AI Goverance Issues

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Peter Karwacki — Rideau-Rockcliffe ward 13 / Oct 2026

Accountability File · Municipal AI Governance

Ottawa's AI Use Isn't Coming. It's Already Here — And Growing Faster Than the Rules Around It.

3,200 staff. 114,000 prompts and counting. An AI hiring tool. An AI system reading the city's own infrastructure footage. This is where Ottawa's municipal AI footprint stands today — and every signal points to it expanding, not slowing down. The governance framework meant to keep pace with it is still, a year later, a promise rather than a document.

Most of this campaign's accountability work has been about a simple mismatch: what the City says it's doing, and what it can actually show it's done. AI is that mismatch on a faster clock. This isn't a hypothetical about robots someday running city hall — it's already running spreadsheets, screening resumes, and reading the streets through a windshield camera. The trajectory only points one way: more staff, more prompts, more departments, more decisions touched. The question this campaign is raising isn't whether the City should use AI. It's whether governance is being built at the same speed adoption is happening — and right now, it isn't.

Section 01The Growth Curve

Every piece of this puzzle the City has confirmed publicly comes with the same coda: more is coming. IT staff told council in December 2025 that AI rollout would keep expanding across departments. That's not a guess — it's the City's own stated plan, and the numbers already show the shape of it.

→ Today: 3,200 staff, one toolCopilot inside Outlook, Word and Excel — drafting and internal search. 114,000+ prompts filed so far.

current footprint

→ Already expanding: two new systems liveAI hiring screens for high-demand roles; AI infrastructure-mapping reading GATsmobile survey footage.

rollout underway

→ Where this is headedOntario's provincial government already has over 15,000 staff on Copilot weekly — roughly five times Ottawa's current base — showing the ceiling municipal adoption is likely climbing toward.Source: AI Business Weekly, Dec 2025 (Ref. 2)

trajectory

The pattern across every Canadian government deploying AI so far: pilot small, expand fast. Ottawa is already past the pilot stage.

Section 02The Disclosure Ledger

Every line below is either something the City has confirmed in a public meeting or news record, or something it has not addressed at all. No line is speculation.

Confirmed / On the Record	Undisclosed / Unaddressed
Confirmed3,200 city employees use Microsoft Copilot inside Outlook, Word and Excel, and have filed over 114,000 prompts to date.Source: City IT presentation, Dec 2025 (Ref. 2)	UndisclosedNo published inventory of every AI system in use across departments — hiring, infrastructure, or otherwise. No single public list exists.
ConfirmedAn AI resume-screening tool is being deployed for high-demand hiring positions.Source: City budget committee, Dec 2025 (Ref. 1, 2)	UndisclosedNo published bias or accuracy testing for the hiring tool, despite AI hiring being one of the most litigated bias categories nationally.
ConfirmedAn AI system is being built to auto-identify streetlights, signs and infrastructure from the City's GATsmobile survey footage.Source: City IT presentation, Dec 2025 (Ref. 2)	UndisclosedNo stated accountability chain for what happens when the system misses or misidentifies an asset.
ConfirmedCity Manager Wendy Stephanson told council a governance framework — covering structure, privacy and use guidelines — was coming in 2026.Source: City budget committee, Dec 2025 (Ref. 2)	UndisclosedWhether that framework has actually been adopted, what it contains, and whether it includes resident disclosure or an appeal right for an AI-assisted decision.
ConfirmedConsumer chatbots (ChatGPT, Gemini) are restricted for most staff; Copilot is the sanctioned enterprise tool.Source: reporting on federal/municipal IT policy (Ref. 2)	UndisclosedData-residency and retention terms — where prompts and data go, and what a resident could obtain under a records request.
ConfirmedOntario's provincial government has an AI Trustworthy Directive in force since Dec 2024, and its Auditor General ran a dedicated 2026 performance audit of provincial AI use.Source: Ontario Auditor General special report, 2026 (Ref. 4)	UndisclosedNo equivalent independent audit function has been announced at the municipal level in Ottawa.

Section 03The Risk Register

None of this means the City shouldn't use AI — Copilot for drafting memos and computer vision for cataloguing streetlights are genuinely low-stakes today. The risk is the gap between two speeds: adoption is compounding, and governance has moved once, in December 2025, when a framework was promised for "sometime in 2026." Nothing since. Ranked here by how exposed the City is if that gap is still open when adoption reaches higher-stakes territory — permitting, bylaw enforcement, service eligibility.

01 Disclosure gapResidents affected by an AI-assisted decision may have no way of knowing AI was involved.

exposure: high

02 No appeal mechanismWithout a guaranteed human-review step, an AI error has no clear path to a remedy.

exposure: high

03 Bias without auditHiring and service-delivery AI can encode bias already in its training data — unverifiable without independent testing.

exposure: high

04 Governance theatreA framework announced as "responsible AI governance" that is, in practice, internal IT policy with no public reporting or teeth.

exposure: moderate–high

05 Procurement opacityAI tools bought from vendors with no disclosed, independent testing standard.

exposure: moderate

06 Scope creepLow-stakes use cases (drafting, asset-mapping) normalize adoption before governance exists for the higher-stakes uses likely to follow.

exposure: moderate

07 No independent auditThe Province has already run one AI performance audit. Ottawa has announced no municipal equivalent.

exposure: moderate–high

Exposure = how much residents currently rely on the City getting this right, with no way to check.

Section 04What I'd Commit To

This isn't a call to slow AI down inside city hall — the growth curve above is coming whether council plans for it or not. It's a call to make governance grow at the same rate. Right now the City has a one-line promise from a December 2025 committee meeting and nothing published since. That's not a framework. That's a placeholder.

A Municipal AI Disclosure & Audit Standard

1. Publish the inventory. A public, regularly updated list of every AI system in municipal use, what it does, and which department owns it.
2. Disclosure by default. Any City decision that used AI assistance — permitting, enforcement, benefits eligibility — says so, in plain language, to the resident it affects.
3. A guaranteed human-appeal right for any AI-assisted decision affecting a resident directly.
4. Independent testing before deployment for any tool touching hiring, enforcement, or eligibility — not vendor self-certification.
5. An annual Auditor General review of municipal AI use, matching the standard the Province has already set for itself.

I'll be filing a records request for the City's current AI inventory and the status of the promised 2026 governance framework, the same way I did with OCDSB's property list. Findings will be published here as they come in.

References

1. Pringle, J. "City of Ottawa developing policy for using artificial intelligence." CTV News Ottawa, Dec 2, 2025. ctvnews.ca
2. Khan, S. "Ottawa Uses AI for Hiring, Productivity as 3,200 Staff Adopt." AI Business Weekly, Dec 3, 2025. aibusinessweekly.net
3. "AI is entering council chambers across Ontario." Canada's National Observer, Apr 30, 2026. nationalobserver.com
4. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario. "Performance Audit: Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Ontario Government." 2026. auditor.on.ca

FILE STATUS: OPEN — pending City response to records request · Ward 13 Accountability File