Ottawa has come under scrutiny over shadowy contracts that it signed with Palantir, the wildly successful, and wildly controversial, U.S. data analytics software provider.
Last week, the Toronto Star detailed a $3.7 million contract the Department of National Defence (DND) signed last year with Palantir that was only uncovered after questioning by a Conservative MP about federal AI contracts. A few days later, the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) detailed how DND quietly extended a deal to use Palantir’s Gotham system for an elite military unit — a deal that itself was only uncovered last year — a dozen times between March 2020 and October 2025, with the estimated value of the contract rising from $14.4 million to $44.4 million.
Before we go any further, let’s clear up what Palantir and Gotham are. Contrary to misconceptions, the firm is not itself a surveillance company. Its primary business is providing software tools to organizations that streamline internal data and applications that can help employees make connections between them all. Gotham is one of these systems, and is optimized for law enforcement, military, and government users.
So, what’s the hubbub then? The issue is twofold. First, many critics have major ethical qualms about the government using Palantir’s systems, as they believe the company facilitates human rights abuses. Perhaps the most pressing issue at the moment is Palantir’s longstanding cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The company’s explicit embrace of U.S. jingoism, led by CEO Alex Karp, has further fed this critique. Last year he made waves during an earnings call when he said Palantir’s technology enables institutions to "scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them." In April, the company released a 22-point manifesto based on Karp’s book, the first point of which was “Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.”
