Canada's conversation about digital sovereignty is rapidly becoming more concrete.

On September 3, 2026, the Government of Canada announced its Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, a national framework intended to guide the expansion of data-centre infrastructure across the country. On the same day, the federal government announced Digital Transformation Canada, a new organization tasked with improving how government develops, purchases, and uses technology.

Both announcements share an important theme: Canada increasingly recognizes that digital infrastructure is strategic infrastructure.

That is an important shift.

But if Canada wants genuine digital sovereignty, building infrastructure inside our borders is only part of the answer.

Where Our Digital Infrastructure Lives Matters

Canada depends heavily on digital infrastructure for banking, health care, government services, scientific research, communications, artificial intelligence, and virtually every sector of the modern economy.

Yet the federal government acknowledges that Canada still relies significantly on infrastructure and services based outside the country for the computing power, cloud services, and data storage supporting artificial intelligence.

Expanding Canadian capacity therefore makes sense.

Domestic data centres can improve resilience, create economic opportunities, provide Canadian organizations with additional choices, and help keep strategically important workloads under Canadian jurisdiction.

The new federal principles also recognize something that is sometimes overlooked in discussions about data centres: these facilities exist in real communities.

They consume electricity. They use land and, depending on their design, potentially significant amounts of water. They affect electrical grids and local infrastructure.

Canada's new framework consequently says data-centre projects should create lasting local benefits, avoid shifting electricity costs onto Canadians, minimize environmental impacts, operate transparently, and provide strategic value to the country.

Those are worthwhile principles.

But there is another question Canada must ask:

Who ultimately controls the technology inside those data centres?

Data Residency Is Not Digital Sovereignty

A server being physically located in Canada does not automatically make the technology running on it sovereign.

This distinction is crucial.

Data residency describes where information is physically stored.

Digital sovereignty is much broader. It concerns our ability to control the technology, infrastructure, data, and decisions upon which our digital society depends.

Canada itself has previously acknowledged this distinction. A foreign technology provider operating infrastructure in Canada may still be subject to foreign laws. Physical location alone therefore cannot eliminate every sovereignty concern.

And the same principle extends beyond data.

Imagine that Canadian government information is stored entirely inside a Canadian data centre, but every critical layer depends on proprietary technology controlled elsewhere.

The hardware may be here.

The data may be here.

But can Canada independently operate the system?

Can we inspect it?

Can we modify it?

Can we migrate away from the supplier?

Can Canadian organizations maintain it if the vendor changes its business model, licensing terms, prices, or availability?

If the answer to those questions is no, Canada's sovereignty remains incomplete.

Sovereignty Requires Choice

Digital sovereignty should not mean technological isolation.

Canada benefits enormously from international collaboration, global technology companies, international research, and worldwide open-source communities.

The objective should not be to build a digital wall around Canada.

The objective should be to ensure that Canada always has meaningful choices.

That means avoiding unnecessary dependency on any single vendor, platform, jurisdiction, or proprietary ecosystem.

Open standards make it easier for systems to communicate.

Portable data formats make it possible to move information.

Open APIs allow different technologies to work together.

Open-source software provides the ability to inspect, adapt, maintain, and independently deploy critical technology.

Together, these capabilities reduce technological lock-in.

And reducing lock-in is one of the foundations of digital sovereignty.

Open Source Is Digital Infrastructure

This is why open source deserves a much larger place in Canada's digital-sovereignty strategy.

Canada has already begun moving in this direction.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Digital Service joined the Digital Public Goods Alliance, an international initiative supporting open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and other reusable digital public goods.

Canadian government projects including GC Notify, GC Forms, and the GC Design System are themselves open-source technologies designed for reuse.

That is significant because it demonstrates a different model of public digital infrastructure.

Instead of every government department or jurisdiction purchasing another isolated proprietary system, governments can build technology collaboratively, reuse existing solutions, contribute improvements, and share the results.

Public money can help create public digital infrastructure.

Open source does not automatically guarantee security, independence, or sovereignty. Software still needs proper governance, maintenance, security practices, skilled people, and sustainable funding.

But openness creates something proprietary dependency often cannot:

the possibility of independent control.

Canada's Purchasing Power Matters

The creation of Digital Transformation Canada introduces another potentially important piece of the puzzle.

The federal government says the organization will improve how government develops, purchases, and uses technology while using federal procurement more strategically to help Canadian digital and AI companies grow.

That purchasing power is enormous.

How government chooses technology can influence Canada's entire technology ecosystem.

Procurement policies can encourage interoperability instead of lock-in.

They can require open standards.

They can consider data portability.

They can evaluate whether organizations retain meaningful control over their information.

They can examine where data is processed, which jurisdiction applies, and whether critical systems can continue operating if a supplier relationship changes.

And where appropriate, procurement processes can seriously evaluate open-source alternatives rather than assuming proprietary software is the default.

Digital sovereignty therefore isn't simply an IT policy.

It is also a procurement policy.

Canadian Infrastructure Needs Canadian Capability

There is another component that receives less attention than servers and data centres: people.

Canada can build enormous amounts of computing infrastructure, but genuine sovereignty also requires people who understand how that infrastructure works.

We need Canadian system administrators, developers, cybersecurity professionals, cloud engineers, maintainers, researchers, educators, and open-source contributors.

We need universities and colleges teaching the skills required to build and operate these systems.

We need communities where people can learn those skills outside formal education.

And we need Canadian businesses capable of providing services and support around open technologies.

Otherwise, we risk building Canadian infrastructure that we remain dependent on others to operate.

Digital sovereignty is ultimately as much about knowledge as hardware.

A Canadian Data Centre Should Be the Beginning

Canada's decision to treat data centres as strategic infrastructure is encouraging.

So is the government's increasing recognition that digital sovereignty, domestic computing capacity, AI infrastructure, procurement, and economic resilience are interconnected.

But we should resist defining success simply by counting how many servers are located inside Canada.

The more meaningful questions are harder:

Can Canadians control the technology?

Can organizations move their data?

Can systems interoperate?

Can we change suppliers?

Can we inspect and maintain critical software?

Can Canadian businesses participate?

Can Canadian developers build on the infrastructure?

Can our institutions continue operating if geopolitical or commercial circumstances change?

Those questions determine whether infrastructure located in Canada is merely Canadian-hosted or genuinely contributes to Canadian digital sovereignty.

Canada has an opportunity to build more than data centres.

We can build a digital ecosystem based on resilience, interoperability, open standards, domestic expertise, competition, and meaningful technological choice.

Open source should be an important part of that conversation.

Because ultimately, digital sovereignty isn't about shutting the world out.

It is about ensuring Canada retains the ability to choose its own digital future.

Linux Association of Canada — Promoting Linux, open source, digital literacy, and technological independence across Canada.