Artificial Intelligence (“AI”)

Artificial intelligence includes systems called "large language models." These are a type of AI that can understand and create human-like text by learning from a large amount of data.

Use of AI by Board Members

Decision-making at the Board is a human responsibility. Board members will hear cases and make decisions based on the evidence and submissions made by the parties.

Use of AI by the parties

AI can be a powerful tool for parties who are in proceedings before the Board. However, AI also has dangers. There are three dangers with using AI to prepare arguments or submissions with the Board:

1. AI can be wrong. If you use AI to research the law or analyze information, double-check the results carefully. Simply asking an AI tool for the answer to a legal question is not a guarantee that the answer will be right.
2. AI can hallucinate. AI can invent cases, statutes, and other legal sources. Always check to make sure that the case, statute, or other legal document that AI has provided to you is real. You can do so by going to court websites, official websites that contain statutes, the Board’s website, and legal databases like CanLII.
3. AI can copy. AI can outright copy passages from published texts, which can violate copyright law. It is also plagiarism.

Parties are responsible for what they submit to the Board. If a party makes arguments that uses a case, statute, or other legal source that does not actually exist, that is dishonest. Parties have a duty to the Board, and to each other, to be honest. If a party files submissions that contain AI hallucinations, they are acting dishonestly.

If a party uses AI to prepare their submissions, it is their responsibility to carry out the necessary cross-checks with reliable sources to ensure that their references and submissions withstand careful scrutiny.

Authorities submitted by the parties

Parties may refer to case law and statutes in their submissions to the Board or in the course of a hearing.

Federal statutes are available on the Justice Laws Website (Justice Laws Website). Each provincial and territorial government has its own website setting out statutes from its jurisdiction.

The Board’s case law is available on its website. In addition, the Board’s case law, cases from most other courts and tribunals, and statutes are available through the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s database, also known as CanLII, and is available free to the public. The Board’s case law is also available through other subscription-based databases, such as Quicklaw.

The way in which a case is indexed by these databases is called a “citation” and it is a unique identifier for each case. The citation to the case is required in order to ensure that the other parties to the proceeding, as well as the Board itself, are able to find and review the case.

The Board is increasingly receiving “hallucinated” case and statute references, that is, references to cases or citations that appear to have been created by an artificial intelligence tool and either the case does not exist or the citation refers to a different case. These references may be the result of an innocent use of an artificial intelligence tool, or they may be the result of a lack of attention by the party, or they may be a deliberate attempt to mislead the Board and other parties. Whatever the cause or intention, these references are unacceptable. It is essential for a fair hearing that parties refer to case law correctly, and that the other parties and the Board are able to find it. Requiring a party to ensure that the case exists and is accessible to the Board and other parties, by providing a copy of the case or a functional electronic link to it avoids unnecessary confusion and wasted time.

In light of the above considerations, the Board will now require that, if case law is referred to in a submission, it must be accompanied by a citation and an electronic link (a “hyperlink”) to the decision itself. If including an electronic link is not possible, a copy of the case must be attached to the submission.

Note: this is an example of a CanLII citation with an electronic link to the CanLII database:

• Schenkman v. Canada (Treasury Board), 2004 PSSRB 1

If a party’s submissions do not include hyperlinks or copies of the authorities it relies on, it will be returned to the party and the party will be required to re-file it properly. Repeated failure to include hyperlinks may result in the submissions not being accepted for filing or other consequences determined by the panel of the Board assigned to that matter.