Governing AI as a Public Trust: Executive Accountability, Rights, and the Rule of Law

As governments move from experimentation to operational use of AI, executive accountability can no longer stop at technology, procurement, or compliance. Leaders must understand how AI systems interact with fiduciary responsibilities, public trust, equity, inclusion, administrative justice, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and constitutional principles.

This executive workshop will explore how to translate legal and democratic obligations into practical AI governance. Participants will examine how rights, duties, and accountability requirements can be embedded into AI-enabled decision-making before harm occurs — through governance structures, decision rights, human oversight, evidence requirements, escalation mechanisms, and defensible controls.

Rather than treating law as a final compliance checkpoint, the session positions it as a design input for AI systems and institutional decision-making.

Participants will leave with a practical framework for asking the questions executives increasingly need to answer:

• Who is accountable when an AI-supported decision causes harm?
• What responsibilities can be delegated to a system — and what must remain human?
• How should Charter rights, procedural fairness, equity, inclusion, and administrative law shape AI design and deployment?
• What evidence should an executive require before authorizing a consequential AI system?
• How can institutions demonstrate that their AI systems are not only technically capable, but lawful, fair, explainable, and worthy of public trust?

The session is designed for executives, policy leaders, ADMs, CIOs, CDOs, legal and governance professionals responsible for making or overseeing consequential decisions involving AI.