GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

The Government of Canada launched its Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative, a suite of programs aimed at attracting leading international researchers to Canada, as outlined in Budget 2025. Ottawa has committed $1.7 billion over 12 years to attract and support more than 1,000 leading international and expatriate researchers, including Francophone researchers. Recruitment will target individuals who are advancing world-leading research in critical fields that will deliver direct economic, societal and health benefits for Canadians. The initiative has four streams:

• The Canada Impact+ Research Chairs program offers $1 billion over 12 years to support institutions in attracting world-leading researchers. New chairs and their teams will advance transformational research projects that can be applied and/or commercialized by connecting with receptors in industry, government and society, while also developing the next generation of highly qualified personnel. The program funds both researcher salaries and supporting infrastructure, ensuring comprehensive support for recruited researchers.
• $120 million over 12 years is being provided for institutions to attract international early career researchers through the Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders program. This program will add more global talent to the Canadian research ecosystem, bringing in fresh ideas, diverse perspectives and significant potential.
• Another $400 million will be used to create the Canada Impact+ Research Infrastructure Fund over six years to establish a complementary stream of research infrastructure support to ensure the recruited research chairs and early career researchers have the world-class facilities they need to achieve their research goals.
• The Canada Impact+ Research Training Awards will invest $133.6 million over three years to enable top international doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers to relocate to Canada. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The federal Defence Investment Agency announced that Canada has awarded a $753-million contract to Montreal-based Bombardier to acquire six Canadian-built Global 6500 aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force under the Airlift Capability Project – Multi-role Flight Service. As one of the initial procurements under the new Defence Investment Agency (DIA), the investment in the Global 6500 will provide a modern, versatile replacement for the current CC-144 Challenger fleet to perform worldwide utility flights and support missions such as aeromedical evacuations, disaster relief, humanitarian aid and national security operations. The first aircraft is expected to be delivered by summer 2027, and initial operational capability achieved by the end of 2027, prioritizing a streamlined approach with the DIA. The contract also includes training for aircrew and maintenance personnel as well as military modifications. Defence Investment Agency

In the first meeting of the Canada - European Union Digital Partnership Council in Montreal, both countries recognized that effective, smart regulations that are not unduly burdensome, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, will facilitate trade, investment and economic growth and engender trust in society. The participants also acknowledged their shared interest in advancing digital sovereignty over technology, data and digital infrastructure, in accordance with international law, and underscored the vital importance of cooperation in areas of mutual interest among trusted allies. Canada and the EU also agreed on several activities under three categories:

• Enabling innovation and research, including: collaborate on accelerating sectoral AI adoption; address challenges related to AI adoption by SMEs, explore scientific cooperation on fundamental AI research, and explore opportunities to deepen the collaboration in quantum research, development and innovation.
• Promoting fair, predictable and trust-based digital economies, including: advance regulatory cooperation and standardization of the digital economy under the Digital Partnership; deepen bilateral engagement on AI safety; continue the collaboration on digital credentials and trust services; and work toward a Digital Trade Agreement.
• Promoting sovereign technological capability, including: reaffirm the commitment to resilient semiconductor supply chains; support and advance collaboration on secure and trusted communications infrastructure; and share methodologies and best practices on scaling sustainable sovereign infrastructure, including data centres and data spaces. Innovation, Science and Economic Development  

The Government of Canada is using artificial intelligence to sort through public input on AI policy, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said. Solomon said an internally developed AI platform is being used to translate and summarize more than 11,000 comments the government received through its public consultation on an update to its national AI strategy. The work complies with rules set out by the Treasury Board and the comments will be made public once the work is finished, he said. The public consultation ran alongside an expert "task force" that Solomon assigned this fall to guide him on updating the strategy. Solomon said the updated strategy will be released in the new year. It will follow a 30-day time frame the government gave the task force to do its work and a month it allotted for the public consultation. Also in the new year, Canada plans to put out a request for proposals to build a new $700-million AI supercomputer. The Canadian Press

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) plans to roll out an artificial intelligence tool at all its land borders to help determine which travellers might need a secondary examination before entering the country, CTV News reported. The “traveller compliance indicator” was developed in-house to “process travellers more efficiently,” CBSA said. The tool compiles predictive data that is “already available in multiple systems” in real time and flags travellers who are at a higher risk of violating border requirements. It’s meant to help border agents decide whether certain travellers should be referred to a secondary inspection. The tool has been in place as a pilot project at six land ports of entry since 2023, with full roll-out planned by late 2027. CTV News

Canada and Germany agreed to advance a Canada-Germany Digital Alliance, a joint partnership focused on collaboration in areas of mutual interest. The countries identified areas of interest to pursue under the Alliance, including AI, digital sovereignty, digital infrastructure, quantum and cooperation with respect to startups, and the digital economy. Ministers from both countries agreed that, amongst the first deliverables under the Alliance, both sides would finalize a Joint Declaration of Intent (JDoI) on AI in the coming months. They highlighted the following potential areas of cooperation under the JDoI:

• Building and deploying compute infrastructure.
• Exchange on policy development and inter-operability.
• Research and commercialization.
• AI adoption, with a focus on physical AI and industrial AI.
• AI safety.
• Development and adoption of generative AI as well as algorithmic innovation (so-called frontier AI).
• Talent attraction and mobility.
• Business engagement, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The ministers also discussed opportunities to strengthen commercial ties and highlight investment and business opportunities that AI can bring to firms, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, in both countries. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

The Government of Canada and the Government of the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of understanding on Cooperation in the Field of Digital Government and the Digital Economy. Both countries also reinforced their joint commitment to develop secure transatlantic communications based on quantum technologies – allowing national systems to connect and lay the groundwork to create a truly global, next-generation network – and to support innovation in critical digital infrastructure. Both countries will continue their collaboration to promote innovative research, support job creation, develop world-renowned talent and encourage responsible AI adoption to reinforce economic and technological growth worldwide, as well as continue to collaborate on AI safety and security through their respective AI safety and security institutes. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announced $6 million in federal funding for Hydro Ottawa Limited for the Ottawa Distributed Energy Resource Accelerator (ODERA) program. Through this program, Hydro Ottawa will use AI-enhanced predictive analytics to accurately forecast peak demand, which will then inform the real-time balancing of supply and demand. This will be achieved by using a technology that transforms customer-owned assets – like smart thermostats, electric vehicle chargers and home batteries – into valuable, responsive grid resources, allowing the utility to proactively identify and mitigate grid constraints. The optimization of Ottawa's electricity network – with ODERA serving as a pilot for growth neighbourhoods like the Kanata North area – will give consumers more control over their household consumption and improve the grid by effectively integrating and managing distributed energy resources through technology. NRCan

Transport Canada announced that the first segment of the Alto High-Speed Rail network will run between Ottawa and Montreal. Confirming this segment as the first to move forward is a recognition of its potential to deliver early benefits to travellers, communities and the economy, Transport Canada said. Spanning two provinces, this first segment proposes a shorter route, approximately 200 kilometres. This plan lets teams in both provinces start working at the same time, which means local communities can see benefits sooner, and workers can build the skills needed to expand the network more quickly toward both Toronto and Québec City. Construction of the Ottawa-Montreal segment is expected to begin in 2029. Beginning in January 2026, Alto will begin a comprehensive three-month consultation process. Through open houses, virtual sessions and an online platform, Canadians will have multiple opportunities to share their views on the corridor under study. The overall cost of the high-speed rail network is estimated to be between $60 billion and $90 billion. Transport Canada

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announced nearly $4.9 million for the University of Calgary for the Energy Modelling Hub, a national initiative to strengthen Canada’s energy modelling ecosystem and advance evidence-based decision making to support the country’s transition to a decarbonized, reliable and equitable energy system. Additionally, over $2 million was announced to support four projects under the federal Energy Innovation Program. These projects focus on providing insights on industrial decarbonization and the role of electricity, low-carbon fuels and carbon-reduction technologies as the country transitions to net zero by 2050. The recipients and projects are:

• Calgary-based EPRI International, Inc., $674, 280 to update the Canadian Regional Economy, Greenhouse Gas and Energy model to better reflect dynamics related to fuel supply and sector coupling between electricity and end-use sectors.
• Blainville, Que.-based Energy Super Modelers and International Analysis Consulting, $500,000 for a project that will use a proprietary optimization model, NATEM, to study the optimal mix of industrial decarbonization technologies across industrial sectors in Canada.
• University of Alberta, $467,928 for a project to develop a fully open-source Canadian version of the Global Change Analysis Model, an Integrated Assessment Model (the primary type of modelling tool used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in developing emissions trajectories). The model will be used to assess carbon removal and reduction technologies’ effectiveness to 2100 in the energy and building sectors.
• Simon Fraser University, $450,000 for a project to developa fully open-source energy economy simulation model to specifically examine the competitiveness of Canadian industry by determining if zero-emission, low- to high-temperature heat can be produced at a cost that maintains economic viability. NRCan

Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser introduced proposed new legislation that includes modernizing sexual violence protections by prohibiting the distribution of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, increasing penalties for the distribution of intimate images without consent, prohibiting threats to distribute such images, and increasing penalties for sexual assault on summary conviction. The legislation proposes stronger measures to address online sexploitation and child luring, including by criminalizing threatening to distribute child sexual abuse and exploitation material and distributing bestiality depictions, which are known to be used to manipulate children for sexual purposes. The proposed changes would also strengthen Canada’s ability to prosecute predators who sexually exploit children abroad. To give law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to stop these crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, the limitation period for the prosecution of offences under the Mandatory Reporting Act would be extended from two to five years. Online platforms would also be required to preserve data longer, from 21 days to one year. Department of Justice Canada

Canada’s privacy commissioner has launched an investigation after a social media user noticed ad billboards around Toronto’s Union Station that said they were using facial detection software. A Reddit user posted images of the ads and their accompanying signs last month. “This media unit runs anonymous software, used to generate statistics about audience counts, gender and approximate age only,” the sign reads. “To ensure privacy, no images and no data unique to an individual person is recorded by the camera on this unit.” The images are then immediately and permanently deleted after being processed in milliseconds, according to the sign. At the time, Metrolinx had confirmed to CTV News Toronto that the billboards are found on the way to the bus terminal, not inside of it. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s (PCC) office told CTV News in a statement that the commissioner, Philippe Dufresne, has opened an investigation into “privacy concerns related to digital signs installed near Toronto’s Union Station that allegedly use facial detection software.” The PCC said the digital signs were installed and operated by Cineplex Digital Media, which was recently acquired by Creative Realities, a digital signage company. The investigation will examine whether the technology is being used in compliance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Canada’s federal private-sector privacy law, the PCC said. CTV News

Canada’s Competition Bureau has obtained a court order to gather information to advance its investigation into Vancouver-headquartered WELL Health’s acquisition of HEALWELL, which includes control over Orion Health, a company acquired by HEALWELL in April. The order, granted by the Federal Court, requires WELL Health to produce records and information that are relevant to the Competition Bureau’s investigation. WELL Health, HEALWELL and Orion Health provide an ecosystem of healthcare technology products, including electronic medical record, patient portal, telehealth, scribe, decision-support and data analytics tools and applications, many of which are AI-driven. WELL Health also operates health clinics across Canada. The Bureau is investigating whether WELL Health’s control of HEALWELL and Orion Health is likely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition for health care technology products and related services in Canada. Competition Bureau Canada

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) filed a Federal Court lawsuit against Vancouver-based crypto firm Dapper Labs Inc., seeking the identities of 2,500 of its users in an effort to identify possible tax evaders. A CRA team of "cryptoasset auditors" has been working on more than 200 files and reaping more $100 million in unpaid taxes in the last three years. While the agency says up to 40 percent cent of taxpayers who use cryptoasset platforms either haven't filed their taxes or are at high risk of non-compliance, no criminal charges have been laid since 2020. Court filings involving Dapper Firms suggest the federal government's efforts to rein in crypto-based tax evasion and illicit financing are hampered by limited resources for enforcement in a space hallmarked by its borderless anonymity. A CRA application filed in Federal Court in September says Canada's Minister of National Revenue is concerned about taxpayers using the anonymous underground economy to evade taxes, fuelled by cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, which are digital representations of an asset. However, the agency's top crypto auditor says in related documents that the CRA believes "there is no way to reliably identify taxpayers operating in the crypto space and assess compliance" with income tax reporting obligations. The Canadian Press

The federal government has yet to disperse any funds from the $300-million Compute Access Fund (CAF) six months after applications were opened, The Globe and Mail reported. Last month, some applicants received rejection notices offering no explanation, while others still in the running to receive between $100,000 and $5 million apiece learned they are moving to another evaluation stage. With funds yet to disbursed, the process could spill into 2026. This might be the speed of government but it’s woefully behind the speed of AI, where new developments happen weekly. The disparity has left some Canadian AI entrepreneurs frustrated and concerned that Ottawa is moving too slowly. Some say the program could now be missing a bigger opportunity for Canada to catch up. The CAF is part of a $2-billion initiative announced in spring 2024 to stimulate the construction of AI data centres and compute infrastructure in Canada. The government has so far allotted up to $240-million to Toronto-based Cohere Inc., which builds large language models for enterprise users, and committed $42.5-million to the University of Toronto to update compute infrastructure for the research community. Many applicants to CAF are still waiting to find out whether they will receive funds. The Globe and Mail

The Government of Canada announced new measures to support Canada’s health care system by making the path to permanent residence simpler for international doctors. As part of these measures, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will create a new Express Entry category for international doctors with at least one year of Canadian work experience in an eligible occupation, gained within the last three years. These doctors are already working in Canada on a temporary basis, helping patients and contributing to the country’s health care system. The government said it is giving these doctors a clear pathway to permanent residence in Canada to fill critical health workforce gaps, while helping support reliable care and a stable health system for Canadians. Invitations to apply for the new Express Entry category will be issued in early 2026. The government will reserve 5,000 federal admission spaces for provinces and territories to nominate licensed doctors with job offers. Doctors who are nominated will receive expedited 14-day work permit processing, allowing them to work while awaiting permanent residence. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

The Government of Quebec took a cue from the federal government and tabled its own bill to expedite large-scale projects in the province which would allow the provincial government to amend some 30 laws to allow the realization of projects deemed of national interest. Finance Minister Eric Girard told a news conference after tabling Bill 5 at the National Assembly that the proposed law would be used for as many as five projects in Quebec over the next five years. Girard did not want to comment on which projects would fall under the law, but they would likely include projects proposed by Hydro-Québec, the provincially owned utility. Girard said the accelerated process will be an exception for major, strategic projects – likely those valued in the billions of dollars – and not a general rule. If adopted, the law will have a five-year lifespan, but the minister added he is open to amendments. The legislation indicates that the government can "amend the application of any provision" of a series of laws to complete a project, including acts that cover forest development, environment, preserving agricultural lands, mining, and parks among others. Girard noted that preparatory work could be greenlighted before a project gets a final approval. That preparatory work must reversible in the event the project is not granted. It will be up to cabinet to designate which projects would qualify. The Canadian Press

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to challenge state AI laws, arguing that startups need relief from a “patchwork” of rules. Legal experts and startups say the order could prolong uncertainty, sparking court battles that leave young companies navigating shifting state requirements while waiting to see if Congress can agree on a single national framework. The order directs the Department of Justice to set up a task force within 30 days to challenge certain state laws on the grounds that AI is interstate commerce and should be regulated federally. It gives the Commerce Department 90 days to compile a list of “onerous” state AI laws, an assessment that could affect states’ eligibility for federal funds, including broadband grants. The order also asks the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission to explore federal standards that could preempt state rules and instructs the administration to work with Congress on a uniform AI law. TechCrunch

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

University of Toronto-led project embeds graduate students with electric vehicle industry to solve real-world EV challenges

The Federal Economic Development Agency of Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced an investment of $2.5 million for the University of Toronto (U of T) to establish Electric Vehicle Innovation Ontario (EVIO).

Led by the U of T’s Department of Computer Science, in collaboration with seven other southern Ontario universities, EVIO will unite industry associations, economic development organizations, companies and EV employers to support the sector into the future.

The U of T will embed 37 Master’s, PhD and postdoctoral trainees directly within 20 Ontario EV and mobility firms, where they will work on battery chemistry, charging reliability, power electronics, mobility software, cold-weather performance, and advanced manufacturing on real-world challenges across battery systems, charging, power electronics and AI-enabled mobility software.

Matched by industry and academic partners for a total project value of $7.9 million, EVIO is expected to generate more than $30 million in economic activity.

Industry partners will contribute $45,000 toward each $90,000 placement, enabling companies to scale innovations while providing researchers with competitive compensation, hands-on experience, and direct pathways into high-growth careers.

Leveraging artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, the network will develop tailored technology plans for companies, accelerate commercialization, and connect firms with cutting-edge research and expertise to help scale the next generation of EV, battery innovation and mobility technologies in Ontario.

The industry partners provide their problems to solve, and a steering committee made up of the eight universities identifies the best research talent to solve them, and then the researcher works on this for eight months. It is expected that many of the researchers will be hired by the company afterwards, given they will have familiarity with the company’s technology.

EVIO is effectively a Canadian trial of the embedded-research model used by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-style programs, and the UK Industrial PhDs program to build firm-level R&D capacity.

“EVIO connects graduate researchers directly with industry, speeding up the development of advanced EV technologies while generating new IP and future economic growth for Canada. This is exactly the kind of partnership that positions Canadian innovators to lead globally,” said Dr. Arvind Gupta, PhD, professor of computer science at U of T and scientific director of EVIO. FedDev Ontario

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Twenty Canadian companies have been selected for the latest, and largest-ever, cohort of NATO’s defence tech accelerator program. NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) program connects companies with military end-users, mentors and investors in the alliance to help develop and validate the innovations. It also helps NATO tackle its own operational challenges and stay connected to advances in defence technology. Canadian companies in the latest DIANA cohort include Avivo Biomedical, which is working on a device that can convert certain blood types into universal blood, and Alchemy, which is developing a nanoparticle-based thermal camouflage. Other companies that made the cut include Canadian Space Mining Corporation and Volta Space Technologies. Starting in January 2026, the 150 selected companies from 24 NATO countries will receive contractual funding and gain access to 16 DIANA accelerator sites and more than 200 DIANA test centres across the 32 NATO nations. NATO says the cohort was whittled down from almost 3,700 submissions. The companies will develop their dual-use (civilian and military) technology for 10 different defence and security challenges. These categories include advanced communications, autonomous systems, data-assisted decision making, energy, biotech, maritime operations, space operations, and critical infrastructure and logistics. BetaKit

Waterloo, Ont.-based Nfinite, an advanced-materials company, announced it secured a $4.6- million grant from the National Resource Council of Canada (NRC). The funds, made available through the NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program, will enable the company to scale up its breakthrough thin-film deposition platform from the lab and into commercialization, specifically for the packaging industry. Nfinite, a spinoff from the University of Waterloo, is commercializing an open-air roll-to-roll process for depositing ultra-thin highly conformal coatings, known as atmospheric pressure spatial atomic layer deposition. As part of the grant, Nfinite will collaborate with three commercial partners: Amcor, PepsiCo, and Unilever – all of whom share the same mission in moving towards compostable and recyclable packaging solutions. The grant continues for three years and will assist Nfinite in deploying its pilot production plant in Waterloo. The NRC funds will also help the company finalize its first industrial production facility, which is expected to produce tens of millions of square metres of high-barrier paper annually. Canadian Packaging

Thales Canada, a wholly-owned subsidiary of French-headquartered defence contractor Thales, announced a partnership agreement with Toronto-based AI firm Cohere to provide agentic artificial intelligence for naval and maritime in-service support services. The partnership combines Thales’ leadership in naval and maritime in-service support in Canada as well as Thales’ AI incubator, cortAIx, with Cohere’s expertise in large language models and AI-powered applications, enabling the rapid delivery of advanced capabilities to the Canadian Armed Forces. cortAIx, Thales AI accelerator in critical systems, created in 2024, brings together more than 800 AI experts across four hubs – in France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore – and unifies Thales’ research, engineering and industrialization activities in AI for critical environments. The partnership will also accelerate the development and secure deployment of agentic AI tools to enhance intelligence and operational decision-making across projects scheduled to launch this year, Thales said. Thales

The Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI) formalized a memorandum of understanding with a consortium of Ontario’s leading life sciences commercialization organizations to expand support for early-stage health innovators and strengthen co-investment pathways across the province. Through this collaboration, Ontario’s Life Sciences Innovation Fund and participating ecosystem partners will work together to advance high-potential health startups, accelerate innovation adoption, and position Ontario as a global leader in health technology commercialization. The MOU brings together key strategic partners in Ontario’s life sciences ecosystem, including adMare BioInnovations, Canadian Centre for Aging & Brain Health Innovation, Capital Bioventures, Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, FACIT venture firm, MaRS Discovery District, Ontario Brain Institute, OBIO® (Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization), Ontario Genomics, and Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners. The MOU explores joint pilot initiatives, programs, and commercialization pathways, while accelerating the growth of Ontario’s most promising early-stage health technologies. The organizations in this partnership are supported by the Government of Ontario. Ontario Centre of Innovation

The Government of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) announced the signing of a suite of historic contracts with Ohio-based REalloys Inc. (REA). Saskatchewan has established the first fully-integrated rare earth supply chain in North America. This partnership between SRC and REA is anchored by a five-year offtake agreement under which REA will purchase the vast majority of annual production of Neodymium-Praseodymium metal and Dysprosium and Terbium oxides from SRC's Rare Earth Processing Facility in Saskatoon. The agreement will deliver strong commercial returns to SRC while enabling REA to meet regulatory compliance in its delivery of rare earth metals to its U.S. defence industrial base clients. SRC's Rare Earth Processing Facility will be North America's first fully integrated, commercial-scale rare earth processing and metals facility when fully operational in early 2027. In addition to the offtake agreement, REA partnered with SRC to conduct a feasibility study for a large-scale rare earth processing, separation and metallization complex in Saskatoon. The facility would be one of the largest and most advanced in the world and would further solidify Saskatchewan as a global hub for rare earth technology development, material production and midstream processing capabilities. Saskatchewan Research Council

Seattle-based Microsoft said it will invest $7.5 billion in Canada over the next two years, bringing the company’s total AI investment in Canada between 2023 and 2027 to $19 billion. Microsoft said the spending will expand its Azure Canada Central and Canada East data centre regions, which are intended to “power everything from modernized public services to advanced AI innovation – responsibly and within Canadian borders.” Along with the investment, the U.S.-based tech giant is also laying out a five-point plan to “protect Canada’s digital sovereignty.” Microsoft said it is launching an Ottawa-based Threat Intelligence Hub, to detect and counter threats from nations such as China, Russia, North Korea “and countries across south Asia and the Middle East.” As part of its pledge “to keep Canadian data on Canadian soil,” Microsoft said it will offer in-country data processing for interactions Canadians have with its AI companion Copilot. The announcement also included a pledge to keep Canadian data encrypted and isolated and support the growth of Canada-based AI developers. Microsoft said it will launch the Sovereign AI Landing Zone in Canada. This is an open-source AI Landing Zone whose code will be hosted publicly on GitHub, and which will provide a secure foundation for deploying AI solutions within Canada’s borders, so organizations can build, scale and innovate while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and compliance. Microsoft also said it would ensure uninterrupted operation of cloud services for the Canadian government. Global News, Microsoft

California-headquartered ServiceNow announced a $110-million investment to enable Canada’s public sector to adopt AI at scale. The commitment includes building out Canadian-hosted, AI-ready digital infrastructure and operations, with advanced data, security and operational controls, and increasing in-country expertise through a new Canada Centre of Excellence and approximately 100 new high-skilled, Canada-based jobs. ServiceNow’s work with federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations, provincial governments and major cities has laid the foundation for this next phase of growth. Building on that momentum, ServiceNow is expanding its Canadian public sector capabilities. Running the ServiceNow AI Platform in this secure, local environment gives public sector organizations the ability to automate work, improve service delivery, and operate with greater efficiency, the company said. ServiceNow

The federal government should raise the exemption on capital gains tax for founders and early employees to $25 million per business, and defer it if they put their profits into another private Canadian company, said Daniel Denbow, founder and chair of Build Canada. In a memo for the tech group, Denbow also recommended that Ottawa “avoid new regulations” on artificial intelligence, not revive the former Liberal government’s proposed law, and introduce any rule changes it must make within six months. Debow was on the 28-person task force that AI Minister Evan Solomon appointed in September to advise on the overhaul of Canada’s national AI strategy “Without productivity gains, Canada will fall behind economically and risk its sovereignty as other nations race ahead,” Denbow said in his memo. “AI offers a rare chance to boost output across every sector but only if the government creates an environment that encourages adoption.” Denbow suggested three major reforms:

1. Make it easy and profitable to build AI in Canada. Defer capital gains taxes for reinvestment. Raise exemptions for founders and early employees. Keep AI regulation light. Speed immigration for technical talent.
2. Fix government incentives to adopt AI. Tie executives’ pay to service outcomes, not budget size. Require every deputy minister to submit an AI plan with measurable targets. Remove bureaucratic vetoes that block modernization.
3. Empower defence leaders to buy AI. Simplify procurement from thousands of steps to about 20. Give service commanders authority to purchase up to $5 million without additional approval. Retire outdated compliance frameworks. Build Canada

San Francisco-based Anthropic and Dublin, Ireland-headquartered Accenture formed the Accenture Anthropic Business Group, making Anthropic one of Accenture's select strategic partners with a dedicated practice built around Claude, Anthropic’s family of advanced AI assistants and large language models.. Approximately 30,000 Accenture professionals will receive training on Claude, creating one of the largest ecosystems of Claude practitioners in the world. Accenture becomes a premier AI partner for coding with Claude Code, which now holds over half of the AI coding market, making it available to tens of thousands of its developers. The companies also are launching a new joint offering to help chief information officers measure value and adopt AI across their engineering organizations. Anthropic will focus on products for Accenture’s public sector clients, plus regulated industries like financial services, life sciences and health care. Accenture has separate deals with both OpenAI and Cohere. Anthropic

New York City-headquartered (and previously headquartered in Toronto) Brookfield Asset Management and Qai, Qatar’s AI company and a subsidiary of Qatar Investment Authority, announced a strategic partnership to establish a $20-billion joint venture focused on artificial intelligence infrastructure in Qatar and select international markets. Brookfield and Qai will contribute capital and operating expertise to invest in AI infrastructure in Qatar, including the development of fully integrated AI facilities, to support the country’s rapidly expanding digital and AI ecosystem. The partnership will benefit from strategic support from the Government of Qatar to invest in the skills and supply chain needed to support the backbone of AI infrastructure and the adoption of AI throughout Qatar. Beyond Qatar, Brookfield and Qai will explore opportunities to co-develop and construct AI infrastructure in select international markets. Brookfield and its partners plan to invest in this venture through the recently launched Brookfield Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Fund. Brookfield

Edmonton-based Capital Power said it has a binding memorandum of understanding to supply 250 megawatts of natural gas-generated electricity to an unnamed “investment-grade data centre developer” for over a decade starting in 2028. For compute, investment-grade typically means tech giants with a major cloud service arm, like Amazon, Google, Microsoft or Oracle. Meta Platforms Inc., parent to Facebook, is expected to build a massive data centre facility northeast of Edmonton and backed by Pembina Pipeline Corp. and Kineticor Resource Corp., both based in Calgary, according to media reports. Capital Power

Nukik Corporation and Agnico Eagle Mines Limited signed a memorandum of understanding to formalize commercial negotiations and technical collaboration on the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link (KHFL), an infrastructure project designed to bring clean, reliable energy and high-speed broadband connectivity to Nunavut's Kivalliq region. Thes MOU builds upon years of discussions and technical work between the two organizations. As the KHFL project moves into a new phase of momentum, and with Agnico Eagle's Meliadine mine firmly established as a cornerstone of the region's economy, the partnership takes on renewed purpose in advancing a shared vision for sustainable development. Led and owned by Nukik Corporation, the KHFL project reflects ongoing collaboration with the federal government and industry partners to address the infrastructure gap in Nunavut. By connecting Nunavut to Manitoba's hydro and fibre networks, the KHFL will create the infrastructure backbone for Inuit-led growth – replacing diesel with clean energy, bridging the digital divide, and enabling the region to build lasting economic growth. Nukik Corporation

Winnipeg-based agricultural data management firm Farmers Edge launched Corvian, a new enterprise technology division built to modernize systems, align data, and enable large-scale digital execution. Backed by Fairfax Financial, Corvian introduces a structured, enterprise-grade operating model to support organizations across agriculture, food, fuel, insurance, consumer packaged goods, finance, and sustainable supply chains. Corvian brings together all enterprise technology capabilities under two flagship solution pillars:

• Enterprise Technology: ready-to-deploy or custom-built digital solutions, including white-label platforms, data, and technology licensing.
• Strategy and Advisory: technical guidance, program design, and implementation support to help enterprises run digital initiatives with clarity, stability, and continuity.

These solutions are powered by a robust technical foundation: 36 AgTech patents, over 100 million acres of data processed, more than 50 proprietary data models, and over 8 million acres digitized for carbon programs across North America. This depth of validated, field-level intelligence enables enterprises to modernize systems, unify data, and deploy digital programs with precision and scale. Farmers Edge

A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit judge upheld a ruling that Ottawa-based e-commerce firm Shopify is not infringing on Express Mobile’s patents, and awarded costs to Shopify. In 2019, Shopify sued Express, a small California firm that has sued dozens of large software companies, after receiving a letter from Express’s lawyer accusing it of patent infringement. In 2022, a Delaware jury awarded Express US$40 million after finding Shopify infringed on three of its patents. Shopify appealed the jury’s decision and a U.S. court overturned it in 2024. This latest ruling is the result of Express’s appeal of that decision. Shopify’s executives celebrated the ruling on social media. United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

The Department of Justice and Securities and the U.S. Exchange Commission has charged 26-year-old Canadian Nathan Gauvin, alleging he gained a following on the social platform Discord by falsely claiming to be a successful investment professional, raising millions that he claimed to invest in a mix of crypto and traditional assets while actually spending the money on luxury goods, custom jewelry, real estate, art, and personal credit card bills. Three entities Gauvin controls – Blackridge, LLC, Gray Digital Capital Management USA, LLC, and Gray Digital Technologies, LLC – allegedly orchestrated two fraudulent securities offerings that raised more than US$18 million from investors across the U.S. and abroad. Gauvin allegedly misappropriated approximately US$6.3 million of investor funds and used fabricated credentials, false performance metrics, and fictitious account statements to lure investors into his schemes. Gauvin, who was arrested in London, graduated from Sudbury, Ont. high school Lockerby Composite and dropped out of Laurentian University, the Sudbury Star reported. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

The latest data release from Chevron on its Australia-based Gorgon carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, the world’s largest, shows the lowest amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) captured and stored for a year since it started in August 2019. This matters, because CCS has been promoted [including by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney] as a climate solution by the fossil fuel sector, which last year pumped a collective 37.8 billion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere. This puts the world on a trajectory to reach a global average temperature rise of 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels, according to Climate Action Tracker. The oil and gas sector maintains that one way to avoid this is to adopt CCS, and governments should be putting taxpayer funds into this “solution.” But Gorgon CCS shows no signs of improving; its performance has declined significantly since the first year of operation. In one of its Gorgon CCS planning documents, Chevron estimated that if all the gas from the project were consumed at gas-powered generation stations in the Asia-Pacific, emissions would amount to 50 MtCO₂ a year. Based on the assumptions in that scenario, Gorgon CCS captured just 2.66 percent of the total emissions from extracting, processing and burning gas from the Gorgon fields. So even if Gorgon were working at its design rate of capturing and storing 4 Mt CO₂ a year, it would still amount to just eight percent of the total emissions from the associated projects. According to the Global CCS Institute’s annual report on the status of CCS around the world, the total CO₂ stored by the world’s CCS projects is little more than 10Mt CO₂ a year, or just 0.00026 percent of global fossil fuel emissions. Renew Economy

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

Vancouver-based med-tech startup Simuhealth  raised $2.62 million in pre-seed funding to modernize how healthcare professionals are trained. The round was co-led by Looking Glass Capital and Parade Ventures, with a significant investment from RiverPark Ventures along with other investors. Health care simulation – where clinicians practice procedures on mannequins, standardized patients and virtual scenarios before treating real patients – has become a core element of medical and nursing education. As adoption has surged, many simulation centres still rely on manual processes such as spreadsheets, email chains and disconnected tools to manage scheduling, equipment and reporting. Simuhealth aims to replace those fragmented systems with a purpose-built system of record that enables customers to streamline bookings, manage equipment and facilities, and generate cost-per-session data to justify budgets and scale programs. Techcouver

Kitchener-Waterloo-based Assetflo raised US$2 million in seed funding for its system for tracking physical goods like parcels in transit, equipment in factories and inventory in warehouses. GreenSky Ventures led the round. Assetflo’s internet-of-things-based tracking system aims to help companies monitor and avoid misplacing assets, both indoors and outside, in a more cost-effective manner by leveraging existing hardware. Assetflo’s broader vision involves developing digital twins – dynamic virtual replicas of those assets and their environments – to give clients even greater visibility to address cost-efficiency, productivity, compliance and security challenges. BetaKit

David Peters, a contractor-turned-founder, raised $2 million in a seed round for his Winnipeg-based startup, ConstructionClock. The company offers an automated attendance-tracking app designed to improve labor time tracking in the construction industry. Peters, who has a background in subcontracting, developed the app to address issues of time theft and inefficiencies related to manual time tracking. With the seed funding, the company aims to triple its customer base by 2026 and expand its global reach, currently serving 3,000 companies across 23 countries, including a strong presence in the U.S. The new funding will also support the addition of sales staff and the launch of a payroll feature with earned wage access. Startup Ecosystem Canada

Gander, a social networking app positioned as a Canadian alternative to Meta or X, has hit its crowdfunding goal. Ben Waldman, Gander Social’s CEO, posted on LinkedIn that the team surpassed $1.5 million in equity crowdfunding. Another roughly $300,000 in investments were processing as of the time of his post, putting the likely total close to $2 million. Waldman said the level of interest in the project is so high Gander has extended its crowdfunding deadline to January, rather than closing in mid-December. Gander is targeting a captive market of the more than 30 million Canadians who use social media apps for more than two hours a day, and many of whom may be searching for alternatives to the U.S. tech giants. Gander’s platform will be designed, built and hosted in Canada, on Canadian servers, with a focus on privacy. BetaKit

CPP Investments is among the investors backing Texas-based geothermal startup Fervo Energy in a new US$462-million fundraising round the company will use to complete its first large-scale power plant. The new funds will help the company continue work on its 500-megawatt Cape Station power plant in Utah while starting development on several others. The new round was led by B Capital with participation from several other investors. Fervo has an existing deal with Google to supply it with electricity for its data centres. TechCrunch

Melbourne, Australia-based IFM Investors is opening a Toronto office, as the $242-billion global private assets manager looks to invest more in Canadian infrastructure. Across Canada, IFM serves more than 200 institutional clients, representing approximately $14.4 billion in funds under management. The Toronto office will improve local service and coordination and unlock new growth opportunities across Canadian markets. IFM already has a track record of investing in Canada through infrastructure assets including:

• Enwave Energy Corporation – A fully integrated district energy business providing innovative, sustainable heating and cooling solutions to more than 320 customers across multiple sectors in Canada.
• GCT Global Container Terminals – Operator of GCT Deltaport and GCT Vanterm at the Port of Vancouver, which together handle approximately 70 percent of the port's container volumes, strengthening Canada's position as a vital gateway for global trade. IFM Investors

Blockstream Capital Partners, the investment arm of Montreal-based Blockstream, acquired New Jersey-based Corbiere Capital Management, an equities hedge fund manager. Blockstream  said it wants to eventually offer a full suite of investment products in both bitcoin and traditional finance. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Blockstream Capital Partners

REPORTS & POLICIES

Consortium calls on Canada to develop a national semiconductor strategy and significantly increase public R&D investment in the industry

Canada remains the only G7 nation without a national semiconductor strategy, which threatens global competitiveness, ability to scale innovation, and to develop sovereignty over the country’s digital economy, according to a policy brief by a consortium of semiconductor and technology organizations.

They call on Canada to develop a National Semiconductor Strategy to protect domestic industries, strengthen competitiveness, create thousands of high-paying skilled jobs, and attract the investment needed to supercharge Canada's national economy.

The consortium includes Canada’s Semiconductor Council, CMC Microsystems and its FABrIC project, the Information and Communications Technology Council, and ventureLAB.

Canada’s strengths in semiconductor design, compound semiconductors, photonics, micro-electromechanical systems and advanced packaging give it a technological edge in producing specialized hardware for AI, telecommunications, and high-performance computing, the policy report says.

With more than 250 firms active in research, design, and manufacturing – and strong clusters in Ottawa, Toronto-Waterloo, Montréal-Bromont, Edmonton, and Vancouver – Canada has built a globally connected, innovation-driven ecosystem focused on high-value segments of the global value chain.

Unlike jurisdictions focused on mass fabrication, Canada specializes in R&D, design, photonics, and advanced packaging – key enablers of AI, defence innovation, and advanced computing. Additionally, Canada is home to major semiconductor design centres for multinational enterprises with offshore, high-value fabrication facilities.

“This specialization positions Canada as a trusted partner in the global chip ecosystem,” the report says.

Other jurisdictions have moved decisively: the United States has invested over US$50 billion through the CHIPS and Science Act, the European Union has launched the €43 billion (Cdn$70.06 billion) EU Chips Act, and Asian economies such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan have deepened leadership through decades of coordinated industrial policy.

The report says that without a strategic approach, Canada risks:

• Losing talent and expertise to ecosystems offering stronger incentives and infrastructure.
• Constrained innovation due to limited fabrication and prototyping capacity.
• Missed opportunities in AI, clean technology, and defence modernization.
• Reduced competitiveness in a world where industrial strategy drives technological success.

“A national semiconductor strategy would align investment, accelerate commercialization, strengthen supply chains, and ensure Canada’s innovation ecosystem can compete globally,” the report says. Policy measures need to focus on:

• Establishing a National Semiconductor Strategy Task Force.
• Launching a Canadian Chips Initiative with targeted funding to build Canada’s domestic semiconductor capacity in high-priority and strategic industries.
• Cultivating Canada’s semiconductor workforce through the creation of a Semiconductor Talent and Innovation Hub.
• Developing a Semiconductor Supply Chain Resilience Framework to protect Canada’s domestic semiconductor industry.

The report makes five key policy recommendations:

1. Canada should significantly increase public R&D investment in the semiconductor industry to catalyze private-sector growth and attract foreign direct investment, positioning the country as a globally competitive innovation hub.
2. Canada should build its domestic semiconductor fabrication and packaging capacity by designating such capital investments as Major Projects initiatives, framing it as a nation-building effort to secure technological sovereignty, strengthen economic resilience, and position the country as a strategic partner in the global semiconductor ecosystem.
3. Canada should invest in targeted training programs that align postsecondary graduates with the evolving needs of the semiconductor industry, generating a skilled and dynamic workforce pipeline capable of supporting domestic R&D, innovation, and long-term sector growth.
4. Canada should foster and nurture strategic alliances and international collaboration with allied nations in the semiconductor industry to strengthen supply chain resilience, diversify trade, accelerate innovation, and ensure access to critical technologies and new markets.
5. Canada should implement targeted regulatory and procurement support to strengthen its domestic semiconductor industry, reinforce multilateral strategic alliance, and protect its intellectual property. 

“Boasting exceptional talent, world-class university and research institutions, a vibrant culture of innovation, and strong technological foundations, Canada has the potential to shape the future of AI and semiconductor industries,” the report says. “However, this vision requires decisive action and clear leadership.” Information Communications and Technology Council

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A made-in-Canada approach to artificial intelligence

Canadian companies can’t outcompete richer U.S. firms in the “AI race” and the federal government should instead steer Canada’s AI industry toward a green and ethical niche, according to a commentary in Policy Options.

Recent executive orders signed by President Donald Trump promise to fast-track power plants and data centres to service AI despite their negative environmental impacts and to restrict the export of unbundled AI components needed by companies looking to develop their own products – all to give U.S. businesses an advantage, Kelly Bronson, a Canada Research Chair in Science and Society at the University of Ottawa, and Jiaqi Wen, a doctoral candidate at Simon Fraser University, say in their commentary.

American AI companies, already among the largest in the world, are spending so much on data centres in 2025 that this investment is now contributing more to U.S. economic growth than consumer spending.

Meanwhile, anti-discrimination regulations are not being written for fear they would slow down industry momentum.

“Realistically, a made-in-Canada approach must look different,” Bronson and Wen say.

Moreover, Canada’s treaty and confederation systems do not allow the development of projects on Indigenous and provincial lands without proper impact assessments and meaningful consultation (although Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, enables the federal government to fast-track projects deemed to be in the national interest, which could include data centres).

However, Bronson and Wen argue that the Carney government has an opportunity, through clear regulations and creative policy, to shape a new direction for Canadian AI, building a system where Canadians can offer more sustainable and accountable AI systems and infrastructures to support them.

The current bigger-is-better model assumes the AI race will be won by the companies that create the most powerful general-purpose tools. The hope is that with enough (often stolen!) data, these systems will eventually develop to the point they can be sold for use in a wide range of contexts, earning monopoly profits.

“However, this is an expensive gambit for businesses and dangerous for the global climate,” Bronson and Wen say.

Currently, to achieve even a modest increase in AI system performance, companies need to invest in exponentially greater amounts of computational power. This approach clearly rewards players who already have a lot of money or the most access to consumer data, they say.

It also privileges those who can secure energy contracts to power new data centres, they add. These energy costs have non-trivial climate and health impacts, especially when the rush to bring more data centres online is prolonging the use of coal and natural gas.

“This AI arms race is ultimately a gamble. Today’s general purpose AI models have continually failed to deliver on their promise of automating skilled service work or eliminating enduring biases,” Bronson and Wen note.

They point out that a recent report by MIT indicated that 95 percent of generative AI companies are getting zero return on their investments.

While some hope that time and money will eventually solve these problems, the current AI hype could prove to be a bubble – or even another subprime crisis – with potentially devastating consequences, they warn.

They say an alternative approach is to create small AI models, built with high-quality data to do specific tasks in specific contexts.

These systems are better at dealing with sensitive data and potential bias. They also use less energy. This means there are more opportunities to power these systems with low-carbon electricity, thus avoiding compromising national climate targets or raising domestic consumer prices.

This scale of AI development is also less dependent on cutting-edge American chip manufacturers or cloud providers, thus offering a better fit for Canadian sovereignty concerns, they say. “This could allow a domestic AI industry to ‘buy Canadian’ across more of its supply chain and to avoid running its systems on American data centres.”

Given that American laws now allow the U.S. government access to data stored on American-owned systems even if they are located in Canada, this is an urgent problem, Benson and Wen say.

Small and fit-for-purpose AI would also keep Canadian investment dollars within Canada.

Globally, there could be a growing market for smaller contextual systems, especially those that are not linked to the American state and military.

Drawing on Canada’s history in peacekeeping, emergency response and environmentalism, there is an opportunity to find a green and ethical niche in international markets, they say.

To better shape the prospects for made-in-Canada AI, the federal government should explore a range of regulations and policy measures,  they say. Some of these include common sense, unambiguous, bright-line rules to prevent bad actors and outcomes.

For example, AI should never be used to facilitate discrimination in housing or job markets, nor to take advantage of workers and consumers through predictive pricing algorithms.

While Canada has shown international leadership on regulating automation inside the government, the country lacks policies for private-sector AI, Bronson and Wen note. Ensuring that AI regulations are in place will set boundaries and goal posts that point businesses in a direction where they can find success and promote social benefits over the longer term.

Additionally, as the Carney government explores potential new federal infrastructure megaprojects, there is an opportunity to set up data-centre parks provisioned with clean energy and governed with local and Indigenous communities.

Long-term, participatory planning can ensure that power prices and carbon emissions don’t spike, while benefits stay in the communities that host the data centres that make up the cloud. This might also involve creating a Crown corporation to provide affordable, public and sovereign computing resources to both domestic companies and public actors.

Conclude Bronson and Wen: “With AI increasingly looking to be the next such contest, we have a lot to gain from walking our own path and sticking to Canadian commitments to human rights, environmentalism, deliberative governance and Indigenous reconciliation.”

Sarah-Louise Ruder and Olivia Doggett are contributing co-authors on this article. Benson and Wen also thank the authors of the Challenges and Opportunities for a Made-In-Canada Approach to AI whitepaper, whose arguments are reflected in this piece. Policy Options

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Canadian wealth and asset managers lag global peers in incorporating AI into business operations

Canadian wealth and asset managers lag their global peers in incorporating artificial intelligence into their business operations, according to a report by FNZ Group Ltd.

Onlly 53 percent of respondents among Canadian wealth management executives say AI is critical to the future of their business, while 56 percent say they believe AI will revolutionize the industry, a survey conducted by FNZ, a U.K-based wealth management technology provider.

In comparison, globally nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of respondents among executive see AI as critical for their operations, and 63 percent say AI will revolutionize the wealth and asset management sector.

The survey, titled “The AI-Powered Investment Firm,” included responses from more than 500 financial institutions in 16 countries that together represent about US$74.2 trillion in assets – or 44 percent of the total assets managed globally.

More than 80 percent of Canadian executives reported positive returns on their AI investments, which is broadly in line with global averages.

But only five percent of Canadian firms are recording positive returns of seven percent or more of what they spent on AI. This compares to the global average of 19 percent of firms recording positive returns of seven percent or more on their AI investments.

[Editor’s note: Compare the findings of FNZ Group’s survey to recent surveys (The Short Report: December 3, 2025) of AI adoption by Canadian businesses, by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and KMPG. AWS’s survey found that 89 percent of AI adopters reporting revenue gains averaging 26 percent. In contrast, KPMG Canada’s survey found that more than half (57 percent) of AI adopters described their return on investment as only between five and 20 percent – significantly lower. The different findings across the three surveys suggest the need to develop a survey with standardized methodologies. Standardization would define what constitutes “AI adoption,” correct for sampling bias, use consistent measurements, and take into account self-reporting inaccuracies. We need a reliable, comparable yardstick].

In the FNZ Group survey, 71 percent of Canadian firms say clearer risk management guidelines from regulators would enable greater AI use, compared to the global average of 62 percent.

For comparison, in the AWS survey only 46 percent of Canadian respondents cite a lack of regulatory/legal clarity for deploying AI.

Other global findings of the FNZ Group survey included:

• Most companies (62 percent) said they recouped the value of their AI investment within two years.
• 87 percent of AI leaders have made moderate or significant progress on integrated, cloud-enabled IT platforms, while 81 percent have implemented AI governance frameworks and policies and 62 percent say clearer risk guidelines will further accelerate adoption.
• 73 percent of firms believe AI will drive a step change in human productivity, freeing advisors to focus on relationships, strategy and complex judgment while AI handles routine and administrative tasks.

FNZ’s analysis highlights four critical strategies for firms looking to excel in the agentic AI era:

1. Adopt AI early to unlock return on investment: Early adopters are already seeing measurable performance benefits. Firms moving decisively on AI achieve stronger outcomes in revenue growth, operational efficiency and risk reduction than slower-moving peers. Committing early, investing at scale and embedding AI into business strategy and culture are central to success.
2. Build an AI-ready IT and data foundation: The research underscores that “no platform, no payoff.” Without the right infrastructure, AI initiatives struggle to scale beyond pilots.
3. Embrace governance to shape the future of AI: Firms recognize that effective governance is essential to unlocking AI at scale. The study finds that 81 percent of AI leaders have already implemented formal AI governance frameworks and policies, turning compliance into a source of competitive advantage by demonstrating fairness, reliability and regulatory alignment.
4. Enhance, not replace, the advisor: The findings confirm that AI is fundamentally about augmenting, not replacing, human expertise. As AI capabilities mature, firms expect advisors to spend more time on high-value client engagement and complex decision-making, while AI increasingly takes the lead in operational areas such as trade and transaction execution (40 percent), client onboarding (36 percent) and performance monitoring (35 percent). FNZ Group

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AI could help Canadians “land their personal finance plane,” but government must have a “pilot” in charge

Artificial intelligence could make financial learning and advice for Canadians more accessible and affordable, according to a report from the C. D. Howe Institute.

Canadians are managing more money and more financial decisions than ever, the report said. Over the past 30 years, household wealth has more than doubled, while traditional supports like workplace pensions have faded.

A 65-year-old today with median lifetime earnings can expect to live more than 20 additional years but will receive, on average, less than 40 percent of their career income in guaranteed, inflation-protected retirement benefits from universal programs like Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and the Canada or Québec Pension Plan.

To maintain purchasing power in retirement and protect against various risks, individuals now face a series of demanding financial decisions: how much to save, where to invest, how to draw down assets, and whether to purchase insurance products.

“Most people aren’t fully prepared for those choices,” said the report by Pierre-Carl Michaud, professor in the Department of Applied Economics at HEC Montréal, and Bernard Morency, adjunct professor at HEC Montréal. Financial literacy in Canada remains low, and many struggle with basic concepts like compound interest, inflation, investment risk and taxes.

These gaps can lead to costly mistakes – choosing the wrong savings plan, paying high fees, or missing out on investment returns – especially as retirement decisions become more complex.

Providing basic financial literacy to the broader population and specific education at particular moments in the life-cycle can enable consumers to then seek specialized advice or tools, which may help them make decisions, the report said.

Technology can help, but financial literacy remains the foundation, according to the report. Artificial intelligence could make financial learning and advice more accessible and affordable.

AI can be used to increase financial literacy, providing consumers with an easily accessible conversational tool to learn about financial concepts.

Second, AI can help advisors drill down into massive amounts of information to better tailor advice to clients and automate information-gathering tasks to increase their own productivity, reduce costs and increase access.

Third, and this is the most sensitive potential role, is using AI to provide direct, personalized financial advice to clients.

By lowering the cost of acquiring financial education, publicly available AI tools, especially conversational ones like ChatGPT, Gemini, or CoPilot, have the potential to help consumers better understand basic financial literacy concepts. In this sense, AI can serve as a “literacy booster.”

One potential issue is that control over the quality of what AI tools can produce is limited. If that is a concern, regulatory bodies or professional organizations – such as FP Canada, which certifies financial planners – could develop their own AI-powered tools using large language models (LLM) trained on the expertise of certified advisors, the report suggested

Access to such an LLM could then be made free to the public and promoted at key life stages, since many consumers simply don’t know what they don’t know. One avenue would be for the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, along with provincial financial services regulators, to build and host those tools and promote their use or mandate financial institutions to inform their customers about their existence. 

Where AI shows particular promise is in helping individual advisors to format and interrogate massive amounts of information they hold on their clients, even if they are not trained in modelling and programming. The potential for individual advisors to create their own “data lab” may yield important efficiency gains. 

In discussions with advisors, a common complaint is that a lot of time in meetings is spent updating records and collecting information from clients. This can be automated using LLMs implemented as conversational agents.

The most problematic potential use of advice is in providing specific advice to clients. Clearly, publicly available LLM-based tools such as ChatGPT are capable of the best and the worst. They are subject to “hallucinations” where they make up recommendations.

This is where the complementarity between AI and financial literacy is important. The ability to spot hallucinations is probably higher for clients with better financial literacy.

Privately-trained LLMs, say by advisors, are also prone to hallucinations. Completely eliminating hallucinations is virtually impossible. The effects of something going wrong are massive for large financial institutions, even if the risk of occurrence is quite small.

“Hence, it is difficult to imagine a world in which consumers can completely rely on advice provided by AI.”

One potential solution is to design AI-based LLM tools that propose a menu of recommendations from which advisors can pick. This solution could be particularly promising in settings where large financial institutions may want to control the menu of recommendations they would like distributed through their networks, while still allowing advisors to tailor advice by picking from the menu what fits best with each client’s situation.

“People need a basic level of understanding to use AI safely,” the report said.

Policymakers need to catch up with current AI advances and provide clear guidelines on how it can and cannot be used in financial services. Guardrails need to be put in place, in terms of auditing and reporting, explanation standards, hallucination controls, human-in-the-loop models, data privacy compliance, and model risk management. 

The current policy and educational environment for household finances, and in particular for retirement savings (accumulation and decumulation), is extremely fragmented, with many actors dealing with their own parts of the system without sufficient interaction with one another or with the broader public, according to the report.

More than ever, there is a need to identify a clear leader within government or regulatory agencies – someone responsible for coordinating retirement savings policy and providing trusted, comprehensive information on the various aspects of these crucial decisions in every Canadian’s life.

“Canada needs a ‘pilot’ in government charged with developing a personal finance flight simulator that Canadians can use to train in how to fly and land their personal finance plane.” C. D. Howe Institute

THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S. for the last six years, announced she will leave the post in the new year, but plans to “remain available” to Canada’s negotiating team as it navigates a tumultuous relationship with the Trump administration and the review of the Canada-United States-Mexico (CUSMA) trade agreement. The lawyer and longtime public servant arrived in Washington, D.C., in 2017 to help negotiate CUSMA that replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement during the first Trump administration. “While there will never be a perfect time to leave, this is the right time to put a team in place that will see the CUSMA Review through to its conclusion,” she said in a post on X. Kirsten Hillman in X post

Calgary student Aryan Sharma is earning international recognition for tackling a persistent public safety challenge: impaired driving. The 15-year-old was recently named Canada’s sole honouree at Intel’s Global AI Festival, a worldwide program celebrating young innovators using artificial intelligence for real-world social impact. Sharma’s award-winning project, DU-Eye, is an AI-powered system designed to detect signs of impaired driving in real time. He began building the prototype at age 14 and has spent the past two years refining the device’s ability to read behavioural cues, environmental movement and vehicle dynamics. While DU-Eye remains in early testing, Sharma hopes to explore pilot opportunities with municipal partners to assess the system’s feasibility for real-world deployment. Calgary.tech

Dr. John Smol, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University and a leading figure in Arctic paleolimnology, received the prestigious 2026 Mohn Prize for Outstanding Research Related to the Arctic, awarded by The Arctic University of Norway. An award ceremony will be held in February. Smol has been consistently travelling to the Arctic for about 40 years to study its unique lake ecosystems. His foundational work in the Arctic and other regions was key in advancing the field of paleolimnology, which uses environmental indicators preserved in dated sediment records extracted from the bottom of lakes, ponds and rivers to recreate the ecological histories of a region. Queen’s University

The C. D. Howe Institute’s board of directors appointed Dr. Jeremy M. Kronick, PhD, to the position of president and CEO following an international search. He’ll succeed current president and CEO William B. P. Robson. Kronick’s appointment will begin mid-spring 2026, following a transition period. Upon his retirement, Robson will become the inaugural holder of a research chair established in his honour. Kronick joined the C. D. Howe Institute in 2015 as a senior policy analyst and has since taken on progressively senior roles. Since 2024, he has served as vice-president, economic analysis and strategy and director of the Institute’s Centre on Financial and Monetary Policy. In 2023, he and co-authors Steve Ambler and Thorsten Koeppl received the Canadian Economics Association’s Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for the best publication on economic policy. C. D. Howe Institute

Montreal-based Inovia Capital promoted principals Kory Jeffrey and Taha Mubashir to partners on the company’s Venture team. Waterloo, Ont.-based Jeffrey wrote Inovia’s thesis for generative AI with chief technology officer Steve Woods, with whom he previously worked at Google. Jeffrey is also Inovia’s point person for portfolio firms Spellbook and Reliant AI. Toronto-based Mubashir has backed AI startups like Signal 1 and Landbase. Inovia Capital on LinkedIn

JPMorganChase announced that Todd Combs, investment manager of Berkshire Hathaway, CEO of GEICO and a former member of JPMorganChase’s board of directors, will head the $10-billion Strategic Investment Group of JPMorganChase’s new Security and Resiliency Initiative, which the firm recently launched to help companies enhance their growth, spur innovation and accelerate manufacturing, primarily in the United States. Combs will work closely with the Commercial & Investment Bank and Asset & Wealth Management to identify opportunities that cut across middle-market and large corporate clients in the defense, aerospace, health care and energy sectors. He will also act as a special advisor to Jamie Dimon, JPMorganChase’s chairman and CEO, and to the firm’s operating committee on specific strategic issues. Combs will join the company in January2026. JPMorganChase

Neil Cuggy, president and chief operating officer at Montreal-based Goodfood, an online a grocer and meal delivery company, announced he will step down from his role in the new year. Cuggy was entrusted with day-to-day operations after co-founder Jonathan Ferrari abruptly stepped down as CEO in August. Cuggy said he will step down from his executive roles effective Jan. 16. The company said he will remain on Goodfood’s board of directors until its next annual shareholder meeting in February. Ferrari left as Goodfood racked up losses quarter-over-quarter, unable to meet its record revenue of 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic drove demand for home delivery of groceries and meals. Selim Bassoul, who was tapped as the non-executive chair of the board when Ferrari left, will now become Goodfood’s executive chair. BetaKit

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New nanomaterial opens the door to cheaper, safer materials for solar panels, sensors and advanced optical devices

Using proteins from a common tobacco plant virus, McGill University chemistry researchers have developed a simple, eco-friendly way to arrange gold nanoparticles into ultrathin sheets, strengthening the particles’ optical properties.

The result: cheaper, safer materials for solar panels, sensors and advanced optical devices. 

Gold nanoparticles are only effective in strengthening optical signals when the nanoparticles are arranged on a surface and spaced at exact distances. Until now, creating those patterns required harsh chemicals and tightly controlled lab conditions. 

The McGill team modified the non-active shell of a tobacco mosaic virus so that it would self-assemble into sheets in water and at room temperature, with the nanoparticles properly spaced.  

“If you just chuck these nanoparticles on a surface, some fraction of them will randomly cause enhancement,” said associate professor and study co-author Amy Blum. “But if you can get them to be at a fixed good distance, then the whole surface is active.”   

The result is a nanomaterial that can be made at a lower cost and with less environmental impact, compared to the existing method. 

Blum said that this work represents an important step toward sustainable nanomaterials for everyday technologies. “This is about using nature’s building blocks to make technology cleaner, cheaper and smarter."

To build the scaffold, the team modified the virus’s protein by adding a short chain of histidine – essentially tiny hooks that latch onto gold nanoparticles and guide the proteins to self-assemble into ultrathin sheets. 

Without this modification, the protein tends to clump. The weaker interactions instead encourage the proteins to lay flat, Blum noted. 

The team was surprised to find that under certain conditions the sheets could roll themselves into nanoscale tubes. This opens the way for researchers to investigate whether the tubes might one day function like nanoscopic fibre-optic cables, Blum said. 

Their study, Extended Plasmonic Nanostructures Templated by Tobacco Mosaic Virus Coat Protein, was published in the journal Small. McGill University

R$