Parliament Returns to a Privacy Bill With Real Teeth

Parliament reconvened in Ottawa today after summer recess, putting Bill C-36 back on the legislative calendar. The bill would replace PIPEDA, Canada's 25-year-old federal privacy law, with a new Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act and hand enforcement to a newly created Digital Safety and Data Protection Commission. Maximum penalties would reach the greater of $10 million or 3 percent of an organization's global revenue, a sharp change from PIPEDA's current lack of direct fining power. The bill also introduces a "legitimate interest" basis for using personal data without consent, new transparency rights around automated decision-making, and a private right of action letting individuals sue directly over violations. It cleared first reading in June and still needs to pass second reading, committee study, and a Senate vote before becoming law. Two earlier attempts to replace PIPEDA died before reaching royal assent, so its fate is far from settled.

Marketing runs on personal data, from email lists to ad pixels to CRM records. If Bill C-36 advances, the rules around consent, automated targeting, and cross-border data transfers get far more specific, and the cost of getting them wrong gets far more real. Nothing changes yet, but this is a good week to take stock of how your forms, cookies, and tracking tools handle consent before the law catches up to how you're already collecting data.

Empire Builds an "E-Commerce 2.0" Playbook for Online Grocery

Empire, the parent company of Sobeys, Safeway, FreshCo, IGA, Foodland, Farm Boy, and Longo's, is preparing what management is calling an "e-commerce 2.0" strategy for online grocery. The company's first-quarter e-commerce sales rose 11.3 percent, driven largely by growth through third-party delivery partnerships alongside continued growth at its own Voilà platform. Rather than treating Voilà as the only channel, Empire is now drawing a clearer line between the two: Voilà is built for the planned weekly grocery trip, while third-party platforms handle customers who want something delivered right now. The approach leans on shared customer and loyalty data across both channels so Empire can grow online sales without duplicating fulfillment infrastructure, a notable shift from its original strategy of building out its own automated customer fulfilment centres.

Empire's pivot is a real-world test of a question a lot of Canadian retailers are wrestling with: build your own delivery infrastructure, or plug into the marketplaces your customers already use? Empire spent heavily on owned fulfilment and is now recalibrating toward a blended model built on data rather than delivery trucks alone. For e-commerce operators weighing their own fulfillment mix, it's a reminder that the customer relationship, not the delivery method, is the asset worth protecting.

Montreal's ALL IN 2026 Lands Amid a Wave of AI Infrastructure Spending

More than 7,500 leaders, researchers, and investors from over 40 countries gathered in Montreal on September 16 and 17 for ALL IN 2026, now in its fourth year as one of Canada's flagship AI events. Sessions leaned heavily on sovereignty and commercialization, including panels on building Canada's own AI stack and taking Canadian AI capabilities to international markets. The timing lined up with a wave of infrastructure investment: Bell Canada announced plans to quadruple its AI data centre near Regina to 1.2 gigawatts, pushing its total investment in the site past $50 billion. The announcement came the same week Prime Minister Mark Carney courted more than $120 billion in investor capital at the first Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, underscoring how much capital is currently flowing into Canadian AI infrastructure.

The volume of capital moving into Canadian AI infrastructure this month shows where the country's tech investment is concentrated right now, and it's largely upstream of anything customer-facing. For marketers, the practical takeaway is that the AI features showing up in ad platforms, search, and commerce tools over the next year are being built on infrastructure being laid down today. It's worth watching which Canadian AI companies get visibility from events like ALL IN, since several are direct vendors to the marketing and e-commerce space.

New Research: Gen Z Wants AI-Powered, But Not AI-Obvious

New research from Sitecore's inaugural Digital Authenticity Index finds that 89 percent of Gen Z consumers want more authentic digital experiences, while nearly 70 percent say they've reduced engagement with brands they don't trust. The survey covered more than 4,000 consumers, with the Gen Z cohort, ages 18 to 29, showing a clear pattern: 83 percent believe AI can be beneficial when used responsibly, but 74 percent say they can spot AI-generated content when they see it. Sitecore's CMO framed the takeaway for retailers heading into the holiday season as a matter of restraint rather than sophistication: use AI to solve a real customer problem, not simply because the technology is available.

The survey pulled respondents from the US, UK, Australia, and UAE rather than Canada specifically, so treat the exact percentages as directional, not a Canadian statistic. The underlying pattern still tracks with what Canadian retailers are watching this holiday season: Gen Z's spending power is climbing toward a projected $12 trillion by 2030, and this generation is both open to AI and quick to penalize brands that use it carelessly. Before leaning harder on AI-generated product copy, chat assistants, or personalization this Q4, it's worth auditing where the technology is actually improving the customer experience versus where it's just cheaper to produce.