Q&A: Keith Jansa outlines a blueprint for Canada to achieve digital sovereignty

Keith Jansa’s philosophy for improving digital sovereignty in Canada is the same counsel one might give to a minor hockey player who refuses to pass the puck — teamwork makes the dream work. Jansa, CEO of the Digital Governance Council, a non-profit group that counts various federal departments, major cities, and the country’s largest banks and insurance firms amongst its membership, believes Canada has undergone an “awakening” on how reliant its digital economy is on U.S.-based infrastructure. In an exclusive interview with The Wire Report, Jansa mapped a pathway for Canadian digital sovereignty, spoke about his organization’s recent annual report, and evaluated the Liberal government’s current approach to the digital economy. Keith Jansa, CEO of the Digital Governance Council. LinkedIn photograph Your organization recently released a report on the state of digital governance in Canada. How would you assess our position right now? Are we in a good spot? So, our digital future as a country depends on the choices available to organizations and our capacity to act on them. That includes decisions about infrastructure, data, intellectual property, and standards, all of which influence our competitiveness, service continuity, market access, and where the economic value accumulates. We need to understand those consequences before making commitments that become difficult to change. Unfortunately, in the current geopolitical context, the way our economy operates is quite reliant on U.S.-based technologies. In large respects, the geopolitical pressures and tensions that exist today bring to the forefront the fact that many of our previous choices have made us dependent, but now there’s a new awakening. Given the scale of these decisions, do you think it’s possible to eliminate our reliance on foreign systems? Yes. How do you envision creating a sovereign digital economy in Canada? Digital sovereignty is about retaining authority over the consequential decisions, then having the capability to exercise it. It’s asking those questions: Can I change providers? Can I move information? Can I maintain essential services? Can I withdraw authority from an automated system? Those sorts of things. So, digital sovereignty is really about having the capacity to choose. In that context, it requires us to connect capabilities from across public and private sector organizations to create the digital spine necessary to have that authority and responsibilities with the expertise and implementation capacity needed to deliver that outcome. You define digital sovereignty as having the ability to choose, but the tech sector is littered with monopolies and oligopolies. Do you believe our sovereignty is dependent on creating more competition in these spaces? Competition is a dimension, but when we look at how organizations have been dependent on technology providers, what has changed is how deeply those dependencies reach into the central operations, and how closely those technologies are connected with geopolitical and economic interests. So, a supplier decision can affect access to data, the use of intellectual property, or whether a service can continue. Understanding the terms of those relationships is increasingly a leadership responsibility, so we need to account for the governance questions and understand the consequences of losing access to a critical service. Is there anything you would like to see or have already seen from the federal government that suggests they’re addressing the challenges you’ve outlined? They’re making sovereignty objects explicit in procurement. At the federal level, we’ve seen the Buy Canadian policy, and there are certainly opportunities to examine jurisdiction, intellectual property, and interoperability. One particular area we’re seeing governments attuned is not only building the Canadian capacity, but having Canadian capabilities underpin the very infrastructure and technologies that organizations rely upon. Your report suggests Canada is at a crossroads for digital governance, and that forthcoming decisions will be vital in dictating what the future looks like. Can you describe the best-case scenario? It’s a future that rewards and benefits Canadians and Canadian organizations. It requires institutional coordination between public sector, private sector, and non-profit capabilities, as well as recognizing that no single organization or mandate effectively addresses how a digital economy operates. For each individual organization, whether you’re at a certain level of government, a bank, insurance company, telco, or energy company, there is an inherent need for coordination to pull on individual and collective levers to strengthen Canadian competitiveness globally and here at home. It’s about how we authenticate individuals and businesses and the way we exchange data across or between organizations, through to the way in which payments operate. All those are common critical capabilities every organization in Canada needs, so we’re looking to enable a national infrastructure that’s sovereign, privacy preserving, and in tune with Canadian values. I think there's a tremendous opportunity for Canada to improve its productivity. As a nation, we have the economic value to be retained within Canada and within organizations, versus being a country that simply rewards foreign actors. So, does that mean a worst-case scenario would have organizations working in silos, allowing foreign companies and governments to take advantage? Spot on, and that’s largely where Canada is today. We do not have coordinated functions or bodies that are attuned to the realities of the way a 21st-century market operates. Meanwhile, you have Europe, the U.S., and China that have built-in institutional models and capabilities that are connecting public and private sector expertise and capabilities to deliver on the economic outcomes they desire. We need to do the same thing here, and that’s why the Digital Governance Council, through its membership, is working toward providing that capability of coordinating across all sectors of the Canadian economy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. dlegree@thewirereport.ca

Q&A: Keith Jansa outlines a blueprint for Canada to achieve digital sovereignty

Regulatory |
By Davis Legree
|October 30, 2026

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Q&A: Keith Jansa outlines a blueprint for Canada to achieve digital sovereignty

Regulatory | By Davis Legree |October 30, 2026

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