Parliament of Canada to resume November 22nd, Cabinet to be sworn in October 26th
The Prime Minister’s Office
announced on Friday that the federal Cabinet ministers will be sworn in on October 26th and that Parliament will reconvene on November 22nd. The announcement contended that the federal Cabinet will remain gender neutral and identified some of the government’s key priorities: the COVID-19 response, affordable home ownership and childcare, climate change action, and reconciliation.
At OECD, 136 countries agree to international tax solution, Canada delays Digital Services Tax
Following years of international negotiations, 136 countries representing more than 90% of global GDP
have agreed on an international tax solution “for the digital age.” The global economy has seen a marked decoupling between where firms are located and where they generate profit, reducing the efficacy of the international tax regime. The agreement responds to this issue with plans to:
- Establish a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% for high earning companies; and
- “Re-allocate some taxing rights over MNEs from their home countries to the markets where they have business activities and earn profits.”
These measures will ensure that firms pay a fair share of tax wherever they operate and generate profits, while reallocating more than US $125 billion of profit to market jurisdictions each year. The Government of Canada has
since announced that it will delay the introduction of Canada’s
Digital Services Tax until January 1st, 2024. Further, the DST will only be implemented if the international treaty implementing the OECD tax solution has not come into force.
AI ethics front and centre in global tech policy
China’s Ministry of Science and Technology published China’s first set of
AI ethics guidelines late last month. The guidelines
place human autonomy at the centre of AI, indicating that humans should have the rights to be informed about AI services, consent to or deny AI services, and withdraw consent at any time. The ministry also identifies six fundamental ethical norms that should be integrated into AI services across their lifecycle: this includes enhancing the well-being of humankind, promoting fairness and justice, and improving ethical literacy. The guidelines closely align with China’s Personal Information Protection Law, which was
passed in August and will come into effect on November 1st.
Also last month, the newly formed US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC)
held its inaugural meeting. Following the meeting, the TTC acknowledged that AI technologies can threaten the US and EU’s shared values and fundamental freedoms if they are not developed and deployed responsibly or are misused. The TTC then affirmed the willingness of the US and EU to develop and implement systems that are trustworthy and respect universal human rights and shared democratic values.
Computer scientists team up with artists, musicians to bring lost works to life
In two recent projects, computer scientists worked with artists and musicians to bring to life lost works by Beethoven and Picasso. On October 10th,
with the help of AI, Beethoven’s unfished 10th symphony was
premiered in Germany by the Beethoven Orchestra. A day earlier, on October 9th, art-tech company Oxia Palus
published a lost Picasso work: the company used spectroscopic imaging, AI, and 3D printing to unearth the lost work, which had been painted over by Picasso in 1903 to make “The Blind Man’s Meal.”
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