Follies and failures are a normal part of any period of explosive change and growth. That’s the nature of markets. What matters long-term is who comes out on top in the end. Whoever comes out on top in an industrial revolution also comes out with enormous economic and military leverage over anyone who lagged behind. Now, we can take a cautious approach where we try to never set a foot wrong by regulating everything to a T (and it would have to be done via massive regulatory restriction, because this is a market-led revolution and not a state-led revolution), but that won’t make us win in the long-run. So, if you want to think of what happened during the industrial revolution, consider what happened to countries that fell behind during the industrial revolution. That is a big part of what’s missing in your analysis of how Canada is positioned relative to the US. The US is in a period of instability as they revamp their whole industrial and financial policy approach, but US tech is positioned to be winners of this industrial revolution and to have massive leverage over Canada in the long-term because of it.

To be clear, I don’t like this and if it were up to me we would slow all AI development down until we could provide the power supply from renewables while making social and political adjustments to ensure the benefits could be widely distributed. But, it’s not up to me and I can only call it as I see it.