MONTREAL — Quebec and Alberta have made their informal discussions on artificial intelligence official, signing a five‑year agreement to exchange knowledge and tools aimed at modernizing public administration.
Sharing experience, not funds
France‑Élaine Duranceau, Quebec’s minister of cybersecurity and digital technology, announced the arrangement alongside Nate Glubish, Alberta’s minister of technology and innovation. The pact does not include financial transfers; instead, the provinces will share lessons, software and approaches developed within their respective administrations.
“We’re all moving forward on AI, it’s new, and it changes at a phenomenal speed,” Duranceau said in a phone interview. “So why start from scratch, each on our own? We chose to work together and exchange freely to learn from what the other jurisdiction is doing.”
The ministers said the collaboration formalizes talks that have been under way since 2022 and is intended to accelerate adoption while limiting duplication of effort. Duranceau highlighted concrete examples of possible exchanges, including an Alberta tool that assists with budgetary authorizations and a Quebec application designed to spot cybersecurity vulnerabilities. She also pointed to civil‑service training on tools such as Microsoft Copilot as a natural area for cooperation.
Why Alberta and Quebec?
The partnership reflects complementary strengths and similar ambitions. Recent research from York University has identified Alberta as a growing centre in Canada’s data‑centre landscape, a trend underscored by Meta’s announcement of a more than $13‑billion investment to build a data centre in the province — the company’s first in Canada. Quebec has been advancing its own digital governance and cybersecurity efforts, positioning the two provinces as suitable collaborators.
- Duration: Five years.
- Financial terms: No direct financial exchange; knowledge and tools sharing only.
- Areas of focus: Practical AI tools for government processes, cybersecurity, and civil‑servant training.
Practical implications for public services
Officials said the partnership aims to speed up the responsible rollout of AI in government tasks — automating routine processes, improving efficiency and strengthening cybersecurity — while avoiding the need for each jurisdiction to reinvent solutions already developed elsewhere. Training civil servants to use AI safely and effectively is a central objective, with Quebec already rolling out initiatives to familiarise employees with generative AI assistants such as Microsoft Copilot.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Agreement length | Five years |
| Financial commitment | None — knowledge sharing only |
| Examples of shared tools | Budget‑authorization aid (Alberta); cybersecurity vulnerability detection (Quebec) |
Both provinces will monitor developments in AI at a rapid pace and exchange insights to refine their approaches. The ministers framed the agreement as a pragmatic response to the technical and ethical challenges posed by accelerated AI adoption in the public sector.
As provincial governments move to harness AI, the new partnership signals a preference for interprovincial collaboration over isolated experimentation, with officials emphasising efficiency, risk reduction and capacity building as immediate priorities.
