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Newmarket-Aurora MPP takes on key role on A.I. in Ontario

November 6, 2026   ·   0 Comments

The Ontario Legislature resumed last week and Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy returned to Queen’s Park with a new role: Parliamentary Assistant to the Associate Minister of Artificial Intelligence Adoption.

The new role is certainly in the wheelhouse for MPP Gallagher Murphy after she introduced a motion in the Legislature back in 2024 related to the “ethical and transparent use of AI” in government, a motion which found widespread support across party lines.

Looking ahead to her new role, Gallagher Murphy told The Auroran she was “extremely excited” about the task ahead and was eager to get started.

“I think it’s important when we talk about protecting Ontario, AI has to be a part of it because we’re protecting Ontario’s digital sovereignty,” she says. “Ever since [the motion came forward] I have been working on AI initiatives, specifically in my last portfolio in long-term care, because in healthcare there’s so much happening.”

The Ministry’s role, she says, will include moving a number of programs forward from the pilot stage to a point where they can scale up to the next level.

“Since 2023, the government has invested $214 million that has been committed to the Critical Technologies Initiative program. I find this very exciting because since 2023, when we look at the numbers, we’ve managed to retain and create over 65,000 jobs and train over 14,000 really highly skilled workers…. It has also led to the generation of 700 new intellectual properties in this Province.”

Two years is a long time in politics, and it’s an even longer time in the world of AI, where advancements have been rapid and continuous. Through that lens, Gallagher Murphy says it’s key to stay on top of technology as “AI is basically improving and upgrading itself almost every single day.”

“This is a brand-new Ministry, so we’re going to be setting the course and I’m looking forward to working with the Minister on that,” she says, noting the digital sovereignty will be integral going forward, along with developing high-paying skilled jobs.

A prime example of that, she added, was last month’s announcement of Audacity North, a new med-tech incubator that, in partnership with York University and the Schulich School of Business, will take root in Aurora and Whitchurch-Stouffville.

While this is just one leap forward, there remain concerns within the community on many fronts when it comes to AI, including the retention of existing jobs and the environmental impact of data centres.

“We’ve come out with our first initial version of a data centre playbook. There will be no tax dollars, basically, to incentivize data centres to come into Ontario. However, we do believe that there is a place. We do believe because they’re already here in Ontario [and] we want to focus on ensuring that the energy that is required for those data centres, the taxpayer will not have to pay anything more or have their rates increase because of data centre usage. They have to obviously secure and be paying for that energy,” she says, adding there have been recent talks with the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus about how data centres could impact water.

“At the end of the day, there is technology out there to allow these data centers to stay cool without utilizing the water in the Great Lakes. Technology is always advancing. I do see our government working with those businesses who want to bring a data center here, but doing it, obviously, very respectfully to respect the taxpayers because we don’t want any increases. But at the same time, we want to ensure that there’s opportunities because the need is going to just grow for the amount of data that is required, especially when it comes to generating AI that will give us those things that we do want: higher quality potential care in the life sciences…but also to make things more efficient for workers.

“I think it is also important for us to educate our younger population to understand that this is going to be an opportunity to help them be more efficient in the jobs of tomorrow. That, to me, means not replacing their jobs, but ensuring that they have the skill sets to be able to work with AI technologies. When they’re working with AI technologies, this is the future. They are going to become more efficient and it’s going to be amazing to see what can be achieved.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

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