech industry while dancing to “elbows up!” in a festival.

The only way is Canada joining the EU in making their own tech, but even then, this will take at least a decade to materialize, if any, don’t forget all infrastructure hardware is still US, hp/dell/nvidia/etc plus decades of software and OSes, so yeah.

by tamimio