Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carneysaid Sunday that the U.S. export ban that forced Anthropic to shut down Fable 5 and Mythos 5demonstrates the danger of relying on a small number of powerful artificial intelligence models. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Ireland, Carney described the suspension as a warning of systemic vulnerability rather than a failure by any individual company.
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"The situation we're collectively in right now with Mythos and Fable is something that can happen with over-reliance on certain models," Carney said. "Nobody has done anything wrong in this situation, but we will have done something wrong if we just accept this, don't learn from it, grow and diversify."
The former central banker then drew a direct parallel to the 2008 financial crisis. Carney, who led both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England before entering politics, said “we have similar things in terms of model risk” and called for redundancy and diversity in AI infrastructure, the same principles that regulators imposed on the banking system after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The analogy carries weight because of who makes it. Carney was governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 crisis and then became the first non-British governor of the Bank of England, where he spent six years strengthening the resilience of the financial system. When he warns that the concentrated reliance on AI reflects the systemic connections that nearly destroyed the global banking system, the comparison is based on direct experience, not rhetorical convenience.
Carney said there is “good information flow” between the Canadian and U.S. governments on AI and acknowledged that Washington has identified “some risks” with Anthropic’s latest models. But his emphasis was on the structural lesson, not the specific dispute between Anthropic and the U.S. Commerce Department.
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The comments come just days before the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains , France, which will be held from June 15 to 17 and has AI governance prominently on its agenda. Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind are all scheduled to attend a working lunch with G7 leaders on Wednesday. Carney said he has already discussed AI with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“We need to make progress” on AI, Carney said, but warned that “there will be no mission banner coming out of the G7.” The statement suggests that Canada will push for substantive commitments to diversify AI at Évian rather than symbolic declarations.
Canada has positioned itself on this front. On June 4, Carney launched “AI for All,” a $2.3 billion national AI strategy that includes a national computing infrastructure, a national supercomputer, and plans to increase AI adoption by businesses from 12% to 60% by 2034. The strategy explicitly frames reliance on foreign cloud providers as a vulnerability.
The Anthropic suspension has now given Carney a concrete, real-time example to report to the G7. A decision by the US government to impose export controls on a single AI company cut off access to its most capable models for any user outside the United States, including allies. For G7 countries that build their economies around AI capabilities they don’t control, the implications are hard to ignore.
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Carney's visit to Ireland also produced a bilateral agreement between Canada and Ireland on cooperation in AI, technology cooperation and food safety. Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, making it a strategic partner for Canada as it seeks to deepen relations with Europe on AI, defence and critical minerals.
