AI for all, but only if Canada can execute on adoption, trust, digital sovereignty, say business leaders
‘A key part of Canada’s new AI strategy, we’re harnessing this technology to improve our health care system — so we can cut down wait times and ensure more Canadians get the care they need,’ Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote on social media. / TWITTER PHOTO
Canada's newly unveiled national artificial intelligence strategy has drawn broad support from business groups, research institutes and technology leaders, who say the country's long-awaited roadmap reflects serious thinking about the opportunities and risks ahead, but now it's time for execution.
“Like anything, it's all about execution and how we start putting in the foundations, and all of the core elements to bring it to life,” Technation CEO Kevin D'Entremont told Means & Ways.
He described the strategy's initial foundations as encouraging, but said Canada cannot afford to lose momentum. “I think the initial investments are very promising. I think that the recognition and the structure of the strategy are very good and very reassuring. I think that we need to emphasize speed and execution going forward,” he said. “We are, as a country, behind other countries, and it's just going to require focus on execution and commitment to actually sticking with it.”
Valérie Pisano, President and CEO of Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, called the moment pivotal. "This strategy reflects the core values Mila has always championed: driving scientific excellence, propelling impactful innovations, ensuring the safety and responsible deployment of AI, and attending to the cultural and linguistic relevance of the technology," she said in a press release. "At this pivotal moment, we must deploy this vision with an acute sense of urgency."
The government is investing more than $2 billion in the long-awaited national strategy called AI for All.
It includes a $500-million Canadian Tech Growth Fund to help AI companies scale their operations and stay rooted here, as well as an expanded $1-billion Compute Access Fund to give SMEs access to affordable computational power and resources.
The government said it will also earmark $120 million for commercialization programs across the National AI Institutes to cultivate a new generation of AI entrepreneurs. Also promised was action to assess the full continuum of innovation programs to better align existing innovation instruments “so that the path from research to market is shorter, clearer, and built around the needs of Canadian entrepreneurs.”
In addition, the newly formed Sovereign Technology Alliance will be expanded to enable secure and compatible AI capabilities and open procurement opportunities for domestic champions.
A new “AI missions” plan to address national challenges in key sectors like energy and agriculture will be brought in, starting with a $200-million project to improve emergency room wait times and other health services.
“With the global AI market projected to reach U.S. $4.8 trillion by 2033, Canada has a limited but real opportunity to ensure AI works for all Canadians—to harness this technology to create jobs, protect Canadians, and strengthen our prosperity,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said as he introduced the policy.
Infrastructure and sovereignty
‘There are other countries that have more and larger companies that are starting to become global players, and Canada can't afford to waste any time,’ says Technation CEO Kevin D’Entremont. / SUBMITTED PHOTO
The strategy explicitly frames digital sovereignty as a foundation of Canada's AI ambitions, arguing the country needs domestic data centres and cloud infrastructure to power homegrown innovation. D'Entremont noted that while Canada has the capability, 'sovereignty' still needs to be defined. “There are still some definitions that need to be arrived at around digital sovereignty, in terms of how we execute it. What data needs to be sovereign? What types of workflows? What domains are we going to be focused on first?” he said.
Todd Coleman, founder of eStruxture, echoed the infrastructure message. “The federal government's AI strategy is a positive step that recognizes Canada's AI ambitions and the data economy depends on secure, resilient, Canadian-based digital infrastructure that gives businesses, governments and communities confidence in where data lives and how it gets used," he told Means & Ways in a statement.
He added that trust-building must accompany the infrastructure build-out: “If Canada really wants to move faster not just on AI but on the data economy, the most important thing to do is to build public trust — trust with communities, trust with customers, trust in energy and water use and proof that this new economy will create real benefits here at home.”
Can Canada compete?
In a press release, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said: “The global economy is rapidly transforming, and our government is focused on ensuring Canadian industry is positioned to compete and win. Our government’s new AI Strategy will support responsible AI adoption and boost productivity and investment, while at the same time delivering real benefits for Canadians and protecting our digital sovereignty.”
Cam Linke, CEO of the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), framed the moment in generational terms. “For nearly 25 years, Amii has anchored AI excellence in Alberta,” he told Means & Ways in a statement. “This latest phase builds on the massive momentum Amii and our partner institutes have generated. We are energized by this commitment and are ready to deepen our work, cementing our nation's competitive edge and making AI work for everyone. The next couple of years will shape the coming decades of AI, and we can’t afford to wait. The investment in this strategy secures our leadership in the global narrative, ensuring Canada isn’t just reacting to the future of AI but actively shaping it.”
The plan is built around six pillars:
Protecting Canadians and Safeguarding our Democracy
Empowering Canadians–Canada must become an AI skills nation
Powering Shared Prosperity
Building the Canadian Sovereign approach
Scaling Canadian Champions
Building Trusted Partnerships and Global Alliances
The government is also focusing the strategy on sectors where “scientific, economic and industrial strengths converge” and where investments can be successfully commercialize, the strategy says, including:
Health and life sciences
Energy and natural resources
Transportation
Agriculture
Manufacturing and robotics
The government announced the strategy at UHN’s Toronto General Hospital with healthcare workers in the background.
Walter Robinson, a public policy leader in AI and healthcare, said he supports health and life sciences as priority sectors because healthcare is now the leading sector globally in adopting AI.
“The promise, and the peril in terms of trust, of AI is most pronounced in healthcare. No other activity in Canada or across the world will see more transformation from now to 2040 due to the impact of AI and other converging technologies like nanotech, 6G telecom, materials science, synthetic biology, quantum computing, 3D printing, blockchain, the IoT, and things we can't even imagine yet,” he told Means & Ways, adding the $200-million funding needs to prioritize results. “We need to be very clear what outcomes we are trying to achieve, what problems we are trying to fix, and ensure that the 3Ps Triad of Trust is respected: patients, payers, and healthcare providers, which include the licensed professions—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. — and healthcare facilities.”
D'Entremont said focusing on certain sectors is a good move, but that the priority should be on commercialization. “There are other countries that have more and larger companies that are starting to become global players, and Canada can't afford to waste any time,” he said. “That means rather than trying to boil the ocean, picking a few areas where we are clear leaders, and also putting serious effort into commercialization, so that it's not research for research's sake, that we're always targeting research, or a portion of research, towards commercializing products that can be brought to market.”
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the strategy's targets and sector-specific focus, while flagging that ambition must be matched by implementation. “The document appears to be an ambitious guiding strategy that now needs an execution plan and specific programs,” Catherine Fortin Lefaivre, Senior Vice President, International Policy & Global Partnerships and policy lead for our Future of AI Council, said in a statement to Means & Ways. “Implementation of this strategy, in partnership with the Canadian business community, will be essential for its success.”
D'Entremont pointed to the strategy's proposed co-investment signals as meaningful.
The Council of Canadian Innovators said, however, the strategy falls short on global scaling. “For this strategy to succeed, the federal government must stay focused on one objective: helping Canadian AI companies scale globally and ensuring Canada captures more of the value created by this technological transition,” Laurent Carbonneau, vice-president of policy and advocacy at the CCI, told Bloomberg.
On the question of whether government or business should take the lead, D'Entremont called it a shared responsibility — and said government could play a uniquely powerful role as a model user of the technology. “I think that if other jurisdictions, including the federal government, were to use and test and show the relevance, demonstrate, prove out the concepts of AI use cases, I think that it would speed the adoption by businesses that might be reticent because they're just less informed and don't want to take the risk.”
‘We helped pioneer modern AI. Now we need to turn that strength into impact for Canadians. Built around three priorities — trust, opportunity and sovereignty — AI for All will help Canadians use AI safely, benefit from the opportunities it creates, and maintain sovereign control over the technologies shaping our future,’ AI Minister Evan Solomon wrote on social media. / TWITTER PHOTO
Protecting Canadians
Other goals of the AI strategy include:
Protect Canadians and children against the risks from AI and online harms
Make access to free AI literacy training, including to entry-level post-secondary students
Increase adoption of AI by businesses from 12% today to 60% by 2034
Build a world-leading supercomputer
Set up international alliances to work together on research, computing and procurement
The government said it will protect Canadians from the risks and harms of AI by modernizing legislative frameworks for the digital age that prioritize trust and safety and reduce risks, including:
Strengthening protections for Canadians’ personal information, including against harmful practices such as deepfakes and surveillance pricing, and introducing an online safety regime to better protect social media and chatbot users
Improving AI transparency so Canadians are better equipped to use AI safely and responsibly, while expanding the capabilities of the Canadian AI Safety Institute to conduct transparent evaluations of AI models.
A recent Angus Reid Institute survey of 1,680 Canadian adults found that 73% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "AI is a force of good for society," and 70% said Canada should move with caution on AI integration. Only 3% of respondents believed AI would increase the number of jobs available in the next decade, while 45% said they expected it to significantly reduce jobs.
Critics also said the initiatives to protect the public lacked timelines and details.
“The safety and the security that was promised in this is nowhere to be found in the documents,” Conservative Party Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman said. “Certainly, no details … Canadians at kitchen tables and boardroom tables are concerned about the increased invasion into Canadian privacy.”
The government said the policy would support the creation of up to 250,000 new jobs through AI adoption in the coming years. However, officials were not able to provide an estimate for net job losses versus job creation as a result of AI.
Canadian values
AI Minister Evan Solomon said the strategy is “about putting artificial intelligence to work for Canadians.”
In a press release, he said: “It will give people the confidence to use AI safely, help businesses adopt it and ensure more of the value is created here at home. This is how we protect people, grow our economy, reflect our values, and deliver real benefits in everyday life.”
Hugo Larochelle, Scientific Director of Mila, said that Canada's commitment to public-interest AI is positive. “Canada is ensuring it can guide AI development responsibly and on our own terms,” he said in a press release.
Coleman agreed. “Building value for Canada needs to be done with Canadian values,” he said. “That is the work ahead.”
