Poll suggests 85% of Canadians want governments to regulate AI

OTTAWA — A new poll indicates an overwhelming majority of Canadians are in favour of regulating artificial intelligence, and almost half are worried it will contribute to cognitive decline.

The Leger poll found 85 per cent of respondents believe governments should regulate AI tools to ensure ethical and safe use. More than half, 57 per cent, said they strongly agreed with that statement.

“It’s very clear Canadians want government involved,” said Jennifer McLeod Macey, senior vice-president at Leger.

The survey, which polled 1,518 people between Aug. 22 and Aug. 25, was conducted online and can’t be assigned a margin of error.

Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon has said he will put less emphasis on AI regulation, amid a global shift in which governments are focusing on AI adoption and away from safety and governance.

The Trudeau government put forward an AI regulation bill targeting “high-impact” systems, but Bill C-27 did not become law before the election was called, and it’s not clear whether, or in what form, it will be reintroduced.

The poll found despite strong concerns about potential harms of AI, use of AI has increased 10 per cent since March, with 57 per cent of respondents saying they have used an AI tool. That’s up from 30 per cent in February of 2024.

In reality, those numbers may be even higher. McLeod Macey said some people may be using AI tools without realizing they’re AI, such in their thermostat or a virtual assistant like Amazon’s Alexa.

More than three quarters of respondents, 78 per cent, said AI tools threaten human jobs, and nearly half, 46 per cent, said they worried using AI in their daily life might make them “intellectually lazy” or decline their cognitive skills.

A large majority, 83 per cent, said they have privacy concerns and worry society will become too dependent on AI tools.

While 62 per cent of respondents agreed that the content AI tools provide is useful, 66 per cent said the “prospect of having them in our lives is scary.”

But the respondents were also satisfied with the AI tools they used, with 75 per cent rating them as either excellent or good. Chatbots such as ChatGPT were the most widely used, with 73 per cent of respondents saying they had tried them. Just over half, 53 per cent, said they had tried search engines with artificial intelligence.

The poll suggests Canadians are split on the overall effect of AI tools, with about a third, 34 per cent, saying they’re good for society, 36 per cent saying they’re bad for society, and 31 per cent saying they don’t know or declined to answer.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys can’t be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press