Picture your 78-year-old grandmother at a University Health Network hospital describing her symptoms to a doctor who is using an AI-enabled technology to interpret medical imaging to help make a diagnosis. However, the tool has never been tested on older patients with multiple chronic conditions such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, or the use of various medications, or age-related physiological changes.
This scenario is not hypothetical. AI is already used by Canadian health-care providers, government services and in other environments for older adults.
Some of these tools bring real benefits, from helping interpret medical imaging and detecting cancer earlier to reducing administrative burdens and freeing clinicians to spend more time with patients.
But without proper regulation, they can also produce serious harm: diagnostic errors due to limited training data, hallucinations, discriminatory decisions and automation bias that can cause humans to make decisions based on flawed AI recommendations.
To combat this, the federal government should create a centralized AI oversight body; impose regulations based on the risks posed by AI-enabled technologies; ensure that biased age-related data is addressed before deployment; and involve older adults in the development of these policies.
The regulatory gap
The federal government has spent years investing in AI through its pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy yet still lacks a coherent regulatory framework capable of protecting older adults and others affected by AI-enabled technologies.
Ottawa sought to address that gap through the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act but that legislation died when Parliament was prorogued for the April 2025 election. Since then, the government has appointed a minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation and renewed its focus under its national artificial intelligence strategy: AI for all, released in June.
But that strategy, which is weighted toward adoption and economic opportunity, is not a substitute for protection. It offers no firm commitment to a comprehensive statutory framework, deferring instead to a patchwork of future legislation and piecemeal amendments to existing statutes.
The recently tabled Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, demonstrates this approach. The bill would establish safety requirements for social media services and AI chatbots used by children. These services would be required to identify and mitigate the risk of harmful content and behaviour, implement safety and age-appropriate features, and publish digital safety plans under the oversight of a new Digital Safety Commission of Canada.
While these are important and welcome safeguards for children, they are narrower than the broader framework of accountability and oversight needed for high-impact AI-enabled technologies used in health care, employment, housing and other essential services that affect older adults.
In comparison, the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act — one of the world’s most comprehensive AI regulatory frameworks — uses a risk-based model that classifies AI systems according to the harm they may pose, imposes stricter obligations on high-risk uses and prohibits certain unacceptable applications. Without an AI framework that considers social inequities as well as economic benefits, Canada risks falling behind.
The cost of inaction is not speculative. It leaves older adults and others exposed to AI-enabled technologies without adequate safeguards. If Canada is serious about responsible AI, its regulatory approach must explicitly account for older adults – not as an afterthought, but as a group significantly affected by AI.
How biased data puts older adults at risk
A persistent flaw in many AI-enabled technologies is that they are built on biased data. The World Health Organization has warned that AI systems routinely exclude older adults from their design and development despite the fact that older adults are primary users of health care. This means an AI-enabled technology trained on younger patients may produce less accurate diagnoses for older patients.
The problem extends beyond health care. In 2023, an American company paid a $365,000 fine after settling a lawsuit caused by its AI-based hiring software automatically rejecting male and female applicants over 60 and 55, respectively.
These are not technical glitches. They are examples of how AI can shape access to jobs, care and services, as well as reinforcing stereotypes about older adults.
According to the National Institute on Ageing’s 2025 Ageing in Canada Survey, 70 per cent of older adults reported experiencing at least one form of agism in the past year, including subtle comments, jokes and assumptions about aging. AI, without proper guardrails, risks not only reflecting that reality but reinforcing it.
What fair and effective AI regulation requires
When it comes to regulating AI, Canada does not need to start from scratch. A made-in-Canada framework can draw from the EU legislation, OECD guidelines and domestic experience from Treasury Board’s directive on automated decision-making.
To protect older adults, Canada must move beyond general principles and establish concrete safeguards. The National Institute on Ageing has already identified what those safeguards should include.
Create a centralized federal AI oversight body
A patchwork of provincial and territorial regulations will not be enough. AI evolves quickly, spans multiple jurisdictions and is often developed by companies that transcend national borders.
A dedicated oversight body that works with existing regulators could set national standards, co-ordinate with provinces and territories, and maintain the technical expertise needed to evaluate AI-enabled technologies.
Base regulation on risk
Not all AI-enabled technologies pose the same threat. A transcription tool used to enhance physician productivity is fundamentally different from an autonomous diagnostic system that influences treatment.
Regulation should be proportionate to the risk posed. Low-risk tools should face a lighter burden than high-risk applications that should face pre-market review and ongoing surveillance. The most harmful uses of AI should be prohibited outright.
This includes AI-enabled scams that target socially isolated or cognitively impaired older adults through deepfake technology to produce convincing audio and visual impersonations of trusted family members to deceive them into performing financial transactions.
Assess AI systems for age-related bias before deployment
AI-enabled technology used in the delivery of care and in other essential settings should be trained on data that is representative of older adults and evaluated across demographic groups. Developers should be required to show that their tools work safely and fairly before they are deployed.
Get older adults involved in the process
AI-enabled technologies that are unable to provide an understandable account of how responses are derived create a lack of trust and undermine the ability of the patient to provide informed consent.
AI regulation should require clear and specific consent on the use of personal data, complaint mechanisms, public reporting on performance, as well as education that helps older adults, caregivers and clinicians understand and challenge AI decisions. AI-enabled technology that cannot be understood or challenged by those it affects is not truly safe.
Ottawa’s AI strategy is built to inspire trust, not protect Canadians
Meaningful public participation must also be built into the framework. Any regulatory framework must include opportunities for older adults, their caregivers and care providers to be heard when shaping the rules governing AI. Older adults should be part of shaping the technologies, systems and rules that will have a profound effect on their lives.
The federal AI strategy’s emphasis on adoption and development, while vaguely addressing safety, is not enough.
For older Canadians, the strategy’s shortcomings are not theoretical. AI-enabled technologies are already shaping decisions about their health, income and essential services.
Canada can ensure that AI promotes the health and dignity of its aging population by forgoing a patchwork of policies and establishing a robust regulatory regime backstopped by an independent oversight body with the power to penalize non-compliance.
Without enforceable safeguards, “AI for all” remains an aspirational slogan rather than a promised benefit.
