Digital ID, AI agents and digital currency: Canada needs infrastructure for the new age

Globe and Mail

20-05-2025

Don Tapscott is author of 16 books about technology in business and society, He is co-founder of Blockchain Research Institute, an adjunct professor at INSEAD, chancellor emeritus of Trent University and a member of the Order of Canada. His coming book, You to the Power of Two: Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI, is set to be released in November.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump blew up our global systems for trade and co-operation, one idea unites political and business leaders in Canada: We must build a more resilient, independent economy. Yet most conversations still revolve around tweaking our industrial and resource-driven foundations.
That's necessary, but woefully insufficient. To boost productivity, achieve sustainable prosperity and ensure national sovereignty, Canada must shift focus to building an innovation economy, fit for the digital age.
Other countries are already acting. If Canada wants to remain a strong G7 nation and thrive, we need a national moon shot – one that retools, re-educates and rebuilds our economy from the ground up.
To start, we must rethink what we mean by infrastructure. In the industrial era, it meant roads, bridges, power grids, water systems and telecom networks – critical assets that moved people, goods and energy.
In the digital era, it must also mean the foundational systems that move data, knowledge and intelligence, and drive innovation and commerce. Canada needs digital public infrastructure.
The first foundational layer is a self-sovereign digital identity for every Canadian. This isn't about centralized, government-issued IDs that spark fears of surveillance. It's about giving individuals control over their own data. Powered by blockchain and AI, such a system would let Canadians manage their digital information securely and in a decentralized way.
Core government documents – passports, licences, tax data – would still be included. But so would the wider stream of personal data generated in daily life: health records, transaction histories, education credentials, even location and communications data.
Today, these data are harvested by tech giants and trapped in institutional silos. But if individuals owned and managed it, they could use it to navigate life, seize economic opportunity and protect privacy.
Take health care: at the University Health Network in Toronto, radiology reports already appear in patient portals. Imagine expanding that, such that patients not only access but control their medical data. They could share them with doctors, contribute them to research, or license them commercially – within ethical and transparent frameworks.
The second pillar of digital infrastructure is universal access to artificial intelligence. AI is evolving fast from a productivity tool into a personalized, ever-present digital companion.
By decade's end, millions of Canadians – especially professionals – will use AI agents to manage tasks, make decisions and augment their capabilities. These 'identic' agents will be digital extensions of ourselves, trained on our data and able to act as roles such as work assistants, private doctors, life mentors and financial planners.
But unless we act now, AI will become a new societal fault line. The future's digital divide won't be about internet access, but AI access. Those with intelligent agents will be superpowered; those without will fall behind. A small class of enhanced individuals could dominate productivity, creativity and influence. If only a minority of Canadians are equipped to thrive in the digital economy, we will never close our productivity gap.
Every citizen, regardless of income, must have a trusted, safe and capable AI agent, and the know-how to manage it. This doesn't require government-built tools. But it does require a national effort – a coalition of public institutions, private firms and civil society – to deliver what I call universal basic AI.
Just as we created public education and health care to ensure baseline opportunity, we now need to ensure digital agency in the form of intelligent tools for all.
A third element is public infrastructure for digital commerce. In the past, railways, highways and telecom lines enabled economic activity. Today, we need public rails for digital transactions.
Right now, all Canadian payment systems are privately owned. Banks and intermediaries manage money flows – adding cost, friction and vulnerability. We need a public system where money moves instantly, securely, peer-to-peer, with programmable features and cryptographic trust.
This could be based on a central bank digital currency, issued and backed by the Bank of Canada, or a stablecoin, a privately issued but tightly regulated digital currency pegged to the Canadian dollar and backed by safe assets.
Both options would help modernize financial infrastructure, reduce costs, expand inclusion, boost entrepreneurship and enable next-gen services. Both are misunderstood but could ensure privacy, security and protection from government overreach if implemented properly.
Digital infrastructure also includes transforming physical systems. Roads should support electric and autonomous transportation to create a virtual public transportation system. No multibillion-dollar tunnels required.
Smart contracts enable 'smart votes' so citizens can choose both a representative and accountability to policies. Tax filing should be automatic. Learning credentials should be portable and evolve over a lifetime. Food and energy systems should include real-time safety and sustainability data. Carbon emissions should be tracked and audited at the source and across their life cycle.
None of this is speculative. The technologies exist. The capabilities are proven. What's missing is vision and urgency.
This is our moment. The foundation of the next economy is digital. The first step is building the infrastructure to support it.