GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

 Prime Minister Mark Carney announced an initial federal contribution of $25 billion over three years to create the new Canada Strong Fund – Canada’s first national sovereign wealth fund. The Fund will strategically invest, alongside the private sector, in Canadian projects and companies driving the country’s economic transformation. This includes projects in clean and conventional energy, critical minerals, agriculture and infrastructure. The returns will be reinvested to grow the Canada Strong Fund, strengthening its capacity over time. As the Fund grows, it will direct capital toward investments with the highest potential return for Canada and Canadians. The Canada Strong Fund will operate at arms-length from government. Ottawa will create a new Crown corporation, and its work will be guided by a CEO and a qualified independent board of directors. To ensure Canadians have the option to invest in the growth of the nation and share in the returns, the government will launch a retail investment product. This will give Canadians a direct stake in the nation’s long-term prosperity and help build long-term national wealth. The Government of Canada will establish a dedicated Canada Strong Fund transition office to advance a targeted engagement with market participants and regulators, and finalize details of the Fund’s governance, investment mandate and retail investment product. John Ruffolo, founder and managing partner at Maverix Private Equity, has been calling for Canada to have a sovereign wealth fund, as has the Build Canada group, which recommends growing the fund to over $500 billion within 10 years. Prime Minister of Canada

 BDC (Business Development Bank Canada) launched its new LIFT (Lead with Innovation and Focus on Technology) initiative, a $500-million loan program to help small and medium-sized businesses adopt AI. Companies with more than $1 million in annual sales are eligible for the support through LIFT, designed to help more than 1,000 SMEs integrate AI into their operations. Eligible businesses can access loans, at an interest rate of 2.25 percent, ranging from $25,000 to $5 million. The program offers flexible repayment options, including postponing principal payments for up to two years. LIFT pairs eligible business owners with expert AI advisors and offers flexible financing to kickstart their journey. “LIFT is designed to support entrepreneurs across the full spectrum, from those just getting started to those ready to scale advanced solutions,” BDC said. LIFT prioritizes Canadian-developed AI tools and equipment, offering incentives to adopt homegrown solutions. If every SME had the same level of technological maturity as the most advanced companies in Canada, GDP could grow by up to 14 percent according to an upcoming BDC study. BDC

The Government of Canada is providing $23.8 million over two years and announced a call for proposals under the Digital Skills for Youth (DS4Y) program. DS4Y is part of the government’s Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, which helps provide Canadian youth with the tools, skills and experience they need to succeed in today’s labour market. Through this call for proposals, the government is looking for organizations with a strong network of employers that can provide postsecondary graduates with training and work experience to help them prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. The types of organizations that can apply for funding are for-profit and not-for-profit organizations; provincial, territorial and municipal governments and their agencies; Indigenous governments, band councils and other not-for-profit groups representing Indigenous people; and provincial and territorial Crown corporations. The deadline to submit a complete application is May 22, 2026. More information on DS4Y and the application process can be found on the Digital Skills for Youth program website. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The Government of Canada approved the $4-billion Sunrise Expansion Program in British Columbia, after the Canada Energy Regulator recommended approval, subject to 47 binding conditions related to environmental protection, safety, and Indigenous engagement. This expansion of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system would add approximately 139 kilometres of new pipeline by constructing 11 pipeline looping segments, parallel to the existing line, and supplying additional natural gas compression, and upgrades and modifications to existing facilities. The expansion will provide up to 300 million cubic feet per day of additional transportation capacity on B.C.’s major natural gas transmission system. Ottawa said this gas will heat homes, business, schools and hospitals; support B.C.’s industrial and manufacturing sectors; and ensure that British Columbia has enough gas supply as LNG export facilities like Woodfibre LNG – which will be the first net-zero LNG facility in the world – come online. The project, which will begin construction this summer and is scheduled to be in service in November 2028, supports Canada’s trade diversification strategy through enhanced ability to meet natural gas demand from Asian markets. The project will also generate over $700 million in federal and provincial tax revenue for new roads, hospitals and schools, and create 2,500 jobs during peak construction, including for local Indigenous communities. Natural Resources Canada

Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told the Empire Club of Canada that one of his goals is to have five to 10 major projects with either final investment decisions made, or having broken ground by this time next year. Hodgson said the government has now referred 15 projects and six transformative strategies to the federal Major Projects Office, representing $126 billion in investment. He said he wants to keep projects moving through the approval process to construction, including Alberta’s west coast pipeline proposal, which he expects to receive by July 1. Last week, Hodgson told a parliamentary committee that public money could be used to fund the pipeline through the government’s Indigenous loan guarantee program. Canada will implement “coherent” strategies for electricity and nuclear energy within a year, Hodgson told the Empire Club. Since the launch of the Critical Minerals Production Alliance six months ago, Canada has announced 56 deals with every G7 country, plus Finland, Denmark, Australia, Estonia, Luxembourg and Ukraine, he said. These deals unlock $18.5 billion in Canadian projects, he noted. Natural Resources Canada  

Laurent Ferreira, CEO of the National Bank, said at the bank’s annual general meeting that the Government of Québec should accelerate mining, defence and infrastructure projects amid rising trade geopolitical tensions. Ferreira singled out Quebec as at risk of falling behind other provinces despite its strong energy and resource base. “More than half of the natural gas consumed in Quebec and Ontario comes from the United States. This makes no sense,” he said. He also called for the two provinces to build an “integrated northeast grid” combining hydro and nuclear power. Even as some peers – like RBC and Scotiabank – scale back their environmental, social and governance ambitions, Ferreira said that National Bank remains in an “excellent position” to meet its target of $20 billion in renewable energy lending by 2030.  The Logic

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Government of Canada’s spring economic update must rein in spending and set the stage for tax reform: C.D. Howe Institute

The Government of Canada must rein in spending and set a credible path to balanced budgets in its spring economic update, scheduled to be tabled in Parliament Apil 28, the C.D. Howe Institute said in an economic brief.

“With the economy operating near capacity and growth in productive capacity weak, [all governments in Canada] continue to run deficits and project rising debt ratios, undermining growth and living standards rather than supporting them,” the brief said.

All government jurisdictions project deficits for 2025/26, with seven of them projecting deficits of at least 1.5 percent of GDP, according to the brief.

From 2018/19 to 2024/25, federal program spending rose 7.3 percent on an annual average basis.

Program spending by all provincial and territorial governments rose at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent, with British Columbia at 8.7 percent – well ahead of population growth and inflation and far exceeding earlier budget projections.

The 2025 federal budget projected that the ratio of federal debt to GDP would still exceed 37.2 percent in 30 years.

“This projection exemplifies current lack of concern about large debts and fantasy about addressing them,” the brief said.

Governments talk about their spending as “investment” that will boost growth. But the issue is whether the government or the private sector is better placed to make investments that will yield an economic return, according to the brief.

“When the economy is at capacity, higher government spending and borrowing reduce the resources available for private sector investment,” the brief noted.

Canada’s youth will struggle to cope with the high federal and provincial debt burdens being passed forward to them, the brief warned.  

Canada needs stronger productivity growth, the brief said. A prime culprit in weak Canadian labour productivity is low business investment. Investment in machinery and equipment per worker is almost three times higher in the United States than in Canada.

The federal government’s spring economic update must prefigure a change in direction: much lower spending in non-priority areas that ballooned over the past decade to make room for higher defence spending, while reducing borrowing and preparing the groundwork for lower income taxes. Specifically, the spring update should:

• Present a realistic baseline for economic and fiscal prospects, most likely showing weaker growth and higher deficits and debt than in the 2025 Budget.
• Focus relentlessly on future challenges rather than self-congratulations over past actions.
• Set a clear track toward budget balance over a politically relevant period – say, four years – with credible measures to achieve it.
• Establish spending restraint targets based on mid-to-late 2010s levels, before spending growth exploded, rather than against future projections from today’s over-elevated base, supported by rigorous value-for-money reviews and independent oversight.
• Prepare for major tax reform that would incentivize investment, such as those in a recent C.D. Howe Institute paper outlining lower corporate income tax rates and base broadening, and deferral of taxation until profits are distributed, while shifting the tax mix from income to consumption.

“The federal government must acknowledge that Canada’s twin economic crises – stagnant investment and productivity, and U.S. trade aggression – require bold action, including measures that will meet some political resistance. It needs to build public support for lower spending, balancing budgets, and tax reform,” the economic brief said. C. D. Howe Institute

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The Government of Canada has pledged $200 million over 10 years for Space Port Nova Scotia to develop a “sovereign space launch” capability that would allow Canada to launch satellites without relying on American help. However, the space port currently consists of only a concrete pad in rural Nova Scotia. Spaceport Nova Scotia bills itself as Canada’s “first commercial spaceport.” “Spaceport Nova Scotia will help unlock the growth of the Canadian space sector and create lasting economic opportunity for Canadians,” reads a recent press statement by Maritime Launch Services (MLS), the operators of Spaceport Nova Scotia. But despite officially breaking ground four years ago, the latest Google Maps images of the site show little more than an unserviced concrete pad, two sea cans and a gravel access roads.

[Editor’s note: MLS says on its website that it’s building a “fully integrated site” that will offer:

• Custom-built launch pads with propellant storage and loading systems.
• Facilities for vehicle and payload processing, including clean room environments, tools and test equipment.
• Launch control centre with tailored computing, communications and visualization capabilities.
• Full suite of range services, including range safety, telemetry, electromagnetic compatibility, lightning protection, and weather support.
• Full launch logistics support including supply of propellants, gases, and other materials].

In an investor presentation this month, Maritime Launch Services said that the site could support up to 150 satellite launches per year. But to date, it’s only launched two rockets, neither of which reached space. The first, in July 2023, was by a York University student group. The second, last November, was the test launch of a single-stage rocket by the Dutch firm T-Minus Engineering. The land under Spaceport Nova Scotia isn’t even owned by Maritime Launch Services. Rather, the site is 334.5 acres of Crown land obtained through a 20-year lease with the Province of Nova Scotia. And yet, at the core of Canada’s plan to develop a “sovereign space launch” capability is an agreement to lease Spaceport Nova Scotia at a cost of more than $50,000 per day. Under the terms of a sublease struck last month, the Government of Canada agreed to rent the site for $20 million annual for at least the next 10 years. In October last year, Export Development Canada approved $10 million in development funding for the company. For 2025, MLS’s financial statements show it only brought in $14,980 in revenue, all of which was recorded as “lease income.” This was against operating expenses of $3.8 million. The year prior, there was no revenue, and operational losses of $3.4 million. National Post

[Editor's note: See also this op-ed by Marie Lumsden in the Halifax Examiner].

 The federal Privy Council Office (PCO), which supports the prime minister and cabinet ministers, spent $5.8 million on communications, marketing and research consultants, even though it has about 320 staff employed in similar roles, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). “The PCO already has hundreds of communications and research bureaucrats and then it spends millions getting consultants and contractors to do their homework,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF “It doesn’t make sense for taxpayers to pay bureaucrats to do a job and then pay consultants to do the same job. “The prime minister promised to cut this kind of wasteful spending and he needs to work harder to keep that promise, he said. The PCO spent more than $17.4 million on professional services in 2025, according to the access-to-information records obtained by the CTF. The PCO spent $5.8 million on marketing, communications, financial and strategy-related consulting and contractors. Meanwhile, the PCO spends about $40 million annually on staff performing similar functions, including $8.5 million on communications staff, $526,000 on marketing and advertising staff and $28 million on research and analysis roles. The PCO also spent $386,700 on furniture and $136,290 at the Pan Pacific Toronto hotel (now the Crowne Plaza Toronto – North York). The PCO spent $12,900 on a yoga teacher whose studio is nearly two hours by car from Ottawa, despite multiple local options. The PCO paid $3,975 to a “supplier of licensed products such as coins, swords, plaques, crests, gift items, specialty embroidery and woven items.” The department also spent $1,300 on a “productivity ninja,” $4,665 on art work, and $20,400 at Ottawa Executive Limousine. The PCO’s spending on “professional and special services” has skyrocketed over the past decade, rising from $9.6 million in 2015-16 to $36 million in 2024-25, according to the public accounts. The federal government’s overall spending on professional and special services more than doubled between 2015-16 and 2024-25. And despite Carney’s election promise, the Main Estimates show the government is again increasing spending on professional and special services to $26.6 billion in 2026-27, the CTF said. Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health became visibly frustrated with the head of an agency that ran a $250-million digital prescribing program over unresolved questions about why it failed and how its budget was spent. Canada Health Infoway, a government-funded non-profit, launched PrescribeIT in 2017 as part of “axe the fax” initiatives to replace older technology with digital tools. This particular service was meant to digitize the process of transmitting prescriptions from doctors’ offices to pharmacies. The Globe and Mail reported in February that the program was being cancelled because of low uptake, and the Standing Committee on Health held a hearing into its closing. The federal government said in its cancellation announcement that fewer than five percent of prescriptions across Canada were sent through PrescribeIT. Part of that is because, starting in 2025, the government began to charge pharmacies $0.20 a prescription to help fund the service, which led some pharmacists to abandon it. The reasons why physicians did not use it has been less clear, and Canada Health Infoway chief executive officer Michael Green was not able to provide a satisfactory answer to repeated questions from MPs of all parties. Regarding PrescribeIT’s budget, witnesses at the hearing said Telus Health earned about $98 million since 2017 as the primary technology vendor for the program. Green was not able to provide a clear picture of what the rest of the $250 million was spent on. The Globe and Mail

As the Government of Canada looks to criminalize the distribution of sexualized “deepfakes,” advocates are calling for it to go even further and provide a way to order that these images be removed. Their call comes as the parliamentary justice committee is set to wrap its study on Bill C-16, the Liberals’ latest piece of criminal justice legislation that, among other measures intended to combat gender-based violence, proposes to change the country’s laws against the non-consensual sharing of intimate images to include a “visual representation.” Michelle Abel, a vice-president at the National Council of Women of Canada and founder of a non-profit focused on combatting the exploitation of women and children, points to a law signed into effect last May by U.S. President Donald Trump known as the Take It Down Act. A bi-partisan effort, the law targets sexual images shared without a person’s consent, including AI-generated images known as “deepfakes,” and includes the provision that social media giants must remove such content once reported within 48-hours. “We need something more immediate like our U.S. counterpart,” Abel said. Canada last proposed requiring companies to remove such images within a 24-hour reporting window under its last attempt to legislate against online harms in Bill C-63, which died when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. National Post

The Government of Manitoba will ban youth from using social media and AI chatbots, Premier Wab Kinew said at an NDP fundraising gala in Winnipeg. The proposed law protecting youth from the harmful effects of social media will be the first of its kind in Canada. Kinew said the platforms are intentionally designed to get people "addicted to the infinite scroll," contributing to mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Social media use among youth has been linked to health issues ranging from reduced sleep and attention to long-term mental health issues, but academics say more study is needed to establish causes. Kinew didn't say the age the province is considering for the ban, how it will be enforced, or a timeline for when it would be implemented. Lawmakers in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Saskatchewan are also considering the idea. CBC News

The Government of Ontario plans to introduce legislation that would restrict foreign acquisition of provincial farmland and support the expansion of agricultural production in the Clay Belt region of northern Ontario. If passed, the legislation would align Ontario with the approach taken by other jurisdictions in Canada, including Alberta and Quebec, and protect local ownership of provincial agriculture by creating significant restrictions on the foreign acquisition of Ontario farmland. These changes would mean that farms and farmland owned by Ontario and Canadian farmers, often for generations, would continue with domestic ownership, reinforcing the strength and self-reliance of Ontario’s agri-food supply chain. Ontario is also proposing to expand agricultural production in northern Ontario by streamlining access to Crown land in the Clay Belt region. The Clay Belt spans 180,000 square kilometres on both sides of the Ontario–Quebec border and contains extensive areas of potentially fertile soils that are well-suited to agriculture, including forage, field crops and livestock production, with appropriate drainage and management. Govt. of Ontario

Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced $19.5 million in federal funding through the Regional Defence Investment Initiative for three Winnipeg-based projects that will help strengthen Canada’s defence industrial capacity:

• Magellan Aerospace Limited’s ($8 million in federal investment) establishment of an advanced machining centre in Winnipeg to enhance production capabilities necessary for aircraft components used in a variety of military aircraft.
• StandardAero’s ($8 million in federal investment) expansion of their Winnipeg campus for dual-use aerospace maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capacity, including the acquisition and installation of new equipment, and integration of advanced digital technologies.
• Win-Shield Devices’ ($3.5 million in federal investment) establishment of a manufacturing facility for personal protection equipment for military and civilian applications, including inclusive respirators. PrairiesCan

Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) announced over $13 million for four projects to support initiatives in all three regions of Nunavut. In the Kitikmeot region, the investment will support the Grays Bay Road and Port, which was referred to the federal Major Projects Office in early March. This funding will support the project through environmental data collection, early planning and design, and community engagement, building on existing work supported by Transport Canada. Funding in the Kivalliq region will enable continued environmental studies and community engagement to advance the Kivalliq Hydro‑Fibre Link project. In the Qikiqtaaluk region, funding will support Ampere’s business planning and the design of a new 7,222‑square‑foot economic development hub in Iqaluit. In addition, Sedna ROV Services will receive funding for Arctic‑capable, dual‑use vehicles to enable autonomous hydrographic surveying, strengthen environmental monitoring, and support Arctic defence readiness. CanNor

The Government of Alberta announced a “new and improved” technology and innovation strategy that includes  $8 million to establish the new Alberta IP Office, under Alberta Innovates. The Alberta IP Office will serve as a dedicated IP hub for Alberta’s innovation ecosystem, providing leadership, expertise and support across the IP lifecycle to turn Alberta-made innovations into commercial products, new ventures and sustained economic growth. While Alberta excels at research-driven innovation, gaps in fundamental IP awareness, protection and commercialization have limited the translation of those ideas into economic benefits for Alberta, the government said. “The Alberta IP Office is designed to address these gaps by building IP capability across Alberta’s innovation ecosystem and turning our innovation strengths to economic returns.” The Alberta IP Office will be governed by a board of directors and its operations informed by guidance from nationally and internationally recognized IP experts. The new Alberta Technology and Innovation Strategy 2.0 directs investment toward sectors where Alberta holds demonstrated strengths:

• Applied digital and emerging technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, quantum and cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing).
• Health innovation and life sciences.
• Advanced materials and aerospace (e.g. aviation and defence).
• Agriculture.
• Natural resource recovery (e.g. energy and critical minerals). Govt. of Alberta

Innovation Saskatchewan is broadening eligibility for the Saskatchewan Technology Startup Incentive (STSI) to include life sciences companies. The expansion opens the program to startups working in areas such as agricultural biotechnology, therapeutics, medical devices, genomics and digital health, connecting more Saskatchewan founders to critical early-stage capital and strengthening pathways to move research from lab to market. The expanded eligibility aligns with Saskatchewan's Research Strategy, which identifies life sciences as a high-potential sector where the province can translate strong research foundations into market-ready innovations. To support long-term momentum, the expanded STSI has been extended to 2029, providing greater certainty for startups and investors and enabling continued investment across the life sciences sector. STSI offers a non-refundable 45 percent tax credit to investors who support eligible early-stage Saskatchewan tech companies in digital and clean technology-and now, life sciences. Since 2018, the program has helped startups raise more than $122 million in private investment, supported over 550 jobs and connected 128 companies with more than 480 investors, the government said. Govt. of Saskatchewan

The Government of Ontario declared the Red Lake transmission line a priority project and designated Hydro One to develop and construct it. The new 162-kilometre double-circuit 230-kilovolt transmission line connecting through Dryden, Ear Falls and Red Lake. In the Red Lake region, electricity demand will increase potentially as high as 525 percent, rising from approximately 120 megawatts (MW) today to potentially over 750 MW by 2050. This increase is being driven by growing communities and a thriving mining sector that is expected to grow by 41 potential new mines by 2033. Ontario is also launching the new Northern Hydro Program to ensure northern communities have access to reliable, affordable power to fuel economic growth. This program will renew contracts for hydroelectric stations larger than 10 MW securing more than 1,000 MW of existing capacity, most of which is located in Northern Ontario. Govt. of Ontario

The Government of Ontario and the Government of Yukon signed a new partnership agreement that represents the first steps toward deploying small modular reactors (SMRs) in the Yukon. As part of this agreement, Ontario Power Generation and Yukon Energy will collaborate on the necessary groundwork to deploy SMRs to Yukon’s grid. Ontario is a global leader in nuclear power with the proven safe and successful operation of three nuclear generating stations and delivering large-scale refurbishments on-time and on-budget, the Ontario government said. The agreement leverages this expertise to strengthen Canada’s energy security and long-term sustainability for Yukon, while showcasing Ontario’s role as a reliable partner and exporter of clean nuclear energy expertise. The agreement also states that the two governments will explore opportunities to collaborate on other mutually beneficial energy projects and initiatives, including the development of microreactors in locations off the electricity grid, such as remote communities and mines. Govt. of Ontario

Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced more than $8.2 million in federal funding through the Regional Defence Investment Initiative for three projects in the Yorkton, Sask. area. These funds will support the growth and integration of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses into domestic and international defence supply chains. The investments are:

• Parkland Welding & Machine Ltd. and PWM Hydraulics Ltd. ($5 million from PrairiesCan) in Yorkton will expand its engineering, advanced manufacturing, fabrication, assembly, testing and proofing capabilities through the addition of CNC machining, robotics, and quality-control laboratory, enabling domestic production of defence products for customers in Canada and NATO allies.
• Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute ($3 million from PrairiesCan) in Humboldt will create an advanced military engineering and testing facility to provide off-road and on-road heavy-vehicle testing, hot and cold environmental chambers, and robotic and drone testing supported by data analytics for prairie manufacturers to meet domestic and international standards.
• Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Digital Integration Centre of Excellence ($277,000 from PrairiesCan) in Saskatoon will develop and test a low-cost multi-agent artificial intelligence drone system for autonomous command and control. This will strengthen Canada’s sovereign industrial base by delivering domestically developed counter-Uncrewed Aerial System capabilities. PrairiesCan

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) announced close to $3.1 million over three years for a partnership between the Government of Canada and Government of Prince Edward Island to support workers whose jobs have been directly or indirectly impacted by global tariffs to help them adapt, retrain and succeed. The funding will be invested through the new Canada-Prince Edward Island Workforce Tariff Response to support workers within the softwood lumber and steel sectors, as well as other industries directly and indirectly affected by tariffs. This new funding will support over 350 workers in P.E.I. to build new skills and seize emerging opportunities. Support will be delivered through SkillsPEI’s provincewide network to ensure timely, local and personalized support for workers who may benefit from retraining or employment assistance as they transition into new opportunities, including:

• unemployed workers seeking to gain new skills for in-demand jobs.
• workers whose employers are participating in Work-Sharing agreements, so that they may upskill or retrain as these industries adapt.
• employed workers seeking new skills to improve their resiliency within companies directly affected by tariffs and global market shifts or their supply chains, or within communities that rely heavily on those companies, such as single-industry communities. ESDC

 The Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) announced a Government of Canada investment of $2.95 million to help three Greater Sudbury businesses respond to global trade pressures and build for the future. Provided through FedNor and the federal Regional Tariff Response Initiative, these investments will help bring several important projects to life. Specifically, the funding will help steel products producer Jennmar Canada (receiving $1 million), steel pipe products producer Soluroc Sudbury (receiving $1 million) and fabrication and construction services firm Lopes Limited (receiving $975,000) boost productivity, diversify, expand into new markets, strengthen supply chains and grow domestic trade so they can stay competitive and resilient in a shifting global landscape. FedNor

Canada Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) announced $2.45 million in joint Government of Canada and Government of Nunavut funding to support the Nunavut government’s research in foundational geoscience and critical mineral potential in south and central Baffin Island. This funding will support work led through Natural Resources Canada’s Canada-Nunavut Geoscience Office, including geological fieldwork across south-central Baffin Island, analysis of collected geochemical data using existing artificial intelligence tools, and the publication of results. The project is expected to generate new geoscientific data on the mineral potential of the Cumberland granite in south-central Baffin Island. These results will help guide future exploration, attract private investment, and contribute to economic development in Nunavut, in line with Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy. CanNor

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Canada’s structural failure in risk capital threatens the country’s economic future

Canada is facing a structural failure in risk capital that now represents a serious threat to the country’s economic future, John Ruffolo, founder and managing partner of Maverix Private Equity, said in testimony to the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy.

“Canada needs to strategically and purposefully rebuild our capacity to build and scale globally innovation-based companies,” he said.

But new company formation in Canada is declining, particularly in innovation-intensive sectors, he noted. “Even more troubling, fewer Canadian firms are successfully scaling into global competitor.”

Many Canadian entrepreneurs point to the lack of risk capital available in Canada as the top concern, Ruffolo said.

Several rungs on Canada’s ladder of capital are too thin, he said. “When we do support our early opportunities but cannot fund them through their growth phase, we effectively export company-building to foreign jurisdictions.”

When companies reach the scale phase – often requiring tens of millions, and eventually hundreds of millions of dollars – the Canadian capital market largely steps aside, he said.

Founders are left with impossible choices: sell early, relocate the company, or accept foreign capital that frequently results in offshore control of intellectual property, governance and decision-making.

Canada must better align its largest pools of capital – particularly pension funds and financial institutions – with domestic risk-taking and growth investment, Ruffolo said.

Canada also needs to scale its domestic growth-capital ecosystem, he said. Also, “we must stop equating early exits with success.”

Policy frameworks should reward long-term scaling, patient ownership and domestic control, “rather than incentivizing premature sales that truncate economic impact.”

Moreover, “Canadian companies” must mean Canadian-controlled companies, he said. “We cannot continue to subsidize foreign-controlled entities under the guise of domestic industrial policy.”

Concluded Ruffolo: “If we do not fix access to risk capital – especially growth capital – we will continue to export our future.” John Ruffolo LinkedIn post

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Editor’s note: The theme of the 25^th Annual Research Money Conference, June 3 and 4 in Ottawa, is “Acting on Health: Reimagining Canada’s Promise.” Leading up to the conference, Research Money will be highlighting news stories, reports on research, commentaries and analyses focused on health and life sciences.

Government of Alberta will allow Albertans to access diagnostic screening and testing without a medical referral

The Government of Alberta is expand­ing access to private health care in the province by

intro­du­cing changes that would allow Alber­tans to access dia­gnostic screen­ing and test­ing

ser­vices without a medical refer­ral.

Primary and Pre­vent­at­ive Health Min­is­ter Adri­ana Lag­range tabled Bill 29, the Health Stat­utes Amend­ment Act, in the legis­lature.

If passed, it will allow Alber­tans to privately pur­chase “pre­vent­at­ive health test­ing” via self-refer­ral and allow phar­macists at com­munity phar­ma­cies to carry a lim­ited sup­ply of pre­scrip­tion med­ic­a­tion to treat addic­tion, such as sub­ox­one and sub­lo­cade.

The cur­rent Alberta Health care Insur­ance Act requires a refer­ral from a health pro­vider for

pub­licly fun­ded pre­vent­ive health test­ing. Pro­posed changes to the act would allow patients to self-refer for dia­gnostic screen­ing or test­ing ser­vices.

If an Alber­tan chooses to self-refer for pre­vent­ive health test­ing they will have to pay out of pocket or through private health insur­ance unless they meet the require­ments to be reim­bursed. At a tech­nical brief­ing, government offi­cials said eli­gib­il­ity require­ments, scope of self-refer­rals, how to access ser­vices, reim­burse­ment frame­work and rates will be determ­ined in the

reg­u­la­tions, with more details coming in the fall.

Private clin­ics will be made avail­able to offer the tests in accred­ited facil­it­ies across the province, accord­ing to offi­cials.

Alberta Med­ical Asso­ci­ation pres­id­ent Dr. Brian Wirzba said he's flagged con­cerns to the province, includ­ing allow­ing patients to self-refer for cer­tain dia­gnostic tests due to the

fre­quency of false pos­it­ives. He said 10 percent to 40 percent of scans show some level of

abnor­mal­ity, but fewer than one percent to two per cent of those abnor­mal­it­ies are sig­ni­fic­ant.

“It's medi­cine 101 – we learn not to test people who are unlikely to have a sig­ni­fic­ant

abnor­mal­ity because the risk of these false pos­it­ives is so high com­pared to real pos­it­ives,” Wirzba said.

“This [self-referral scheme] is being sold as something to improve access, but we are very con­cerned that this will actu­ally fur­ther bur­den the pub­lic sys­tem,” he said.

Wirzba said allow­ing patients to order tests cre­ates a dis­con­nect between patients and phys­i­cians who will have to inter­pret res­ults without know­ing what they're look­ing for and provide

addi­tional fol­low-up or refer­rals to spe­cial­ists. 

“This is not going to address the prob­lems that we have with access,” he said. “The gov­ern­ment is in charge of access and they could open up dif­fer­ent facil­it­ies to reduce the back­log, but instead they're going this approach and I think that's unfor­tu­nate.” Calgary Herald (1), Calgary Herald (2)

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) announced $35 million in funding through its Collaborative Research and Training Experience (CREATE) program. This year, 16 regular initiatives and five themed initiatives will receive support to help new researchers develop the skills and experience they need to thrive in Canada’s evolving workforce. The 2026 competition includes four genomics‑themed training initiatives supported through the Canadian Genomics Strategy and one quantum‑themed training initiative supported through Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy. In partnership with Canadian Heritage, NSERC also awarded 13 supplements to eligible active CREATE awards across seven universities to further enhance French‑language research training. The CREATE  The program supports the training and mentoring of highly qualified students and postdoctoral researchers through enriched, collaborative training environments to improve their job readiness for careers across a wide range of sectors, including industry, government, non‑governmental organizations, and academia. NSERC

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) announced the results of the 2025 Aid to Scholarly Journals (ASJ) competition. SHHRC is awarding more than $22.7 million over the next three years to support a diverse range of Canadian scholarly publications, reinforcing the country’s position as a leader in high-quality, open access, peer-reviewed research dissemination. ​The ASJ program is a cornerstone of Canada’s research publishing ecosystem, providing three-year grants to support the operations of scholarly journals and help increase their readership and impact as they navigate the evolving landscape of digital publishing. This latest cohort of recipients includes both long-standing publications and emerging journals, representing a wide breadth of disciplines across the social sciences and humanities.​The 2025 competition marks a significant milestone in SSHRC’s commitment to Open science. As part of this funding cycle, funded journals are actively working toward immediate open access models, without reader or author fees (called diamond open access). “These efforts ensure relevant research is accessible to the Canadian public, policymakers and the international academic community, without financial barriers,” SSHRC said. SSHRC

The Government of Manitoba is creating a new post-doctoral fellowship in HIV/AIDS research in honour of the late Stephen Lewis, Premier Wab Kinew announced on the day of Lewis’s funeral. “From serving as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations to his role as the United Nations secretary-general’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and as the co-founder of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which supports community-based HIV/AIDS initiatives in Africa, Stephen drew international attention to the scale of the crisis and the need for urgent action, funding and access to treatment,” Kinew said. The research fellowship, established through Research Manitoba, provides $60,000 in funding to support an exceptional post-doctoral researcher dedicated to advancing the understanding and management of HIV/AIDS in Manitoba. The fellowship will focus on communities disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS and may include research in areas such as disease transmission, prevention strategies, treatment interventions, community engagement and health-care discrepancies. The award will open to applicants in September 2026. Govt. of Manitoba

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Canada’s funding agencies should remove “diversity, equity and inclusion” criteria for postsecondary research funding: Jack Mintz

Current federal “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) criteria for postsecondary research funding are anathema to high-quality university education, according to an op-ed by Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and a distinguished fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“If the provinces that regulate and largely finance universities are to fulfill their educational responsibilities, they must put a stop to it,” he said.

Under the federal DEI criteria for prestigious Canada Research Chair applications, “all institutions that accept agency funding must make concerted efforts to meet their equity and diversity targets and provide a supportive and inclusive workplace.”

Equity targets for 2029 are 50.9 percent for gender, 22 percent for “racialized minorities,” 7.5 percent for disabled candidates and 4.9 percent for Indigenous – though some candidates may fall into more than one category.

“The message is clear: white males need not apply,” Mintz said.

Federal research funding distorts post-secondary hiring by favouring designated “marginalized” groups, he argued. “It is reverse discrimination that discourages or even bans white males from applying.”

Mintz said as vice-president and chair of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) from 2012-18, he witnessed the introduction of DEI “targets” in assessing grant applications, which occurred in 2016. “I warned that targets would soon become quotas, and that is what has happened.”

According to the SSHRC website, in 2024, 61.1 percent of SSHRC grants went to women, 24.7 percent to visible minorities, 14.9 percent to disabled people and 4.2 percent to Indigenous candidates.

By contrast, only 24.8 percent went to men, “which is well below their share of the professoriate,” Mintz said.

Whatever becomes of DEI, the provinces should have more input into the conditions under which federal funding is provided to universities, he said.

“To improve co-ordination and resolve conflicts there should be a formal mechanism for federal-provincial consultations over research funding. And provinces that don’t agree with Ottawa’s approach should be able to withdraw with compensation.” Financial Post

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More than 2,000 academic papers have cited or based some of their content on fictional case studies that weren’t identified as fabrications

More than 2,000 academic papers have cited or based some of their content on fictional case studies that have now been retroactively corrected by Canada’s leading pediatric journal, the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) reported.

The journal Paediatrics & Child Health, published by Oxford University Press for the Canadian Paediatric Society, publicly announced in February the blanket corrections of 138 articles, following a New Yorker investigation that reported on outrage in the academic community over fictional cases being presented as verifiable research.

Among them was a notorious fictionalized case study backing a controversial theory that babies could overdose on codeine through breast milk.

“This is a huge stain on medical literature,” said Dr. David Juurlink, head of the clinical pharmacology and toxicology division at Sunnybrook Health Sciences in Toronto. “They are fabrications, full stop.”

But the problem didn’t stop with those 138 articles, according to the report by Angela Dong and Blair Bigham at IJB in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

These articles were cited at least 117 times in peer-reviewed publications, they said. Those papers were, in turn, cited at least 2,194 times in academic research.

The fictionalized articles have had practical and far-reaching impacts on academic literature, Dong and Bigham reported.

The 138 case reports now labelled as fictional were never originally presented or declared as such.

From 2001 through at least 2012, case reports published in the Paediatrics & Child Health series – called CPSP Highlights – were framed as “short clinical examples” drawn from pediatric survey findings. That wording suggested these were real patient cases, not invented ones.

Only in 2015 did author submission guidelines explicitly start mentioning “fictional” cases.

None of the so-called case studies has been retracted; instead they have been corrected to make it clear the examples used are fiction.

In its February statement, the Paediatrics & Child Health journal acknowledged that assumptions about the veracity of the case studies were “understandable given the columns had no disclaimer to indicate the cases are fictionalized.”

Perhaps the most compelling example of the fallout such fictionalized cases can have involves the work of former SickKids hospital researcher Dr. Gideon Koren and his co-author, Dr. Michael Rieder.

Koren co-authored the fictionalized “Baby Boy Blue” case study, a 2010 Paediatrics & Child Health paper that built upon his now discredited hypothesis that infants could suffer opioid toxicity through breast milk.

The article, which centred on a single dramatic infant case and a detailed pathophysiologic explanation, circulated for years as genuine clinical evidence and drove years of warnings against codeine use while breastfeeding.

“It led to babies in large numbers not being breastfed, and being given formula in the interest of safety,” said Juurlink, who spent more than a decade challenging Koren’s theory. Koren, who surrendered his Canadian medical licence in 2019 in the wake of professional misconduct investigations, now lives abroad.

Fictional teaching cases are not inherently problematic, said Juurlink, so long as this is disclosed at the time of publication. “One of the jobs of journals is to educate readers and sometimes they do it with fictional case reports.”

Without clear disclosures by journals, however, well-intentioned fictional teaching material becomes indistinguishable from fabrication, he said.

Currently, it is not clear if Paediatrics & Child Health will revisit individual articles. For now, 138 studies remain online under identical corrections, even though contributors’ accounts and archived journal descriptions suggest a more complicated record. Investigative Journalism Bureau

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Ottawa-based research and policy think-tank The Transition Accelerator launched the newly refreshed Centre for Industrial Policy (CIP) (originally launched in 2023 as the “Centre for Net-Zero Industrial Policy”), announcing David Wolfe as the CIP’s new chair. Wolfe currently serves as co-director of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and as a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. He will lead the CIP alongside Bentley Allan, Transition Accelerator vice-president, future economy. The CIP’s aim is to help create an integrated strategic vision for Canada’s economic future, translate that vision into smart policy design, and provide the rigorous analytics needed to evaluate and update Canada’s industrial strategy. To achieve those goals, the CIP will bring researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders together with the country’s best analytical talent to provide an unbiased assessment of Canada’s industrial policy. As part of the launch, Allan introduced a new framework to clarify and evaluate the effectiveness of industrial policy, along with three new CIP policy briefs. Grieg Mordue (McMaster University) and James Meadowcroft (Carlton University) look to the history of Canada’s auto sector to put today’s policy debates in context. Matthew da Mota (Canadian Shield Institute) and Laurent Carbonneau (Council of Canadian Innovators) argue for the development of a Canadian dual-use defence-industrial commons. Michelle German (StrategyCorp) and Derek Eaton (The Transition Accelerator) explore Canada’s industrialized construction advantage. Transition Accelerator

COAST, global startup investor Founders Factory, and climate investor Blue Action announced the six ocean tech ventures joining Blue Action Canada’s second cohort, focused on maritime and port decarbonization, coastal resilience, nature and biodiversity, and defence technologies. The program has expanded internationally for the first time, welcoming U.K.-based ACUA Ocean and Armada Technologies alongside Canadian innovators. In a boost to British Columbia’s blue economy, Blue Action Canada will be supporting the U.K. ventures in establishing and growing their businesses in the region. Canadian cohort members will benefit from commercialization support and global go-to-market access via Founders Factory and Blue Action’s international network of port, shipping and government partners, which include Port of San Diego, Zebox, AltaSea, Grand Bahama Port Authority and the Government of Barbados. The program, supported in partnership with Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, will culminate in Victoria and Vancouver in May 2026, coinciding with Web Summit Vancouver and the MariTech event in Victoria. COAST

For the first time, applications are now open nationwide for Project Zero, an incubator of the Victoria, B.C.-based Synergy Foundation. The Project Zero Incubator is a free, six‑month program that supports circular economy entrepreneurs in turning ideas into launch‑ready ventures. From July to December, selected participants will refine their business models, strengthen core entrepreneurial skills, receive one‑on‑one mentorship, and connect with a national network of industry experts and peers. The program culminates in a final pitch event, where founders present their ventures to an audience of investors, industry experts, and media. Project Zero is a free, cohort‑based program designed for idea‑stage to early‑revenue ventures, and often works well as a pathway for founders who aren’t ready for later‑stage accelerator programming. Key dates:

• Info session: Wednesday, May 20 from 12-1 p.m. Pacific Time (sign up here).
• Applications close: Friday, June 19 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Synergy Foundation

Toronto-based AI developer Cohere and Germany-based Aleph Alpha announced they’re joining forces “to provide the world with an independent, enterprise-grade sovereign alternative in an era of growing AI concentration.” The transatlantic alliance would combine Cohere’s global AI scale with Aleph Alpha’s strong research excellence and deep institutional relationships, forging a globally competitive AI champion backed by Canadian and German ecosystems. The combined firm will keep Cohere’s name and be headquartered in Canada. Cohere said it will also remain Canadian-owned. By pooling top-tier engineering talent and computational resources across two G7 nations, the partnership aims to significantly accelerate the development of next-generation frontier models and systems while providing a secure alternative to dependence on any single vendor or infrastructure stack. “Organizations globally are demanding uncompromising control over their AI stack. This transatlantic partnership unlocks the massive scale, robust infrastructure and world-class R&D talent required to meet that demand,” said Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO of Cohere. Collectively, the two companies aim to deliver a secure alternative for customized AI in highly-regulated sectors – including the public sector, finance, defense, energy, manufacturing, telecommunications, and health care. As part of this partnership, the combined entity will partner with the companies of Schwarz Group, an international leader in the retail industry, to deploy a sovereign offering on its cloud service STACKIT. The companies of Schwarz Group intend to back an upcoming Series E funding as lead investor with a US$600-million (€500M) structured financing commitment. Cohere

San Francisco-based Anthropic’s new advanced AI model, Mythos, has sparked fears about the threat to traditional software security after Anthropic said the preview model had uncovered "thousands" of major vulnerabilities in "every major operating system and web browser." Anthropic has rolled out Claude Mythos Preview through a controlled initiative ​called "Project Glasswing," granting access to tech majors including Amazon, ​Microsoft, Nvidia and Apple. Anthropic also extended access to a group of more than 40 additional organizations that build or maintain ​critical software infrastructure. Experts warn that Mythos’s advanced coding and autonomous capabilities could dramatically accelerate sophisticated cyberattacks, particularly in sectors such as banking that rely on complex, interconnected and often decades-old technology systems. The AI Security Institute, which is part of Britain’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, found in its analysis that Mythos could autonomously exploit complex network and software vulnerabilities that would take human professionals days to complete. Anthropic hasn’t released Mythos to the public, which was welcomed by federal AI Minister Evan Solomon’s office. Global financial systems need to "come to grips" with the risks posed by rapid advances in AI models like Mythos, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said. Whether it's Mythos or another AI model, Macklem said, the ability of these new technologies to both expose and exploit vulnerabilities "puts a premium" on having strong cybersecurity protections in place. CBC News

The potential economic consequences of new artificial intelligence models such as Anthropic’s Mythos may require a “whole of government” response rather than oversight by a collection of agencies such as the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), the head of the Canada’s largest securities regulator said. “I do in the back of my mind – and I think many people would echo this – wonder if the technology is so transformative that we need a different approach,” Grant Vingoe, chief executive of the OSC said at a Bloomberg conference. Beyond the cybersecurity risks, fast-developing AI is poised to have a significant impact on a range of capital markets activities, Vingoe said, from pricing investments and synthesizing information to conducting asset management. Until now, the OSC’s approach to new technology has been to apply traditional principles of securities regulation and set rules for capital markets activities in a “technology neutral” manner. When it comes to AI, regulators are looking to ensure accountability through documentation and system integrity to protect against cyber risk. But Vingoe said he now sees fear – and understands it – when he speaks to groups of investment professionals and asset managers who are contemplating what the effect of AI might be on the entire investment management process and the skilled professionals who carry it out. Financial Post

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has written a letter of apology to the community of Tumbler Ridge for failing to alert RCMP about the account of the Tumbler Ridge shooter. The company shared the letter with the local news website Tumbler RidgeLines, which published it in full. "I want to express my deepest condolences to the entire community. No one should ever have to endure a tragedy like this,” reads the letter signed by Altman and dated April 23. "I cannot imagine anything worse in the world than losing a child. My heart remains with the victims, their families, all members of the community, and the province of British Columbia." The company behind ChatGPT has faced criticism after it was revealed by the Wall Street Journal that the account of the 18-year-old shooter – who police say killed eight people, including six children, in Tumbler Ridge on February 10 – wasn't reported to police despite posts about gun violence. Altman acknowledged that his company should have alerted law enforcement about the account of the shooter, which was flagged for problematic activity in advance of the tragedy but was not escalated to alerting authorities in Canada. Altman committed to authoring an apology after meeting with B.C. Premier David Eby and Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka at the beginning of March, but said he wanted to take some time before doing so in order to give the community the opportunity to "grieve in their own time." Altman's company is being sued by one Tumbler Ridge family, who alleges the company "had specific knowledge of the shooter's long-range planning of a mass casualty event," but "took no steps to act upon this knowledge." Eby also shared the letter on social media, writing "the apology is necessary, and yet grossly insufficient for the devastation done to the families of Tumbler Ridge." CBC News

San Francisco-based Mozilla open source alliance is collaborating with R&D partners like Montreal’s Mila AI institute and backing startups like Kitchener, Ont.-based Transformer Lab as it looks to build open source alternatives to the AI of OpenAI, Anthropic and other U.S. firms. Mozilla Foundation subsidiary MZLA, mostly known for maintaining the Thunderbird email client, announced the launch of the Thunderbolt AI client, which can tie into German company deepset AI’s Haystack platform for AI orchestration and infrastructure. According to MZLA, Thunderbolt is designed for businesses that want an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Enterprise, and all of the lock-in and data security concerns that come with using them. "The problem we are solving today is one of sovereignty and control," MZLA CEO Ryan Sipes told The Register in an email conversation. "Do you really want to build your AI workflows on top of a proprietary service from OpenAI or Anthropic . . . not to mention having all your internal company data flowing through their systems?" Mozilla envisions Thunderbolt as "a sovereign AI client" that's open source, extensible, and can be used to access AI chatbots for things like research, data analysis, and all the other things you can do with enterprise AI tools. The Register

Widespread automation won’t happen in the next few years as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have predicted, said MIT professor and economist Daron Acemoglu, speaking at the DemocracyXChange Summit in Toronto. That’s “good news if you want to actually do regulation” and to “try to create a democratic framework for controlling these very, very powerful companies and individuals,” the Nobel laureate added. AI progress has been “spell-binding,” Acemoglu said, but he warned of dire consequences if its developers do eventually achieve their declared target of creating artificial general intelligence. “Goodbye to democracy, goodbye to shared prosperity, goodbye to jobs,” he said. He added that there’s still time for policymakers to intervene to encourage “pro-worker AI,” which enhances rather than replaces human capabilities. The Logic

Communications giant Bell and Toronto-based Celestica Inc., which provides data centre infrastructure and advanced technology solutions, today announced a collaboration to advance the development of a Canadian sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure stack. Bell and Celestica said they’ll work together to help define and advance a sovereign approach to AI infrastructure designed to support sensitive workloads, particularly for governments and regulated industries, including Canadian and allied manufacturing and integration capacity. The collaboration combines Bell's full-stack AI offering – anchored by its national fibre network, data centre infrastructure, software, cloud capabilities, professional services and partner ecosystem – with Celestica's hardware supply chain for sovereign AI infrastructure, including switching, storage, rack integration, thermal management and power infrastructure. The collaboration aims to support governments and regulated industries deploying AI workloads that must remain in Canada, under Canadian control. Bell Canada

Vancouver-based cryptocurrency firm Avax One Technology signed a front-end engineering and design (FEED) proposal for a 10-megawatt off-grid natural gas-powered AI and high-performance computing data centre near Calgary. The FEED study will be led by Alberta-based BlueFlare Energy Solutions and will assess technical design, costs and regulatory requirements ahead of a potential final investment decision. Avax said that it sees the project as part of a broader push to develop modular, power-first data centre infrastructure in energy-advantaged regions, such as Alberta and Texas. In addition to the FEED proposal, the company also acquired 220 Bitmain Antminer S21 Pro mining machines set for deployment in Alberta. According to the company, the miners will be used to immediately monetize the site's power capacity through Bitcoin mining, supporting a dual-track strategy. Data Center Dynamics

St. John’s, Nfld-based CoLab AI Inc. announced a multi‑year, multimillion‑dollar agreement with Bombardier Inc. to deploy artificial intelligence solutions that will support the design and manufacturing processes of its business jets. Through its collaboration with CoLab, Bombardier will harness AI to drive innovation throughout product development cycles, enabling faster timelines and adding advanced AI‑driven capabilities to current procedures. CoLab’s EngineeringOS platform helps engineers make better, faster design decisions by connecting people, data, and AI in one collaborative workspace – capturing expert knowledge as a natural part of day-to-day work, to help engineers make decisions. Business Wire

Canada’s life sciences sector lacks an anchor firm and only contributes about two percent to the country’s annual GDP. At the MaRS Impact Health conference, some, including HealthCareCAN president and CEO Michelle McLean, think a more fulsome industrial strategy could be the key to unlocking Canadian life sciences’ full economic potential. Wendy Zatylny, CEO of the Canadian biotechnology industry association BIOTECanada, argued on stage that the country is “very much at a generational moment” now. “It’s the first time that I’ve seen a federal government – and with provincial governments, as well – really lean into life sciences and identify it as a key sector for economic growth,” she said. Zatylny cited the new Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Sector Task Force, Life Sciences Fund via Health Emergency Readiness Canada, and BDC Capital’s $150-million Life Sciences Venture Fund as positive signals. Zatylny, who represents 230 companies across Canada, said she would like to see the government unite industrial life sciences policy with procurement. She argued that Canada also needs to reduce regulatory barriers and streamline clinical trial, drug approval, and listing and reimbursement processes, and find a way to “recognize and value Canadian-rooted innovation in the access and pricing decisions.” But Brian Bloom, tco-founder, chair, and CEO of Toronto-based life sciences investment bank Bloom, Burton & Co, does not think Canada needs a life sciences industrial strategy. “Whenever there’s an industrial strategy, there’s huge waste,” Bloom said, arguing that the private sector is much more efficient at bringing new products and services to market when there is a profit motive. BetaKit

Canada is the only major Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation country without a research-based biopharma anchor company. “We are the best in the world at inventing things and the worst at keeping them. We do all the hard work, take all the risk and other nations (large or small) buy them and sell back the drugs we invented at a premium,” Ali Ardakan, founder at Novateur Ventures and co-founder and CEO of Optigo Biotherapeutics, said in a LinkedIn Post. There are about 2,000 life sciences companies in British Columbia, he noted. “We have world-class universities. We pioneered stem cell commercialization. We made key COVID vaccine components and the first covid treatment. Twenty-six drugs have made it to global markets that originated in B.C. over the past 25 years.” Yet in Denmark (population 6 million), just one anchor company, Novo Nordisk achieved:

• In 2024, Novo's market cap ( over $500 billion) exceeded the size of Denmark's entire annual GDP.
• In 2023, 50 percent of all GDP growth in Denmark was because of Novo, including half of all new private sector jobs generating $2.3 billion in income tax in one year.
• $1.8 billion in foundation research grants in 2024.
• 130+ startups spawned through Nova’s innovation institute.

Nova was built from a company that started making insulin using a process invented in Canada, and whose patents were sold for $1 to Novo's founders, Ardakan pointed out. Without an anchor company, B.C.-born QLT Inc.. Aspreva Pharmaceuticals. AnorMED. ID Biomedical Sierra Oncology and others were all acquired and all are gone, he said. Ali Ardakan post on Linked In

[Editor’s note: Ardakan, along with Gordon McCauley from adMare BioInnovations, which has written reports about the importance of having life sciences anchor companies, will be will be in Ottawa on a panel, "Creating a Life Sciences Economic Engine," at the 25th annual Research Money conference on June 3 to 4].

AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.’s new Monark nuclear power reactor, which had aimed to produce substantially more electricity than previous CANDU reactors, will actually produce slightly less, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The Monark has been marketed by AtkinsRéalis as having an electricity generation capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW). However, the CNSC recently updated its website to reflect a lower capacity of around 850 MW, as the regulator begins a preliminary review of the Monark. AtkinsRéalis disputed that, asserting that its submission to the CNSC was for a 925-megawatt reactor. Since the last CANDUs were built decades ago, the reactor market has continued a longstanding trend toward ever-larger units. It’s unclear how the Monark’s diminished output might affect its prospects as AtkinsRéalis pursues orders from Ontario’s two largest power utilities. Ontario Power Generation Inc. proposes to build a new nuclear plant dubbed Wesleyville with a capacity of up to 10,000 MW; Bruce Power LP is planning a new station at its existing Bruce facility, featuring up to 4,800 MW. Chris Gadomski, a nuclear energy analyst with BloombergNEF, said if the Monark’s capital cost per megawatt is competitive, then its smaller size “shouldn’t make much difference,” he said. The Globe and Mail

Waterloo, Ont.-based Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) announced it was selected as a project lead under Next Generation Manufacturing Canada’s (NGen) Advanced Manufacturing Technology Program to build manufacturing capacity for nuclear microreactors (typically designed to produce one to 20 megawatts of electricity), expanding access to strategically deployable power. To support this work, the federal government is providing $1.2 million, representing 40 percent of the entire project cost. The remaining 60 percent will be contributed by CSMC and its project partners. Ontario-based NGen is a federally supported global innovation cluster. In collaboration with its partners, Samuel Automation and Stern Laboratories, the project will advance the development of a dedicated advanced manufacturing cell for in-factory production of CSMC's microreactor systems. This marks CSMC's third project supported by NGen. Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation

Canadian oil and gas companies are taking a new hard line against the federal government’s industrial carbon tax. The tax is a linchpin of Ottawa’s energy agreement with Alberta. The agreement calls for an increase to the industrial carbon tax to $130 per tonne from $95, but several industry leaders said the policy undercuts their competitiveness as global demand for oil spikes and the industry looks to boost its export capacity. Steven Guilbeault, a former environment minister under Prime Minister Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and who resigned from cabinet the day Carney signed his agreement with Alberta, wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Star to say the country was at a “crossroads.” “In the coming days and weeks, the federal government will decide whether the country compromises its climate commitments or embraces a more sustainable path towards a greener future,” the Quebec MP wrote. Alberta hopes to achieve through its energy agreement with Ottawa the construction of a new million-barrel-per-day pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to British Columbia’s northern coast to increase access Asian markets. The main sticking point in negotiations between Ottawa and Alberta is how quickly to ramp up the price on emissions and how stringent it will be, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said. She acknowledged, however, that some companies don’t think they should be paying at all. National Post

The British Columbia Energy Regulator issued an order to LNG Canada related to “black smoke flaring” after an inspection revealed at least two instances of non-compliance with the company’s permit for its LNG facility in Kitimat. The order says staff with the regulator conducted an inspection of the facility on B.C.’s northwest coast in February and found two instances of black smoke emissions, with one event lasting more than seven hours. The order says the company’s permit stipulates it must ensure flaring during normal operations doesn’t result in the emission of black smoke, or emission during “process upsets” that exceeds a total of 15 minutes in a two-hour period. The order signed by Patrick Smook, vice-president for compliance and operations, says the company must fulfil certain reporting requirements starting April 22. The regulator has also ordered the company to submit a report by August 15 that identifies the root causes of the black smoke emission, along with measures to prevent it, and to implement those measures by October 15. The order follows the release of LNG Canada monthly air emissions reports that show flaring exceeded permitted volumes between last October and January. The Canadian Press

U.S. defence company LeafStar Holdings LLC is looking to raise as much as $100 million to build a manufacturing facility in Ontario focusing mainly on small arms that would supply the Canadian military and expand the domestic production of weaponry. Leafstar told the Ontario government in meetings that the company is seeking to build a factory in Southern Ontario that would make small arms and light weapons that can be used by military forces and private security contractors, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions. LeafStar, a Virginia-based private equity company operating in the defence sector, already operates a small-arms plant in Sweden that has secured contracts with larger defence companies to manufacture weapons for the Swedish military. The project in Ontario would be based on a similar business model. The company intends to raise between $70 million and $100 million from investors – mainly European and Canadian – to break ground on the project, the sources said. LeafStar aims to set up a Canadian subsidiary in Ontario that would run the plant. The Globe and Mail

Norway said it will present a bill in ​parliament by year-end to ban children from using ‌social media until they turn 16, making technology companies responsible for the task of age verification. Several European nations are seeking to rein in ​children's use of social media after Australia took ​the lead with a world-first ban on under-16s last ⁠December. "We are introducing this legislation because we want ​a childhood where children get to be children," Norway’s Prime ​Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement. "Play, friendships, and everyday life must not be taken over by algorithms and screens. This ​is an important measure to safeguard children's digital ​lives." The government did not say which applications would be targeted. Australia's ban ‌covers ⁠Meta apps such as Instagram and Facebook as well as TikTok, Snapchat, Google's YouTube and Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter. YouTube in a statement it ​had invested for ​over a ⁠decade in children's safety to ensure its platforms deliver age-appropriate experiences that also empower ​parents. Reuters

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Editor’s note: The theme of the 25^th Annual Research Money Conference, June 3 and 4 in Ottawa, is “Acting on Health: Reimagining Canada’s Promise.” Leading up to the conference, Research Money will be highlighting news stories, reports on research, commentaries and analyses focused on health and life sciences.

Disconnected health systems prevent doctors from easily sharing patient records

An overwhelming 99 percent of physicians^¹ reported that disconnected health systems prevent them from easily sharing patient records, test results or clinical notes, according to a joint survey by the Canadian Medical Association and Abacus Data.

Sixty-six percent of physicians surveyed said disconnected health systems “often” affect their ability to provide care, while 26 percent said “sometimes” and six percent said “rarely.”

Almost half of those doctors (48 percent) report having seen a patient experience serious adverse health consequences including disease progression or missed diagnoses because of disconnected systems.

The survey also finds that 97 percent of doctors^² have had to intervene to prevent harm or address consequences after a patient followed false or misleading health information found online, including advice from artificial intelligence.

Thirty-four percent said they have to intervene “often,” while 45 percent said “sometimes” and 18 percent said “rarely.”

This follows the CMA’s 2026 Health and Media Tracking Survey, which found people who followed health advice from AI were five times more likely to experience harms than those who did not.

“Doctors face an uphill battle trying to provide timely patient care when they are routinely dealing with health systems that cannot communicate with each other and when patients are inundated with false health information that can lead to unintended harms,” said Dr. Margot Burnell, CMA president. “We need modern, connected digital health systems and stronger federal action to promote trusted health information.”

The Physician Pulse survey was completed by 645 practising physicians between April 6 to 13, 2026.

Last week, the CMA brought frontline physician voices and health system solutions to Parliament Hill through its new Physician Advocacy Network.

Alongside representatives from 11 provincial and territorial medical associations, physician advocates from across the country met directly with parliamentarians to discuss what’s happening in exam rooms, hospitals and communities – and how federal decisions shape those realities.

The conversations focused on pressing health care challenges and solutions: easing physicians’ day to day administrative burden through smarter digital tools and secure data sharing, strengthening access to team based primary care, countering false health information, supporting Indigenous-led approaches to closing health gaps and making it easier for internationally trained physicians to care for patients in Canada. CMA

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

 A new group has launched with its own idea on how to spend $750 million of federal venture capital funding allocated in Budget 2025. The nonprofit Canadian Startup Capital Association (CSCA), launched by Saskatoon-based angel investor Jesse Weibe, said the new association marks a national effort to strengthen Canada's early-stage capital ecosystem by connecting, supporting, and scaling organizations and investors across the country. Wiebe spent five years backing early-stage technology entrepreneurs and connecting them to investors across Western Canada with Startup TNT. The CSCA aims to support all organizations that invest in domestic tech startups from pre-seed to Series A funding. The launch of the CSCA comes as two of Canada’s leading investor advocacy organizations have put forth different perspectives on how the federal government ought to spend the $750 million allocated in Budget 2025. The National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) wants the money to go to pre-seed and seed investing and to support early-stage funding networks on the ground, while the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) said it should be committed to growth, meaning Series B funding and beyond. The CSCA has suggested the feds allocate 10 to 20 percent ($75 million to $150 million) of the $750-million envelope towards pre-seed and seed investing and the remainder to growth. It has called for a third of that amount to go to programs that activate more early-stage Canadian capital and help commercialize intellectual property from domestic universities, and the remaining two-thirds to finance emerging managers and micro-funds. CSCA said it will work alongside high-performing grassroots networks, early-stage, and emerging fund managers to amplify their impact and strengthen collaboration and diversity across regions. CSCA has 19 founding members. Across all founding and committed member organizations, the new association said it collectively represents more than 3,500 active investors, $750 million+ in direct early-stage capital deployed, $3 billion+ in follow-on capital raised by portfolio companies, and tens of thousands of founders supported from coast to coast. Canadian Capital Startup Association

See also: Canada needs more investment in early-stage startups and to build an investment community “ecosystem”

Ottawa should spend $750 million in venture capital strategy to close the gaps in Canada’s early-stage capital market

Securing sufficient early-stage investment for startups requires a network on the ground

Toronto-headquartered Radical Ventures led a US$18-million Series A funding round for New York-based Mosaic, which develops AI tools for deal makers in private equity and which plans to expand further into private credit and investment banking. As part of the round, Ryan Shannon, partner at Radical Ventures, and Troy Pospisil, founder & CEO of legal tech leader Ontra.ai (and Mosaic's first investor), will join Mosaic's board of directors. John Megrue, vice chairman of Radical Ventures and former CEO of Apax, will serve as a strategic advisor to Mosaic's CEO. Mosaic combines deterministic, rules-based calculations with AI-driven ingestion and agentic workflows to help deal teams move faster, reduce spreadsheet errors and focus on applying investment judgment rather than performing mechanical tasks. Mosaic said it will use the funds to expand its New York-based team. Investor Technology Group Inc.

Vancouver-based ViewsML raised $4.9 million in a seed funding round led by Wittington Ventures. Additionally, new investors Continuum Health Ventures and Mayo Clinic contributed alongside repeat investors RiSC Capital, Debiopharm, WUTIF, Defined, and e-Fund. ViewsML is developing the world’s first virtual biomarker library using artificial intelligence to generate per-cell biomarker spatial insights from pathology images without the need for laboratory staining. As demand for scalable, high-resolution biomarker data grows across drug development and diagnostics, traditional staining workflows have become a critical bottleneck. Virtual biomarker staining represents a fundamental shift in how immunostaining is generated and analyzed, enabling an entirely new paradigm for assay development, ViewsML said. The company said the capital will be used to accelerate commercialization of ViewsML’s AI-driven virtual biomarker staining platform; expand its strategic partnerships; advance clinical validation of virtual biomarker panels; and grow the company’s engineering, scientific and commercial teams. ViewsML

Toronto vegan cheese startup AuX Labs raised US$4 million in funding to accelerate commercialization of its precision fermentation platform for dairy proteins, as the company moves to bring cheese products with conventional melt, stretch and cooking performance to market. NYA Ventures and Nàdarra Ventures led the round, with participation from Bluestein Ventures, Builders VC, Congruent Ventures and Verdex Capital. AuX said the new capital would help speed up the launch of a platform designed to produce real dairy proteins through precision fermentation, targeting products that performed like traditional cheese while remaining commercially viable at scale. Alongside the financing news, AuX Labs said its casein had obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) designation in April 2025, a milestone that helped support its move toward broader commercialization. The company added that it had already been piloting with customers ahead of launch. Protein Production Technology International

Vancouver-based cleantech startup Carbonyx raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to develop technology that converts industrial waste into usable materials while capturing carbon. The round was led by WUTIF Capital, with participation from Spring Impact Capital, UBC Venture Funds, and several angel investors. The company was spun off from academic research at the University of British Columbia and aims to make carbon capture economically viable through material recovery. Carbonyx’s core technology accelerates the natural carbon-capturing properties of certain minerals by using a combination of electricity and water to trigger chemical reactions. This process enables the transformation of waste material into commercially useful outputs such as carbonates, which have applications in multiple industrial sectors, and silica, which is widely used in products ranging from tires to personal care items. The funding will be used to expand Carbonyx’s technical team and build a demonstration-scale system roughly the size of a shipping container. Over the next few years, the company aims to reach commercial-scale deployment within two to three years, with a longer-term goal of achieving megatonne-level carbon removal capacity within a decade. Founders Today

New York-based Apollo Global Management announced that Apollo-managed funds agreed to acquire a 40-percent stake in Calgary-based gas processing firm Pembina Gas Infrastructure Inc. (PGI), from funds managed by New York-based KKR. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Pembina Pipeline Corporation, which operates and manages PGI’s facilities, will maintain its 60 percent stake in PGI and the existing governance structure will remain unchanged upon closing. Since its formation as a joint venture between Pembina and KKR in 2022, PGI has grown into one of the largest independent gas processing platforms in Western Canada, with a combined processing capacity of approximately five billion cubic feet per day. PGI currently operates 23 gas processing plants, approximately 3,900 kilometers of gathering pipelines and approximately 330,000 barrels per day of NGL extraction capacity. Apollo Global Management

REPORTS & POLICIES

Canada’s decades-long decline in entrepreneurship is getting worse: Montreal Economic Institute

The decades-long decline in entrepreneurship in Canada has become more pronounced in recent years, exacerbated by recent policy choices regarding taxation, regulation, and subsidies, according to an economic note from the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

“Marginal tax rates that penalize success, government programs that crowd out private capital, and rising compliance costs all work against the entrepreneurial activity that drives job creation and economic growth,” said note author Charles Lammam, senior fellow at the MEI.

The number of self-employed workers with employees – a key measure of entrepreneurship – has been falling in Canada. From around 867,000 in 2005, there were only 716,000 in 2025, a drop of 18 percent despite a growing population.

In Quebec, the decline is even steeper, going from 194,000 to 122,000, a decrease of more than one-third third over the same period.

The data on the creation of new businesses also confirms this concerning pattern, according to Lammam.

In 2023, new firm creation represented 12.3 percent of active businesses, according to Statistics Canada data. This rate corresponds to around half of the 25 percent achieved in the early 1980s.

Exits have also declined, pointing to an economy where creative destruction – the process by which innovative new firms challenge and replace existing ones – is not happening at robust rates, Lammam said. “Fewer entrepreneurs launching businesses means less innovation, and ultimately, a less dynamic economy.”

A series of federal tax changes since 2016 – including a new top income tax bracket (raised to 33 percent from 29 percent), proposed changes targeting private corporations, and an attempted increase to the capital gains inclusion rate – signalled hostility toward entrepreneurs and discouraged the risk-taking that drives business formation, Lammam said.

Combined with provincial rates, entrepreneurs in Quebec now face a marginal tax rate of 53.3 percent, fifth-highest among Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation countries.

In a research paper published in 2023, the MEI estimated that the creation of a new tax bracket in 2016 prevented the creation of 9,820 new businesses in Canada, based on the reduction in the business entry rate.

Since 2018, the federal government has increased other costs for entrepreneurs by raising carbon and payroll taxes, Lammam said. “The effect has been to discourage entrepreneurship and divert resources that could otherwise support hiring or expansion.”

The growth of regulation also contributed to this dynamic. Between 2006 and 2021, federal regulations alone grew by 37 percent, leading to a reduction in the growth of our living standards of 1.7 percent, according to Statistics Canada.

“The evidence shows that when the tax and regulatory environment becomes more burdensome, entrepreneurial activity declines. Entrepreneurs want to build businesses and create jobs, not spend their time on paperwork and compliance,” Lammam said.

Businesses devote 768 million hours a year to complying with bureaucratic requirements, the equivalent of 394,000 full-time jobs, according to data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

The CFIB estimates the total regulatory cost for small business across all government levels at $51.5 billion in 2024, a 13.5-percent jump from 2020.28 Of that total, $17.9 billion represents pure “red tape” attributable to unnecessary or duplicative compliance, according to Lammam’s note.

Statistics Canada documented the impacts of a 37-percent rise in federal regulatory restrictions between 2006 and 2021.30 This surge was directly associated with a 1.7-percentage-point decline in GDP growth, alongside drops in business investment, productivity, employment and the rate of new business formation.

Canadian studies have shown that businesses funded by subsidies or by government-supported funds, such as labour-sponsored funds, tend to underperform in terms of innovation and wealth creation, and also to crowd out more effective private investment.

Government‑backed funds not only invest in lower‑quality firms; they also displace more effective private investment, Lammam said.

Yet the country’s largest venture capital investor today is the Business Development Bank of Canada (BCD) with more than $6 billion in assets under management.

According to an analysis of a shelved government report, private investors increasingly view the BDC as a competitor rather than a support, he said. “When entrepreneurs can access subsidized government funding, private fund managers struggle to raise capital.”

In Quebec, nearly $800 million in venture capital was invested by Investissement Québec over the past decade.

The share of venture capital in Quebec represented by public and para-public financing grew by eight percentage points since the 2019-2021 period, reaching 43 percent in 2022 and 2023.

The absence of venture capital exits in Quebec in the first half of 2025 suggests that returns from government-backed investments may have fallen short of expectations, a sign that heavy public involvement in the ecosystem is not generating the dynamism that private capital typically would.

In 2003, the “Brunet report” examined Quebec’s venture capital market and found that excessive government involvement was displacing private capital, recommending the province reduce its direct role in venture financing.

When government provides subsidized capital, it disrupts price discovery and weakens the discipline that typically develops between entrepreneurs and investors, according to Lammam’s note.

“The proliferation of government programs creates a subtle but real distortion. Entrepreneurs spend time and energy accessing public support rather than focusing on customers and growth,” Lammam said. This rewards those skilled at accessing public support rather than building sustainable businesses, he added.

To reverse course, governments require a fundamental shift in policy choices, including reducing the tax and regulatory burdens that have accumulated over time and are constraining entrepreneurial activity, he said.

“Canada has the talent and institutions to support a thriving entrepreneurial economy. What’s missing is a policy environment that matches that potential, one with a more competitive tax structure, lighter regulation, and less displacement of private capital by government programs.” Montreal Economic Institute

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Growing financial pressure on Canada’s universities threaten the country’s ability to develop talent and drive research and innovation

Growing financial pressures on the country’s universities are putting at risk Canada’s ability to develop talent, drive research and innovation and compete in a rapidly changing global economy, according to a report by Universities Canada and the Canadian Association of University Business Officers.

While Canada is looking to strengthen productivity, grow talent and compete in strategic sectors, the report found that the system underpinning Canada’s universities – and the opportunities they create for Canadians – is under mounting strain as public funding fails to keep pace with rising costs, infrastructure gaps deepen and demand for university education continues to grow.

“If Canada is going to compete and win in a rapidly changing world, we need to invest in our people and that means investing in our universities,” said Gabriel Miller, president and CEO of Universities Canada.

“Universities are central to Canada’s talent pipeline, research capacity and long-term economic strength,” he said. “Maintaining that contribution will require renewed public support so universities can continue building the talent, research and innovation Canada needs in sectors such as AI, health, energy and defence.”

Public funding for universities declined by more than 10 percent per student between 2010 and 2023, and fell from 55.2 percent to 41.2 percent of operating revenues, according to the report.

When adjusted for inflation, public funding for universities dropped 4.6 percent between 2010 and 2023-24 despite enrolment growing by 21.1 percent during this period. In per student terms, this represents a reduction of 10.5 percent per domestic full-time equivalent student.

Federal funding to universities accounts for roughly nine to 12 percent of total revenues between 2010 and 2023 and is generally directed toward specific purposes, such as supporting the indirect costs of federally funded research or funding infrastructure projects.

Caps on domestic tuition have constrained revenue growth while institutions have become increasingly reliant on tuition to offset reductions in government support, the report said.

“Increasingly, public funding no longer covers the core costs of mission delivery at universities.”

The lack of multi-year agreements with provinces means that there is little predictability for many institutions and limits their ability to make longer-term investments or take strategic risks, according to the report.

“As a result, institutions are expected to do more with less – to absorb demographic, academic and research pressures without adequate fiscal tools or flexibility.”

In 2010, provincial grants represented 55.2 percent of operating revenues while tuition and other fees accounted for 36.5 percent. By 2023-24, these proportions had shifted significantly with tuition accounting for 48.2 percent of revenues and government funding accounting for only 41.2 percent.

International students, who contribute new ideas and strengthen campus diversity, have been affected by sudden federal policy changes that have disrupted enrolment patterns and introduced instability into institutional finances.

These rapid and sometimes uncoordinated policy shifts, combined with long visa processing times, high rejection rates, and reputational challenges, have made it difficult for some universities to meet their allocated international student caps, the report said.

The unpredictability of the immigration landscape not only disrupted enrolment planning but also contributed to financial pressures, given the scale of revenue derived from international tuition.

Meanwhile, costs have risen sharply due to inflation – including compensation pressures, surging student service needs and a $17-billion deferred maintenance backlog that threatens safety, energy efficiency and program capacity, the report said.

Despite the critical role that university infrastructure plays in supporting Canada’s competitiveness, innovation capacity and community well-being, there are currently no dedicated federal infrastructure programs targeting postsecondary institutions.

Too often, these institutions are unable to access existing programs due to ownership restrictions (e.g. land or building must be publicly owned), exclusions of core capital cost (e.g. design or IT systems), partnership or matching fund requirements and oversubscription by other sectors such as municipalities and transit authorities.

“The result is a sector that is stretched thin, forced to make trade-offs between current needs and future investments, and increasingly limited in its ability to adapt to changing labour markets, demographic realities and technological transformation.”

If these trends continue, the cumulative impact of structural rigidity and reactive decision-making risks undermining Canada’s academic capacity, weakening student success and diminishing the social and economic vitality that universities contribute – particularly in smaller and more vulnerable communities, according to the report.

In 2023-24, Canadian universities contributed over $48 billion in expenditures to the Canadian economy via wages, procurement, utilities, land purchases and construction costs for renovations and alterations. In some communities, one in 10 jobs are linked to the local university.

The report identifies practical policy levers governments can use now to strengthen long-term sustainability, including two key measures: targeted tax relief through a full GST/HST rebate for universities and coordination and predictability across talent, skills and immigration policy.

Currently, universities receive a 67-percent rebate on the federal portion of the GST/HST, compared to the 100 percent rebate available to municipalities.

The report recommends that raising the rebate for universities to 100 percent, aligning it with the rate available to other public service bodies, would provide an estimated $240 million across the sector in annual savings, funds that could be reinvested directly in core mission activities such as teaching, research and student support.

The report also recommends that government departments should adopt a more coordinated national approach to talent, skills and immigration policy that aligns economic and workforce priorities and removes barriers preventing top talent from coming to Canada.

Another concern is Federal Bill C-59, which seeks to remove access to the Companies’ Creditor Arrangement Act (CCAA) and Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act for public postsecondary institutions. While its intention is to prevent misuse of insolvency legislation, its current form offers no alternative legal mechanism for restructuring in the event of severe financial distress, the report pointed out.

“Without an appropriate replacement framework or sector-specific safety net, institutions in crisis may be left with only two options: cease operations entirely or require a politically complex and costly provincial bailout.”

The report recommends that the university sector should advocate for additional federal safeguards to be included in the final implementation of Bill C-59 before June 2026. These could include:

• Clarifying the definition of “prescribed postsecondary institutions” to ensure appropriate coverage.
• Ensuring any removal of CCAA access is matched with a viable, sector-specific alternative that protects students, research and communities.
• Creating a mechanism for orderly, transparent, court-supervised restructuring that balances public accountability with institutional autonomy.

If left unaddressed, mounting financial pressures will constrain student access; erode quality, equity and sustainability; weaken research capacity; and undermine Canada’s long-term economic resilience, the report warned.

“These pressures are no longer abstract. They are already affecting capacity across the system — from workforce development to research and infrastructure,” said Nathalie Laporte, executive director of CAUBO.

“What is needed now is a more coordinated approach that brings together governments and institutions to address funding pressures, renew infrastructure, improve long-term planning and create the conditions for innovation and adaptation. Without a renewed approach, we risk undermining one of Canada’s most important national assets,” she said.

Moreover, without coordinated action to address these funding and infrastructure gaps, Canada faces a severe talent crisis, including a forecasted shortage of more than 100,000 doctors and close to 500,000 nurses by 2033, the report noted.

By 2040, Canada could also see up to 500,000 additional university students in a high-growth scenario, a substantial increase that will test the sector’s capacity to meet growing demand in key sectors such as healthcare, education and technology.

Without additional funding, universities will be forced to continue budget reduction measures that limit their ability to create enough spaces for this cohort, the report said.

According to the Council of Ontario Universities, Ontario alone could face a shortfall of 80,000 university spaces due to current funding levels.

Since October, Universities Canada and CAUBO have convened leaders from across the country, including presidents, provosts and vice-presidents, to assess the challenges and identify practical solutions to strengthen the long-term financial sustainability and mission resilience of Canada’s universities.

In addition to seeking government partnership, the sector is changing from within. This report is part of a new national effort to support universities as they modernize legacy systems and institutional practices, adapt academic and administrative models, and strengthen long-term mission sustainability. Universities Canada

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Editor’s note: The theme of the 25^th Annual Research Money Conference, June 3 and 4 in Ottawa, is “Acting on Health: Reimagining Canada’s Promise.” Leading up to the conference, Research Money will be highlighting news stories, reports on research, commentaries and analyses focused on health and life sciences.

Why Canada isn’t owning the podium in health innovation – and how to fix it

By Dr. Eric Hoskins

Dr. Eric Hoskins is Partner at Maverix Private Equity, whose focus is innovation, investment and growth strategy within the health care sector. This commentary first appeared here on Medium.

Canada should be a global leader in healthcare innovation. The country produces world-class research, attracts top scientific talent, and operates a publicly funded health care system that – on paper – should be an ideal environment to test, validate, and scale new solutions.

And yet, Canada consistently underperforms.

We generate breakthrough ideas, but too often fail to turn them into scaled companies, widely adopted technologies, or globally dominant platforms.

Canadian discoveries are frequently commercialized elsewhere. Promising startups leave. Innovations reach patients more slowly than they should – if they reach them at all.

This isn’t a talent problem. It’s not even primarily a funding problem at the early stage.

It’s a system design problem.

If Canada wants to “own the podium” in health innovation, it needs to rethink how the entire ecosystem functions – from discovery to adoption to scale. That means moving beyond incremental tweaks and making a set of deliberate, structural changes.

Here’s what that looks like.

1. Treat health innovation as an economic strategy – not just a health care issue.

Canada has no shortage of strategies, task forces, and funding programs. But what’s missing is alignment and execution at a national level.

Health innovation sits awkwardly between federal and provincial jurisdictions, split across ministries, agencies and priorities. The result is fragmentation: strong individual efforts that don’t compound.

Countries that lead in health innovation treat it as a coordinated economic priority. Policy, capital, procurement, regulation, and data are aligned toward shared outcomes.

Canada needs to do the same.

That means establishing a unified national framework with clear goals – such as reducing time to adoption, increasing clinical trial activity, growing domestic scale-ups and expanding exports. It also means tying funding and policy decisions to measurable outcomes, not just inputs.

Without alignment, Canada will continue optimizing locally while underperforming globally.

2. Stop over-indexing on discovery and invest in translation.

Canada excels at early-stage research. Universities and research hospitals consistently produce high-quality science across fields like AI, genomics, and neuroscience.

But discovery alone does not create impact.

The critical gap lies in translation – the stage where ideas are validated, de-risked, and turned into viable products and companies. This is where many Canadian innovations stall.

To fix this, Canada needs to invest far more aggressively in:

• Proof-of-concept and validation funding.
• Regulatory readiness and clinical evidence generation.
• Manufacturing and scale-up infrastructure.
• Commercialization expertise.

Academic incentives also need to evolve. Success should not be measured solely by publications and grants, but by real-world impact – spinouts, partnerships, adoption, and revenue.

Until Canada builds a stronger bridge between research and market, it will continue exporting its best ideas.

3. Turn procurement into a competitive advantage.

If there is one lever Canada is dramatically underutilizing, it is health care procurement.

Hospitals and health systems represent massive purchasing power. In leading jurisdictions, procurement is used strategically to support innovation, validate new technologies, and create domestic champions.

In Canada, procurement often does the opposite.

Processes tend to prioritize lowest cost and lowest risk, favouring incumbents and making it difficult for new entrants to compete. Decision-making is fragmented across institutions and provinces. Timelines are slow and unpredictable.

This needs to change.

Canada should shift toward value-based procurement, where decisions are based on outcomes, system impact, and long-term value – not just upfront cost. It should also create mechanisms that allow health care providers to act as early adopters, giving Canadian companies a first customer at home.

If Canadian health systems don’t buy Canadian innovation, no one else will.

4. Become a global leader in clinical trials.

Clinical trials are one of the most important – and overlooked – components of a health innovation ecosystem.

They are where science becomes evidence. Where companies build credibility. Where patients gain early access to new therapies. And where ecosystems attract talent, capital, and industry partnerships.

Canada has strong clinical research institutions, but is losing ground to jurisdictions that offer faster, more coordinated trial environments.

To compete, Canada needs to:

• Standardize ethics approvals, contracts, and site activation across the country.
• Reduce trial start-up times dramatically.
• Support modern trial designs, including decentralized and adaptive trials.
• Incentivize hospitals and research centres based on trial performance.

A world-class clinical trial environment would anchor innovation in Canada and create a powerful flywheel of activity.

5. Fix health data interoperability – once and for all.

Canada has the raw ingredients to lead in data-driven health care: a publicly funded system, large patient populations, and strong AI research.

But these advantages are undermined by one fundamental issue: data fragmentation.

Health data is siloed across provinces, institutions, and legacy systems. Interoperability is inconsistent. Access for innovation and research is limited.

This is not a new problem. But it is now a critical one.

Canada needs to establish a national baseline for interoperability, ensuring that core health data – labs, medications, imaging, referrals and records – can be securely shared across systems.

It should also:

• Mandate modern data standards for publicly procured systems.
• Enable secure, privacy-compliant access to de-identified data for research and innovation.
• Give patients meaningful access to their own health information.

In the era of AI and precision medicine, data is not just infrastructure – it is competitive advantage.

6. Provide real growth capital for scaling companies.

Canada has improved its early-stage funding environment over the past decade. But the real bottleneck lies at the growth stage, especially in capital-intensive sectors like therapeutics, medtech and health platforms.

Scaling a health company requires time, capital, and patience. Without sufficient domestic funding, companies are forced to:

• Raise capital abroad.
• Relocate to larger markets.
• Sell early to foreign acquirers.

Canada needs to build a stronger ecosystem of later-stage capital, including growth funds, public-private investment vehicles, and greater participation from institutional investors.

Keeping companies in Canada longer is essential if the country wants to capture economic value – not just generate ideas.

7. Enable hospitals to become innovation engines.

Health care systems under pressure tend to become risk-averse. That’s understandable – but it’s also a barrier to progress.

Canadian hospitals are dealing with capacity constraints, workforce shortages and operational challenges. In that environment, innovation often feels like a distraction rather than a solution.

That needs to be reframed.

Hospitals should be rewarded and supported for adopting innovations that improve efficiency, reduce burden, and enhance outcomes. This includes:

• Dedicated funding for innovation pilots and scaling.
• Leadership accountability for adoption and performance.
• Creation of “living labs” where new solutions can be tested in real-world settings.

Innovation should not sit on the sidelines. It should be embedded into how the system improves itself.

8. Modernize regulation to be faster and more predictable.

Companies can work with rigorous regulation. What they struggle with is uncertainty and delay.

Canada’s regulatory system is respected globally, but it is often perceived as slower and less predictable than other jurisdictions. That affects where companies choose to launch products, run trials, and invest resources.

Improvement doesn’t mean lowering standards. It means:

• Clearer guidance for emerging technologies (AI, digital therapeutics, novel trial designs).
• Faster, risk-based review pathways.
• Earlier and more collaborative engagement between regulators and innovators.

Predictability is a competitive advantage. Canada should lean into it.

9. Build talent at the intersection of disciplines.

Health innovation is no longer driven by siloed expertise. It requires people who can operate across domains: medicine, data, product development, regulation and commercialization.

Canada has strong academic training pipelines, but needs to do more to develop applied, interdisciplinary talent.

This includes:

• Integrating clinicians into innovation ecosystems.
• Embedding scientists and engineers in health systems and companies.
• Expanding programs that bridge academia, industry and government.

It also means continuing to attract global talent and making it easier for internationally trained professionals to contribute.

Innovation is ultimately a human system. Talent density matters.

10. Focus on areas where Canada can truly lead.

Canada cannot dominate every area of health innovation. But it doesn’t need to.

It should focus on domains where it already has strength and the potential to build global leadership, such as:

• AI in healthcare.
• Neuroscience and mental health.
• Oncology and advanced therapeutics.
• Aging and chronic disease management.
• Remote and rural care delivery.

Concentration creates momentum. It attracts talent, capital, and attention.

Spreading efforts too thin dilutes impact.

11. Reduce fragmentation across provinces.

Canada’s federal structure creates complexity that innovators must navigate repeatedly.

Different procurement processes, regulatory interpretations, data systems, and reimbursement models across provinces create friction that slows adoption and scaling.

A company that succeeds in one province should not have to start from scratch in another.

Canada needs mechanisms that allow innovations to scale nationally once proven locally, supported by shared standards and coordinated pathways.

Fragmentation is one of the country’s most significant hidden barriers to innovation.

12. Measure what actually matters.

Canada is good at announcing initiatives. It is less consistent at tracking outcomes.

If the goal is to lead in health innovation, success needs to be measured differently.

Key metrics should include:

• Time from discovery to adoption.
• Clinical trial start-up speed.
• Adoption rates of new technologies.
• Number of companies reaching scale.
• Export growth in health innovation.
• Improvements in system performance and patient outcomes

What gets measured gets prioritized.

 Canada does not lack ideas. It lacks system-level execution.

To become a global leader in health innovation, the country needs to:

• Align policy, capital, and procurement.
• Invest in translation and scale – not just discovery.
• Fix data interoperability.
• Compete aggressively on clinical trials.
• Provide real growth capital.
• Enable faster adoption within the health system.

These are not abstract goals. They are practical, achievable moves.

If Canada makes them, it can move from being a place where innovation begins to a place where it is built, scaled, and exported to the world.

That is what owning the podium looks like. Dr. Eric Hoskins on Medium

 Internationally trained researchers face multiple barriers in emigrating to and working in Canada

Canada needs to do more to recruit and retain internationally trained researchers, according to a commentary in The Conversation.

The federal government launched the Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative in December 2025 designed to entice international researchers to come to Canada.

The initiative, which the government said will “invest up to $1.7 billion over 12 years to attract and support more than 1,000 leading international and expatriate researchers,” is a significant investment, Evren Altinkas and Christina Clark-Kazak wrote in the commentary.

Altinkas is adjunct professor in the Department of History at the University of Guelph. Clark-Kazak is professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa.

Their research shows there are important challenges with recruiting and retaining internationally trained researchers. International researchers face limited specific immigration pathways, they said.

The comprehensive ranking system (CRS), also known as the point system), is the primary mechanism for skilled workers to attain permanent residence in Canada. The CRS ranks prospective immigrants based on their scores in relation to age, education, language and work experience. The federal government then invites candidates at or above a certain cutoff score to apply for permanent residency.

However, Clark-Kazak’s research shows how age-based points are inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 15 of the Charter, on equality rights, prohibits discrimination on the basis of age.

At the same time, these age-based points don’t make sense alongside work experience points, Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said “The result? An incoherent policy.”

It takes many years to obtain a PhD. In Canada’s immigration ranking system, a PhD only yields 14-15 more points than a Master’s and 28-30 more than a Bachelor’s degree, they noted.

At the same time, applicants aged 30 to 40 years lose five points per year. After they turn 45, they receive no points.

The average age of a PhD graduate is 35, and it can take several years to land an academic job in Canada, the authors point out. “Due to this age discrimination and undervaluing of education in the CRS, many talented colleagues with extensive training and experience don’t meet the points threshold.”

To partially address this issue, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) introduced new categories for express entry in February 2026. These include a category for “researchers and senior managers with Canadian work experience.”

However, in a March 4 announcement of invitations to apply for permanent residence under the revamped Express Entry system (the only draw to date since IRCC introduced new categories), only 250 invitations were announced, and none went to researchers.

Altinkas has analyzed collective agreements across Canadian universities. This analysis demonstrates a systematic absence of immigration status as a recognized equity category within hiring frameworks.

Across dozens of institutions – including institutions that have significant global rankings, like the University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and McGill University – there is no explicit contractual language addressing internationally trained or displaced scholars.

Many collective agreements contain general employment equity or diversity clauses. But these overwhelmingly focus on domestically recognized categories such as gender, race and Indigeneity, leaving immigration status unaddressed, Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said.

This omission reflects a broader pattern of “invisibility” of non-status and precarious migrants in Canadian institutional frameworks, they said.

Even where limited references exist – such as provisions connected to the Scholars at Risk Network at institutions like University of Ottawa or the University of Guelph – these remain exceptional rather than systemic.

Current equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies and collective agreements therefore pose interconnected practical, legal and behavioural barriers to recruiting and retaining internationally trained researchers, Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said.

Pervasive hiring norms include asking about Canadian experience – only recently set to change for some employers in Ontario – and contribute to underemployment and skill mismatch.

The limited recognition of foreign credentials also systematically disadvantages immigrants, they said.

Legally, immigration regimes create uncertainty that institutions and unions are not structurally equipped to accommodate. This is particularly the case with Canada’s increasingly complex “two-step” system of temporary to permanent residency.

The absence of immigration status within EDI discourse reinforces a narrow conception of diversity, Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said.  “This overlooks transnational academic trajectories.”

Research shows that internationally educated researchers face persistent labour market barriers. These include visa precarity and limited institutional pathways into stable academic employment.

Even when funding mechanisms exist to support EDI-related scholarship or professional development, these are rarely designed to address structural constraints faced by internationally trained researchers, the authors said.

This gap ultimately reveals a misalignment between Canada’s reliance on highly skilled immigrants and the institutional barriers embedded within academic labour systems, they said.

In this context, research shows both underemployment of talent and the departure of university-educated immigrants from Canada.

The Institute for Canadian Citizenship demonstrates “those with doctorates are nearly twice as likely to leave as those with a bachelor’s degree.”

“The Canadian economy cannot afford to lose internationally trained academic and research talent. This is particularly true amid ongoing trade tensions with the United States and broader global economic uncertainty,” Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said.

Reports from the federal government emphasize that immigrants account for a significant share of growth in the highly educated labour force, especially in STEM and knowledge sectors.

Trade disruptions and protectionist policies – particularly in relation to the United States – have heightened the need for domestic innovation capacity.

“Failing to integrate internationally trained researchers into stable academic positions risks exacerbating “brain waste,” where highly skilled people are underemployed despite labour shortages.”

In a period marked by inflation, supply chain instability and shifting global alliances, retaining global talent is not only an equity issue but an economic imperative, Altinkas and Clark-Kazak said. “Canada’s long-term resilience depends on aligning immigration policy with institutional hiring practices in higher education and research sectors.”

The authors recommend three key changes to immigration policy and hiring practices.

First, along with more than 100 signatories of an open letter to the federal government organized through the interdisciplinary research partnership network UnborderED Knowledge (the “ED” in the name emphasizes education), they call for designated permanent residence pathways for internationally trained researchers.

The February 2026 Express Entry announcement provides an opportunity for IRCC to make a specific draw for researchers with a point threshold that redresses age biases in the CRS. “They should do so as soon as possible.”

Second, hiring practices in research institutions must acknowledge and accommodate immigration status as an equity issue, as outlined in the Tri-Agency Best Practices Guide for Recruitment, Hiring and Retention.

Third, in line with findings from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, federal and provincial governments should work with employers across all sectors to ensure that international researchers are not unfairly penalized for foreign credentials and experience. The Conversation

THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced that CSA astronaut Colonel Joshua Kutryk has been assigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13, an International Space Station mission. This will be Kutryk’s first space mission, making him the fourth CSA astronaut to take part in a long-duration mission aboard the Space Station and the first one to fly under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. He will launch no earlier than mid-September 2026 from Florida, along with his crewmates, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. During his mission, Kutryk will conduct several international and Canadian science experiments, many of which focus on health-related research, as well as Station maintenance and operations activities. As humans prepare to set foot on the surface of the Moon, it is essential to continue to deepen our understanding of what is required to allow humanity to live, learn and work in the harsh environment of space. The Station is a unique testbed for these valuable experiments. Canadian companies’ expertise in key areas such as space robotics and vision systems has translated into commercial spin-offs such as precision surgical robotic tools for neurosurgery, breast cancer detection, and telesurgery. Access to the orbiting laboratory has also allowed Canadian scientists to produce findings that can help people suffering from balance problems, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disorders, and Type 2 diabetes. CSA

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) reappointed three members to the NRC Council:

• Norma Beauchamp, former president and CEO of Cystic Fibrosis Canada.
• Steven Murphy, fourth president and vice-chancellor of Ontario Tech University.
• Pierre Rivard, executive chairman and founder at TUGLIQ Energy Corp.

Up to four additional Council positions are currently open through the Governor in Council appointments process. This process seeks highly qualified Canadians from all regions and backgrounds. Ideal candidates will bring diverse experiences, deep expertise and a shared commitment to advancing research and innovation. Learn more about the Governor in Council appointments process and how you can contribute to Canada’s research future. NRC

Elio Luongo, a prominent Canadian business and community leader with deep roots at Simon Fraser University (SFU), will serve as the university’s 13th chancellor. An SFU alumnus, Honorary Degree recipient, and Outstanding Alumni Award winner with a long history of service to the university, Luongo is also the former CEO and senior partner of KPMG in Canada. He will succeed SFU’s current chancellor, Tamara Vrooman, whose term ends in June after serving in the role since 2020. Luongo will be formally installed as chancellor at this year’s October convocation ceremonies, while the conclusion of Vrooman’s term will be recognized during SFU’s June ceremonies. SFU

Engineer Marcos Cavaletti, who worked for Sweden-based Ericsson in Ottawa on five generations of telecommunications technology, has retired. In the mid-1980s, Cavaletti began working at the Brazilian telecom CPQD. He was meant to spend just one year in Ottawa, back in 2003, to work on 3G technology for Canadian telecommunications giant Nortel before returning to his home country. That didn’t happen. After six months, he got an offer to stay. Cavaletti ran the Ottawa facility on behalf of Ericsson, which acquired Nortel in 2009. The facility has added more than 500 employees over the past five years, bringing its headcount up to around 1,700 people. With Cavaletti’s departure, Ericsson Canada chief technology officer Tania Leppert is the new site lead for the Ottawa facility. BetaKit

A new startup spun out of research at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo is accelerating its push toward commercialization with $10.7 million in dilutive and non-dilutive funding and a public listing after launching just more than six months ago. QuantumCore was co-founded by Dr. Christopher Wilson, professor of electrical and computer engineering, IQC faculty and chief technology officer, and Eugene Profis, CEO. The company is developing an amplifier that boosts read-out signals produced by a superconducting quantum chip at near absolute zero temperatures and gets the signal into room temperature. This could solve one of the many hard engineering challenges in quantum computing. Quantum Core chose to raise money through non-brokered and brokered private placements with Canaccord Genuity Corp. as lead intermediary and PowerOne Capital Markets Limited. This type of investment brings in capital by selling shares to investors through an intermediary instead of specialized VC firms. The startup also secured $1.7 million as an IQC industry partner through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Alliance Grant program, which gives them access to Wilson’s lab to accelerate technology development without impacting shareholder value. Since launching, QuantumCore has hired five full-time, technical employees and opened an office and lab in uptown Waterloo to complement other operations, including at the University’s Quantum Nano Fabrication and Characterization Facility. University of Waterloo

Inuit Nunangat University in Nunavut received a pledge of $10 million from Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. to strengthen access to postsecondary education for those living in the region. Agnico Eagle Mines chairperson Sean Boyd said the investment was made to create hope for the territory’s young people and to enable them to develop leadership skills while staying in their communities. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed said that, with this support, “we can ensure that the next generation of Inuit are ready to join the workforce, ready to lead across any sector that they choose to go into with a proper education foundation.” Total funding needs for the university to become operational by 2030 are estimated at between $160 million and $200 million. In addition to the $10 million from Agnico Eagle, confirmed funding stood at $156 million: a $50-million donation from Mastercard Foundation; $52 million from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.; $2 million from Makivvik, the organization representing Inuit in Nunavik; $1 million each from the Rideau Hall Foundation and the McConnell Foundation; and $50 million from the federal government. Nunangat University, whose main campus will be at Arviat, is being developed as an Inuit-led post-secondary institution rooted in Inuit language, culture and ways of knowing. APTN News

Western University’s Ivey Business School opened the Donald K. Johnson Centre on April 23, made possible by a $30-million gift from alum Donald K. Johnson. The new 36,000-square-foot facility, located in First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto, builds on more than two decades of Ivey’s presence in downtown Toronto, while significantly expanding its capacity for graduate programs, executive learning, and corporate engagement. The Donald K. Johnson Centre, which doubles Ivey’s teaching capacity, introduces new technology-enabled classrooms and larger gathering spaces. It features three tiered classrooms and one flat classroom, along with 22 breakout rooms that enable small-group discussion and peer learning. It also includes a 300-person event space and flexible meeting areas designed to host conferences, forums and corporate training, expanding Ivey’s capacity for executive education and corporate engagement. Western University

Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. announced the establishment of the Brenton Wood Environmental Sustainability Research & Initiatives Fund, made possible through a gift of $2.6 million from philanthropists Andrew Brenton and Kerry Wood. The fund will be used to create opportunities for researchers and students and build undergraduate teaching, mentorship, and research excellence. In 2017, Brenton and Wood established the Brenton Wood Scholarship, a renewable award for Atlantic Canadian students with financial need, which is one of the most valuable scholarships available at Mount Allison, providing more than $100,000 per year in scholarship funding. Mount Allison University

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