Michael Geist

The government has so far focused on children, but older Canadians susceptible to fraud deserve better policies

Less than two hours before new U.S. tariffs on Canada were set to take effect, U.S. President Trump last night announced a three-day pause, claiming there is a deal “subject to the finalization of documents.” Prime Minister Carney released a statement saying that substantial progress had been made, without offering much detail. But a congratulatory tweet from the U.S. Trade Representative offered one clue with significant implications for Canadian digital policy: the deal will include “digital trade alignment.” What might that mean? This post considers some of the possibilities.

The Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed on Friday night with 50 percent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods now in effect and Prime Minister Mark Carney promising dollar-for-dollar retaliation by early next month, supported by a strong sense of the need to defend Canadian sovereignty. The push for “digital trade alignment”, which I unpacked in a post last week , does not appear to have been a major source of contention, though Carney pointed to late U.S. demands on culture, autos, and sovereignty in a press conference over the weekend and the Globe reports that the inclusion of discoverability rule reforms was rejected by Canadian negotiators. But with the major outlines apparently agreed to, how can Canadians reconcile general agreement on digital policy with the government's insistence that it would not budge on cultural protections?

For much of the past month, someone has been trying to break into my Apple account. I receive regular e-mail and text notifications confirming a password change, which are soon followed by spoofed phone calls with caller ID that purports to be from the company but likely originates from Russia. As my Globe and Mail op-ed notes , I know enough to ignore the calls, delete the messages, and ensure I have two-factor authentication enabled to help keep hackers out.

French language policy has emerged as a hot-button issue in the breakdown of trade talks between Canada and the U.S. While the U.S. has denied that French is a concern, Prime Minister Mark Carney pointed to U.S. demands involving culture and the French language in his weekend press conference and Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. Mark Wiseman confirmed that the dispute included the levels of French-language content on U.S.-based streaming services. My post this week speculated that U.S. objections likely extend beyond the CRTC's discoverability requirements arising from the Online Streaming Act to Quebec's Bill 109, which is a provincial version of the law focused on French-language content on streaming services. I argued during the legislative process that the Quebec law is unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unworkable, since it encroaches on federal jurisdiction over broadcasting. If the law takes effect, a constitutional challenge will follow, and the federal government will almost surely support it. In other words, the law now cited as evidence that Canada would not cave on culture is likely to be opposed by both the U.S. and Canadian governments, albeit for very different reasons.

The legislative efforts to combat online harms in Canada have focused chiefly on platform responsibility, with Bill C-34 reintroducing a regulated duty to act responsibly . An Ontario court recently considered another avenue to address harms that instead targets influencers who weaponize their audiences. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued a decision that extends the tort of Internet harassment into networked harassment, in which influencers or those with large online audiences encourage their followers to target individuals. In Miller v. Ahn , the court granted an interim injunction against a social media creator with more than 100,000 followers who had mobilized her audience against a Toronto employment lawyer. The actions led to fake reviews of her firm, threatening phone calls and messages, and antisemitic abuse that was directed at the lawyer's perceived Jewish and Israeli identity.

The proposed settlement between Meta and 51 U.S. state attorneys general, filed last week and still subject to court approval, ranks among the biggest developments in technology litigation in years, featuring both big money and big design changes. The settlement is limited to the participating states, but it is likely […]

I woke up early on Monday morning for 14 interviews focused on digital sovereignty on CBC Radio stations across the country (here’s the Manitoba version). Most opened the discussion by asking what digital sovereignty means. My answer was that it is about choice: the ability of Canadians to choose the […]

Canadian Lawyer released its 2026 list of the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada yesterday and I am grateful to be included. This is the fourth time I have appeared on the list, but the first since 2013, when the issues of the day were copyright reform and usage-based billing rather than artificial intelligence and online harms. It is a particular pleasure to be joined by my colleague Amy Salyzyn , named for her leadership on legal ethics and AI, giving the University of Ottawa two of the 25.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown tonight. This year, it falls at the same time as the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks and weeks before the third anniversary of the October 7th attacks, offering an opportunity for reflection that extends beyond the past year. I've written about when I first learned about the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th, but not about 9/11.