What is changing in Canadian and Ontario law for tech and AI founders, health and wellness businesses and creative companies. General information, not legal advice.https://www.forfounderslaw.com/en-cahttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/accused-online/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/accused-online/When your startup is publicly accused of something, the first job is to work out whether the claim is true, preserve the evidence, and check whether it triggers a legal duty, such as reporting a privacy breach under PIPEDA. Defamation claims are possible in Ontario but are slow and costly, have short notice deadlines for newspapers and broadcasts, and can be dismissed early under Ontario's anti-SLAPP law. Most situations are better resolved with the lightest response that fixes the problem.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTPrivacyhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ai-and-legal-documents/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ai-and-legal-documents/Generative AI is useful for explaining contract clauses, organizing facts and producing rough first drafts, but it can produce text that looks right and doesn't fit your facts or Canadian law. Courts have already dealt with filings that cited cases that don't exist, and Ontario's civil rules now require lawyers to certify that the authorities in their factums are authentic. Use AI to prepare, keep confidential information out of tools you haven't vetted, and have anything you'll sign or publish checked.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/dynamic-pricing-canada/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/dynamic-pricing-canada/The Competition Bureau consulted on algorithmic pricing in 2025 and published what it heard on January 22, 2026, including concerns about tacit collusion through shared pricing tools and drip-pricing-like deception. Dynamic pricing itself is legal, but how prices are displayed, what data drives them and whether competitors share the same tool all carry risk. Founders using AI to set or test prices should know their inputs, show real prices up front, and explain price changes plainly.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/smart-glasses-privacy/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/smart-glasses-privacy/Reports of people being filmed with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses without knowing it have put wearable cameras back in the news. In Canada, personal recording and a company's collection of recordings are different legal questions, and a business that stores or analyzes footage of identifiable people is subject to privacy law. Founders building AI wearables or camera features should design for notice, minimal collection and retention limits from the start.Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTPrivacyhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/bill-c-34/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/bill-c-34/Bill C-34, introduced on June 10, 2026, would create a Digital Safety Act and a Digital Safety Commission, with duties for regulated social media services, AI chatbot services and other online services. It is still at second reading in the House of Commons, and which services it covers depends on user thresholds that regulations haven't set. Founders building social, community or consumer chatbot products can start designing for safety, age assurance and transparency now, without treating any of it as a current obligation.Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/when-to-hire-a-startup-lawyer/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/when-to-hire-a-startup-lawyer/An AI or SaaS startup doesn't need a law firm on day one, but it does before certain events: bringing on a co-founder, taking anyone's money, paying someone to write code, collecting user data at scale, and signing a contract a customer wrote. Plenty of early admin can be handled yourself. Spend legal budget on ownership, equity and the first contracts that bind you to other people, because those get harder to fix every month you wait.Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTStarting uphttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/holiday-sale-pricing-rules/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/holiday-sale-pricing-rules/Holiday promotions in Canada are governed by the Competition Act's misleading advertising rules. The three common traps for SaaS and e-commerce companies are advertising a price that mandatory fees make unattainable (drip pricing), 'regular price' comparisons your sales history can't support, and countdown timers or stock warnings that aren't true. Penalties for companies can reach millions of dollars, and since June 2025 competitors can also bring cases.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/paying-influencers-in-equity/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/paying-influencers-in-equity/Paying a creator in shares or options can work for a cash-light startup, but only if the deal is fully papered before the campaign starts: the form and amount of equity, vesting, exclusivity, termination and what happens to unvested equity. In Canada, the company also has to approve and issue the equity properly and rely on a securities law exemption. A lawsuit filed in Delaware in September 2026 shows what can happen when those terms are left open.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ugc-whitelisting-ai-edits/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ugc-whitelisting-ai-edits/When a brand or app pays a creator for user-generated-style content, it's buying a service and permission to use the result, and in Canada an assignment of copyright, or a licence granting an interest in it, is only valid in writing and signed. A UGC agreement should set out the channels, term and territory in a usage grid, treat whitelisted ads through the creator's account as a separate right, and list which edits are allowed, including AI resizing, dubbing and anything that changes what the creator appears to say.Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/influencer-agreement-clauses/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/influencer-agreement-clauses/A workable influencer agreement covers the parties, deliverables and approvals, payment, usage rights, exclusivity, AI and likeness limits, disclosure and claims, and how the deal ends. The clauses that decide what a brand can keep doing after the campaign, usage, exclusivity and AI rights, deserve the most attention and should be priced separately from the post itself.Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/canada-ai-regulation-2026/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/canada-ai-regulation-2026/Canada still has no general AI statute: the proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act died in January 2025 and hasn't been replaced. AI products are nonetheless governed today by privacy law, the Competition Act, human rights and employment law, and sector rules, and two federal bills before Parliament would add AI-related duties. Canadian startups with customers or users in the EU should also map their products against the EU AI Act, whose high-risk rules were pushed back to December 2027 and August 2028.Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/b2b-saas-payment-terms/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/b2b-saas-payment-terms/B2B SaaS contracts are mostly outside consumer protection law, so the payment and renewal terms are what you and your customer agree. A few legal points still matter: interest stated as a monthly rate must also show the equivalent annual rate under the federal Interest Act, auto-renewal and price increase terms need to be clear and actually brought to the customer's attention, and sales tax should be addressed in the contract. Clear terms get you paid faster and avoid disputes at renewal.Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ai-generated-content-copyright/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ai-generated-content-copyright/Canada's Copyright Act protects original works by human authors automatically, but it doesn't say whether output generated by AI is protected, and no Canadian court has decided it. Content where a person makes meaningful creative choices stands on firmer ground than raw output from a prompt. Until the law settles, contracts, AI tool terms, records of how work was made and registered trademarks do most of the protecting.Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTIPhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/clinic-social-media-advertising/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/clinic-social-media-advertising/Clinics, med spas and wellness brands follow the same influencer disclosure rules as everyone else, but the bigger risks are usually the claims themselves: performance claims need adequate testing, prescription drug advertising to the public is limited to name, price and quantity, and many regulated health professions restrict testimonials and before-and-after images. Online booking and reminder tools add privacy and anti-spam questions, especially where personal health information is involved.Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTHealth and wellnesshttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/customer-data-ai-training/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/customer-data-ai-training/Whether a SaaS company can train AI models on customer data depends first on its contracts: many customer agreements and data processing terms limit the vendor to processing data on the customer's behalf. Where the data includes personal information, Canadian privacy law also requires an identified purpose and meaningful consent for new uses, and de-identification reduces but doesn't always remove that obligation. Decide your position, put it in your terms plainly, and give enterprise customers a clear opt-out or opt-in.Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/pipeda-bill-c-36-status/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/pipeda-bill-c-36-status/Bill C-27, which would have replaced PIPEDA and enacted an AI law, died when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. In June 2026 the federal government introduced Bill C-36, which would enact a new Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, but it isn't law and could change. Today, PIPEDA still governs most private sector startups outside Quebec, BC and Alberta, alongside the provincial laws, and a sound PIPEDA program is good preparation for whatever comes next.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPrivacyhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/influencer-campaign-liability/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/influencer-campaign-liability/The Competition Act's misleading advertising rules apply to anyone who makes a representation to promote a product or business interest, so a non-compliant influencer post can expose the brand, the creator and an agency or platform that wrote or approved it. The Competition Bureau has said brands share responsibility for influencer posts. Since June 2025, private parties can also seek leave to bring deceptive marketing cases to the Competition Tribunal. Contracts allocate cost between the parties, but a documented compliance process is what protects each of them.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/employee-stock-options-canada/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/employee-stock-options-canada/Most Canadian startups give employees equity through stock options granted under a board-approved option plan, usually with vesting over several years. For employees of a Canadian-controlled private corporation, the taxable benefit is generally deferred until the shares are sold and may qualify for a deduction that taxes it at a rate similar to capital gains. Grants need a securities law exemption and proper corporate approvals, and a promise of a percentage in an offer letter isn't a grant.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTHiringhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/founder-name-brand-trademark/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/founder-name-brand-trademark/In Canada, a word that is primarily merely a living person's name or surname usually can't be registered as a trademark unless it has become distinctive, so founder-named brands are often protected by combining the name with other words or a design. Whoever owns the trademark, often the company and later an investor or buyer, controls the name as a brand. Decide early whether you or the company owns it, and make sure your financing and sale documents say what happens to your name.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTIPhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/contests-giveaways-canada/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/contests-giveaways-canada/A promotional contest in Canada has to satisfy the Criminal Code's lottery rules and the Competition Act's disclosure rules. In practice that means a genuine no-purchase way to enter a random draw, a skill-testing question before a prize is awarded, and fair disclosure of the prizes, their value and the odds. Quebec no longer requires contests to be registered with its gaming regulator, but French-language rules still apply, and platform promotion rules and anti-spam consent apply everywhere.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/open-source-licences-ai-products/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/open-source-licences-ai-products/An AI product usually combines three kinds of borrowed material: open-source code, model weights released under their own licences, and training or evaluation datasets. Each comes with its own terms, and 'open' doesn't always mean free for commercial use. Keep an inventory of what you use and under which licence, check copyleft and non-commercial terms before they reach your product, and expect investors and enterprise customers to ask.Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAI and SaaShttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/creator-talent-agency-agreements/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/creator-talent-agency-agreements/Talent agencies and managers help creators find and price brand deals, but in Ontario only Law Society licensees can provide legal services, so an agency's contract check is a commercial review, not legal advice. Before signing a management agreement, creators should check its term, exclusivity, commission base, post-term commissions, payment flow and who controls their accounts. AI likeness and voice clauses in brand deals deserve particular care, because a signed contract can amount to consent.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/quebec-law-25-saas/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/quebec-law-25-saas/Quebec's private sector privacy law, as amended by Law 25, is stricter than PIPEDA in several ways that matter to software companies: a named person in charge of privacy, privacy impact assessments before sending personal information outside Quebec, tracking and profiling features turned off by default, notice of automated decisions and a right to data portability. Startups based elsewhere with Quebec users should assume the law reaches them and build these points into their product and contracts.Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPrivacyhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/trademark-app-name-canada/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/trademark-app-name-canada/A registered Canadian trademark gives you the exclusive right to use your product name across Canada for the goods and services listed in the registration. Search before you commit, avoid names that clearly describe what the product does, and file for the classes that match how you actually sell, usually downloadable software and software as a service. Incorporating a company, buying a domain or getting an App Store listing doesn't give you trademark rights.Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTIPhttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/tiktok-shop-canada/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/tiktok-shop-canada/TikTok Shop's in-app checkout isn't available in Canada, and TikTok hasn't announced a Canadian launch. The federal order to wind up TikTok's Canadian business was set aside in January 2026, and in March 2026 the government allowed the business to continue under binding undertakings. Brands, creators and social commerce software companies selling through TikTok today are already subject to the advertising, disclosure, anti-spam and privacy rules that would apply inside TikTok Shop.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTCreativehttps://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ontario-job-posting-rules-2026/https://www.forfounderslaw.com/insights/ontario-job-posting-rules-2026/Since January 1, 2026, Ontario employers with 25 or more employees must include expected pay or a pay range, say whether they use AI to screen, assess or select applicants, and say whether the job is an existing vacancy in every publicly advertised job posting. They also can't require Canadian experience, must tell interviewed candidates about the decision within 45 days, and must keep posting records for three years.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTHiring