The Port of Montreal expansion (photo at right) is the first “national project” to get a green light from the federal government’s Major Projects Office. The Montreal Port Authority announced it has received an authorization from Fisheries and Oceans Canada prior to the expansion of port facilities in Contrecœur and the continuation of the construction of the new container terminal. This authorization is issued under both the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act as part of the ongoing activities initiated in 2015 to successfully complete this strategic project. This authorization follows the environmental assessment process conducted by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, which resulted in a favourable decision statement in 2021. The entire process included a thorough environmental assessment, comprehensive consultations with the public and Indigenous stakeholders, and a detailed scientific analysis of the impacts on the copper redhorse habitat. The project will expand the port’s container capacity by 60 percent. The year 2026 will mark the start of in-water works, along with the continuation of site development work. Commissioning of the new terminal remains scheduled for 2030. Environmental advocacy group SNAP Québec plans to challenge the approval in court over potential risks to the copper redhorse, an endangered fish species found only in a few rivers in the St. Lawrence Plain. The Port of Montreal

B.C. Coastal First Nations remained opposed, after a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney, to oil tankers off B.C.’s North Coast and an oil pipeline carrying Alberta oilsands bitumen to the North Coast. “As the Rights and Title Holders of the Central and North Coast and Haida Gwaii, we remain steadfast in our position that oil tankers will never be part of our vision for a healthy, productive and sustainable North Coast,” Marilyn Slett, president of the Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative and elected chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, said in a statement. “We are committed to upholding Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, to safeguard our coast in the national interest of all Canadians,” Slett said. “Prime Minister Carney has confirmed that the federal government, consistent with Canada’s legal obligations and its commitments to UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) will work with First Nations and seek our consent regarding any proposed projects within our territories, and that we will work together to develop a transparent process moving forward.” Coastal First Nations

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New Canada-China trade deal displeases U.S., angers Ontario Premier Doug Ford

Canada and China reached an initial trade deal to cut tariffs on electric vehicles ⁠and canola.
Canada will initially ‌allow in up to ‌49,000 Chinese electric vehicles at a tariff of 6.1 percent on most-favoured nation-terms, Prime Minister Mark Carney said after talks with Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping. Carney did not specify a time period.

Under the new deal, Carney said, Canada expects China will lower tariffs on its canola seed by March 1, to a combined rate of about 15 percent. "This change represents a significant drop from current combined tariff levels of 84 percent" he said, adding that ‍China was a $4-billion canola seed market for Canada.
In addition, Canada expects its canola meal, as well as lobsters, crabs, and peas to be freed from anti-discrimination tariffs from March 1, until at least year-end, Carney added.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Carney said Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is “more multi-faceted” and much deeper than Canada's relationship with China – but he noted that ties with China have become more predictable in recent months.

U.S. officials are already signalling they're none too pleased with the deal. According to Reuters, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called the move "problematic" and said Canada may come to regret its decision.

The deal signals a break from Canada's past co-operation with the U.S. For example, when Canada slapped 100-percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, it did so in tandem with former U.S. president Joe Biden's administration.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford slammed Carney’s trade deal with China, saying it gives that country “a foothold” in the Canadian market which will hurt workers here.

“The federal government is inviting a flood of cheap made-in-China electric vehicles without any real guarantee of equal or immediate investments in Canada’s economy, auto sector or supply chain,” Ford said in a post on X.

“Worse, by lowering tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this lopsided deal risks closing the door on Canadian automakers to the American market, our largest export destination, which would hurt our economy and lead to job losses,” he said.

Ford called on the federal government to end the electric vehicle mandate, harmonize regulations with key trading partners and scrap federal fees that add to vehicle costs.

Economic Times, CBC News, CTV News

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Finance Canada announced an investment of up to $89.6 million (US$65 million) by the Canada Growth Fund in Mangrove Lithium as part of a US$85 million structured financing package with BMW iVentures and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The financing will support operations at Mangrove Lithium’s first commercial facility, located in Delta, B.C., while also advancing development of its next project, expected to power more than 500,000 electric vehicles annually. Mangrove Lithium is pioneering a feedstock-flexible, electrochemical lithium refining technology designed to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate. By supporting the growth of a fully integrated lithium supply chain using Canadian-developed technology, this partnership will strengthen Canada’s battery supply chain and economic resilience, Ottawa said. Finance Canada

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced a combined repayable investment of over $15 million for eight Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area companies: A.B.M. Tool & Die Company Ltd., Celplast Metallized Products Limited, GH Power Inc., Hitachi Rail, Imagoh Foods Ltd., Paradigm Shift Technologies, Redstone Food Group, and Quantum Bridge Technologies. Celplast is receiving over $1.6 million to scale up to meet demand through the adoption of advanced manufacturing equipment. The investment will strengthen the company’s domestic manufacturing capabilities for high-barrier metal coatings and transparent film products, helping it remain competitive and responsive to evolving industry needs. FedDev Ontario

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) announced $9.7 million to support crop research in Saskatchewan. This investment includes $7.2 million to support 39 new crop research projects through the Agriculture Development Fund (ADF) and $2.5 million through the Strategic Research Initiative (SRI) to study the long-term management of herbicide-resistant kochia and wild oats. This year's crop projects include a range of topics, including: evaluating the performance of subsurface drip irrigation; identifying new ways to build resistance to wheat stem sawfly; enhancing tolerance to drought and phosphorus deficiency in lentil crops; managing rice worm infestations in northern Saskatchewan wild rice production; and validating bale wrapping material made from flax straw and oat hulls. The Governments of Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan work closely with industry partners on ADF projects to leverage funding to support research that aligns with industry priorities. This year, projects are supported by an additional $3.2 million from 13 industry partners. The SRI provides targeted funding to address complex challenges facing the agricultural sector. The 2026 SRI project, led by Dr. Shaun Sharpe, PhD, at AAFC, will accelerate development of sustainable solutions for producers to manage herbicide-resistant kochia and wild oat. The collaborative initiative involves a multidisciplinary team from AAFC, University of Saskatchewan, University of Regina, University of Manitoba and the National Research Council. The multi-year research project represents a $3.2 million research investment with $2.5 million in government funding and $730,000 from SaskWheat, SPG, SaskOilseeds, SaskBarley, RDAR and Alberta Grains. AAFC

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities announced approximately $7.1 million through the Green Municipal Fund’s Local Leadership for Climate Adaptation initiative to fund 80 projects that will support climate adaptation plans, climate-focused asset management strategies, community-wide climate risk assessments, and more in several municipalities across Canada. Twenty-five of the projects are being developed in Newfoundland and Labrador. The investments help advance the Government of Canada Adaptation Action Plan and the National Adaptation Strategy and support municipalities across Canada to build long-term climate resilience. ECCC

The Federal Economic Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced a combined investment of more than $3.4 million for southern Ontario businesses to respond, adapt and compete amid shifting market conditions. The companies are: Havelock Metal Co. in Peterborough, Kit Steel Inc. in Welland, Steelcon Fabrication Inc. in Welland, and Titus Steel Company Ltd. in Mississauga. Canada’s steel manufacturing industry has been hard hit by 25-percent U.S. tariffs. FedDev Ontario

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announced nearly $3 million in funding through the Energy Innovation Program’s Smart Grids Regulatory Innovation Capacity Building Call for Proposals to support four Alberta projects that will enhance grid reliability and resiliency in the province. This funding includes:

• $1.5 million to ENMAX to develop a roadmap for regulatory and technical changes and to explore innovative approaches to help modernize Alberta’s grid.
• $532,770 to EPCOR Distribution & Transmission Inc. to study the feasibility of different advanced-rate structures and how they can help guide lower electricity costs.
• $500,000 to the Transition Accelerator to enable the deployment of thermal energy networks – systems that use piping infrastructure to share heating and cooling between buildings – which can leverage multiple local clean heat sources while lowering costs to consumers and reducing peak electricity demand. 
• $250,000 to the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance to support the development of a regulatory framework for demand-side management in Alberta to help consumers make better use of smart grid technology. NRCan

Competition Bureau Canada launched a market study into the state of competition in the financing sector for small and medium-sized enterprises. The launch follows a public consultation on what the study should cover, and the Minister of Industry’s approval of the study’s final terms of reference. The Bureau’s initial observations are that it can be hard for many SMEs to access competitive financing options. The Bureau aims to examine competition in the sector and how it can be improved to benefit SMEs and the new and innovative lenders that support them. The Bureau will share its findings in a final report, which will include recommendations on how governments across Canada can make SME financing more competitive. The Bureau is seeking input from Canadians and businesses with experience in the SME financing sector. Those interested in making a submission can learn more at Market Study: Competition in financing for Canada’s small and medium businesses. The deadline for submissions is February 27, 2026. Competition Bureau Canada

Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) said it expects to reduce its workforce by 45 executive and 569 non-executive positions over the next three years – or a reduction of 14.8 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. About 1,100 employees at ISED who will receive written notice to indicate that their position is impacted (opting status) or may be impacted in the future (affected status). Receiving a notice will not always mean a layoff, ISED said. The department will prioritize mechanisms that support voluntary departures from the public service including the proposed Early Retirement Incentive, which still requires legislative approval, as well as internal mobility, with the goal of reducing the need for involuntary layoffs “and continuing to deliver on an ambitious economic agenda.” A range of transition supports will be available to assist employees, whether they are moving to another role within ISED, elsewhere in the public service, or outside of government. ISED email to employees

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) told employees that 850 positions will be eliminated from the department over the next two years. The federal public service underwent a significant review in 2025, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget committed to cutting 16,000 jobs by 2028. More details about the "workforce adjustments" are expected by the end of the week, according to an email to staff from chief statistician André Loranger. That will include notifying the first 100 StatsCan employees whose positions are now considered surplus. In all, the department will send 3,274 "workforce adjustment notices" to employees whose services "may no longer be required," according to the email. Not everyone who receives notice will lose their job, but some could be shuffled into a different one. Twelve percent of StatsCan’s 99 executive positions will also be cut. In a statement to CBC, the agency said it "remains focused on serving Canadians and adapting to future needs as we move through this period of change." CBC News

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Canada’s response to sexually abusive images on X is “tepid” compared with other countries’ actions

The Government of Canada is having “active discussions” on how to respond to X.com’s generation of sexual abuse material, while other countries that have modernized their digital regulations are moving faster.

The social media platform, owned by Elon Musk, allows its AI chatbot, Grok, to produce sexualized images of people without their consent, including reportedly creating child sexual abuse material.

Multiple federal departments, including Public Safety Canada, the Department of Justice, Canadian Culture and Identity and A.I. Minister Evan Solomon’s office are involved in crafting a Canadian response to the scandal, as governments across the world weigh investigations and regulatory action against the company.

It’s not clear what options the Canadian government is considering, but Solomon ruled out an outright ban of the platform.

The United Kingdom and the European Union moved aggressively to make X address the proliferation of explicit content generated by Grok. Governments around the world have announced intentions to investigate X or take regulatory action against the platform in response to the scandal, including Indonesia, which banned the Grok AI tool, according to Agence France-Presse.

“Among these reactions, Canada stands out in its tepid response,” wrote Eric Van Rythoven, instructor in Political Sciences at Carleton University, in a commentary in The Conversation.

The problem is that Canada’s overwhelming trade and security dependence on the United States has left it uniquely vulnerable to American retaliation [if Canada takes action against X], he said.

Even after the platform’s controversial transformation under Musk, it still remains the favoured communications tool of the Canadian government, and it is widely used by political elites, Van Rythoven said.

Canadian officials “could easily distance themselves from the platform by condemning X and its transformation into a global hub for illicit sexual images,” he said. “But without any further action, these condemnations risk sounding insincere. Leaving the platform, however, would mean giving up what many see as a valuable tool.”

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne is expanding his current investigation into X Corp., which operates the popular social media platform X, following reports that the chatbot, Grok, is being used to create explicit images of individuals without their consent, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said in a statement last week.

The Privacy Commissioner has also launched a related investigation into xAI, the artificial intelligence company responsible for Grok.

The investigations will examine whether X Corp. and xAI are meeting their obligations under Canada’s federal private-sector privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

The Privacy Commissioner announced the launch of his initial investigation into X Corp. on February 27, 2025, following the receipt of a complaint. The initial investigation sought to assess X Corp.’s compliance with federal privacy law with respect to its collection, use and disclosure of Canadians’ personal information to train AI models.

On January 14, 2026, following growing concern and multiple media reports about the platform being used to create and share explicit images, the Privacy Commissioner decided to expand the investigation to address this issue.

More specifically, the expanded investigations will consider whether X Corp. and xAI have obtained valid consent from individuals for the collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information to create deepfakes, including explicit content, via Grok and whether the companies have collected, used, and disclosed this information in accordance with the Act.

X said last week it had made changes to prevent Grok from editing images of real people to put them in revealing clothing, like bikinis, and would continue to take down illegal images. Global News, Office of the Privacy Commissioner

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Canada’s Competition Tribunal decided not to hear game developer Alexander Martin’s complaint that Google’s search engine dominance, buttressed by a deal with Apple to privilege it on Apple devices, unfairly forces him to cater to Google’s algorithms to attract customers. In dismissing Martin’s complaint, the Competition Tribunal laid out detailed standards for similar cases for the first time since Parliament changed the Competition Act to make it easier for individuals and businesses to bring competition complaints, The Logic reported. Martin’s case aimed to import to Canada a U.S. judge’s 2024 finding that the Google-Apple arrangement is improper. Tribunal chair Andrew Little ruled that Martin raised an issue the tribunal might deal with, but his filing didn’t make a thorough argument about why this is a problem in Canada or for Martin’s business. Little also found that Martin didn’t show that he’s ready to argue on behalf of the broad public interest with evidence and legal expertise. Competition Tribunal

Canadians could save a lot of time and money if they could easily and securely transfer their personal data from one service provider to another, according to a report by Canada’s Competition Bureau. The report – Your Data, Your Control: How data portability can unlock competition and empower consumers – breaks new ground by estimating the value of data portability for consumers, using the insurance sector as a case study. The Bureau found that a data portability framework in the insurance sector could save Canadians between $1.1 billion and $3.8 billion in annual costs. These savings come from switching to less expensive insurance plans and from reducing the time Canadians spend comparing and switching insurance providers. The potential savings and benefits from enabling data portability across the broader Canadian economy could be much greater. However, 70 percent of respondents to a survey that the Competition Bureau commissioned don’t know anything about the idea – and 83 percent think easily movable data is moderately risky or worse. The Bureau’s report provides a roadmap for policymakers by identifying key factors for the creation of a Canadian data portability framework. These include:  

• Ensuring consumers trust oversight bodies and understand how their personal data is used.
• Providing strong privacy protection, clear consent rules, and high interoperability to allow data sharing between digital platforms.
• Learning from the efforts of other countries, such as open banking in the United Kingdom and Australia’s Consumer Data Right.

The Bureau’s said its aim is to promote the benefits of data portability in Canada – beyond early developments in areas such as consumer-driven banking – and to encourage the adoption of policies that give consumers more power over their data in the digital world. Competition Bureau

The Government of Ontario is investing $242 million to upgrade learning facilities at publicly funded colleges and universities across the province. This investment will strengthen the province’s pipeline of highly skilled workers by ensuring students have access to the latest equipment and state-of-the-art learning spaces to learn the skills they need for good-paying jobs after graduation, the government said. The investment includes:

• $209.3 million through the Facilities Renewal Program for publicly funded colleges and universities to complete maintenance, repairs and upgrades to existing facilities.
• $21.6 million through the College Equipment and Renewal Fund for colleges to buy and renew instructional equipment and learning resources.
• $10.8 million through the Training Equipment and Renewal Fund for universities to renew and buy modern, state-of-the-art equipment and learning resources.

As a shared responsibility, part of the capital infrastructure program requires colleges and universities to make matching contributions. Ontario’s colleges and universities can use the funding for major building systems upgrades, heating and ventilating system upgrades, as well as mechanical and electrical system upgrades. The funds can also be used to buy educational tools, such as modernized computers and software for teaching purposes, specialized equipment, or machinery for use in labs, shops and classrooms. Govt. of Ontario

 Innovation Saskatchewan is investing $2.197 million in nine industry-led research and development projects through the Saskatchewan Advantage Innovation Fund (SAIF) and Agtech Growth Fund. These programs help early-stage tech companies reduce risk and accelerate commercialization of game-changing technologies in agriculture, mining, energy, manufacturing and processing, and healthcare. Since 2018, SAIF has committed over $17.3 million in 66 projects. Innovation Saskatchewan

The Government of Ontario announced it is accelerating Canada Nickel Company’s Crawford Nickel Project (Crawford), the second to move forward under the new “One Project, One Process” framework launched in October. This designation will help unlock the world’s second-largest nickel reserves in the resource-rich Timmins Nickel District, in addition to developing a nickel processing plant for stainless steel and electric vehicle markets; and planning to construct a stainless steel and alloy production facility. This project is expected to attract a total of $5 billion in investment. Located 42 kilometres north of Timmins, Crawford is one of the world’s largest nickel resources with a mineral reserve estimate of 1,715 million tonnes that will deliver high-quality nickel essential for Ontario’s electric vehicle batteries and green steel supply chains. Once complete, project will be one of the largest mine and mill facilities in North America. It is projected to add over $70 billion to Canada’s GDP and $67 billion to Ontario’s GDP alone, while providing a combined 185,000 person-years of employment. Govt. of Ontario

The Government of Ontario approved the Independent Electricity System Operator’s recommendation to build a new, $1.5-billion underwater electricity transmission line from near the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station to the downtown core and eastern portion of the City of Toronto. This first-of-its-kind high-voltage underwater transmission line in Ontario ensures the province will keep up with growth as electricity demand in Toronto is expected to double by 2050, the government said. Ontario’s plan will deliver up to 900 megawatts of clean, reliable power, securing the electricity needed to fuel housing, transit and economic growth. This project aligns with Ontario’s record investments to upgrade and expand nuclear generating capacity on-time and on-budget, including the Darlington Nuclear Refurbishment Project and the construction of the first small modular reactors in the G7 at Darlington New Nuclear Project. Govt. of Ontario

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has submitted the initial project description for New Nuclear at Wesleyville in Port Hope to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC). The document and its summary are now posted to the IAAC website and are open for public comment. This key regulatory milestone is the first step in advancing the project through the necessary, multi-phased impact assessment, as OPG explores the potential for large-scale new nuclear generation at its Wesleyville site. The impact assessment process is led by the IAAC in collaboration with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and will include an assessment of potential impacts and explore how adverse effects could be mitigated. It also provides another opportunity for First Nations and interested Indigenous communities, the Municipality of Port Hope, stakeholders, and the public to share their perspectives and views. OPG worked closely with the Michi-Saagiig Anishnaabeg Nations of the Williams Treaties First Nations to ensure their collaborative input to the document. The document has been developed based on a range of potential nuclear technologies that could be deployed at the site, totaling up to 10,000 Mwe, enough to power the equivalent of 10 million homes. Ontario Power Generation

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is seeking a near-doubling of payments it receives for electricity produced by its nuclear power plants, a request that could lead to surging power bills, The Globe and Mail reported. In a rate application submitted to the Ontario Energy Board in December, OPG requested payments of nearly $207 dollars per megawatt hour produced by its nuclear power stations beginning January 1, 2027, roughly double what it received as recently as last year. It seeks similar amounts for each year through 2031. OPG spokesperson Neal Kelly said the sought rates would cause a typical residential customer’s payments to rise by roughly 2.4 percent annually in each of the next five years. Ontario has generated roughly half of its power in recent years from its Darlington, Pickering and Bruce nuclear stations. (The latter is operated by private power producer Bruce Power and is not part of OPG’s application.) Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce is pursuing an aggressive expansion of the reactor fleet to meet an expected surge in demand for electricity between now and mid-century, which includes plans to build large new multi-reactor stations. The Globe and Mail

Quebec Premier François Legault announced on January 14 that he will resign as Premier. In a press conference at the National Assembly in Quebec City, Legault said he would step aside after nearly eight years in power, ahead of a scheduled fall election. By founding the Coalition Avenir Québec in 2011, Legault shook up the province’s politics by disrupting the back-and-forth between federalists and sovereigntists, arguing that Quebec was a distinct nation, but that independence wasn’t a viable solution. Legault said he will remain as Premier until his party has chosen a new leader. Questions remain about the party’s future without the only leader it has ever known, as the Parti Québécois leads in the polls and promises a third referendum on separation if it gains power. The Globe and Mail

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

Cambridge, Mass.-based pharmaceutical and biotech company Moderna partnered with a research team in the in the faculties of Engineering and Medicine & Dentistry and the AI + Health Hub at the University of Alberta to determine how similar Moderna’s engineered mRNA vaccine is to the mRNA the human body produces naturally. Computing scientist Hosna Jabbari, member of the AI + Health Hub and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is bringing expertise in bioinformatics and RNA therapeutics as principal investigator for the project. “This research explores the molecular design behind next‑generation vaccines, testing whether engineered mRNA can blend in more like our own – reducing unnecessary alarm signals – while still teaching the immune system to recognize the virus,” Jabbari said. University of Alberta

Medventions launched a pilot program in Newfoundland and Labrador to immerse budding entrepreneurs in the inner workings of a hospital. Founded in 2016 by Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, Medventions gives postsecondary students and recent graduates hands-on experience in a hospital for four months to identify healthcare needs and invent the technologies to address them. The latest program is launching this month in Carbonear, Nfld., about 100 kilometres from St. John’s, and follows previous iterations in Toronto and Halifax. The Newfoundland pilot program is the result of a partnership between Sunnybrook, through its federally funded INOVAIT network, NL Health Services, and the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub. The fellowship’s selected candidates will work together as a group under the supervision of clinical and research mentors. The Newfoundland program is specifically looking to uncover innovation and research opportunities in anesthesiology. The four-month fellowship is divided into three main phases, giving fellows time to identify and verify clinical problems, ideate on the solution, and then make an early proof of concept or a prototype for a new medical device. By the end of the fellowship term in April, participants will submit a business case to the program coordinator and present their findings and proposed solutions at a final showcase. BetaKit

Université de Montréal (UdM), through its innovation and entrepreneurship hub Millénium Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal and the venture capital firm Celesta Capital signed a partnership agreement to support innovators. Under the agreement, emerging entrepreneurs and research teams from both educational institutions will benefit from Celesta Capital’s strategic advice on bringing advanced technologies to market and creating startups. The firm will also support them through the often complex steps involved in maturing university-developed technologies. Founded in 2013, Celesta Capital has built a portfolio of more than 100 early-stage technology investments. The firm is expanding its presence within Canada and in this context, UdeM and Polytechnique Montréal are its second university partners in the country, following McMaster University. Université de Montréal

A mix of virtual and in-person care provides a potential antidote to physician and resource shortages, according to a study by researchers at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Family Medicine. Hybrid health options are an underdeveloped, key tool for improving access to primary care in Ontario’s remote communities. Published in BMC Health Services Research, this first peer-reviewed study of such services in rural Ontario examined the experiences and challenges of clinicians and non-clinical staff within a hybrid primary care program in Renfrew County, Ont. The findings by Dr. Jonathan Fitzsimon and his team coupled with previous studies support the scale and spread of a hybrid approach, which could alleviate challenges like staff recruitment and retention, and equitable care access for patients, including more comprehensive, team-based primary care. While physicians found meaning by contributing to this underserved community, strong in-person support is also essential for success, particularly as increased administrative demands followed. University of Ottawa

University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers are working to make sure the legal system keeps pace with artificial intelligence. As AI  spreads through courts and law offices, questions about fairness, accuracy and accountability are multiplying. The Peter A. Allard School of Law launched a new initiative that aims to integrate AI safely and equitably into the legal system, while preparing lawyers for the ethical and practical challenges it creates. Funded by a $3.5-million gift from the estate of UBC law alumnus Gordon B. Shrum, the initiative will support faculty in developing new coursework covering AI regulation, liability, copyright, and surveillance and privacy risks. The new course, which began this winter term, includes community events to share insights with legal professionals, policymakers and the public. The initiative joins other Allard efforts, including the UBC AI & Criminal Justice Initiative, headed by professor Benjamin Perrin, and another Perrin-led project examining AI use by police in Canada. Longer-term, the initiative could expand into specializations, interdisciplinary teaching, hands-on student placements with tech companies, and a new course on AI workflows in legal practice for legal professionals, in conjunction with UBC Extended Learning. UBC

Quebec AI research institute Mila said it’s making mental health safeguards for AI chatbots a top research priority as cases of psychosis driven by chatbots mount worldwide. Over sessions at a pre-conference for the Mila AI Policy Conference in Montréal last week, researchers and policy experts discussed the rising number of mental health crises and suicides associated with AI chatbot use, as well as the work Mila researchers are doing to address it. With 800 million weekly active users, 10 percent of Earth’s population is using ChatGPT weekly, according to OpenAI. The No. 1 use of generative AI is for companionship or therapy, said Simona Gandrabur, head of Mila’s AI Safety Studio, and one-fifth of students or their friends have had romantic relationships with AI. These increasingly emotionally intimate interactions have sometimes led to what’s dubbed “AI psychosis,” where prolonged interactions with a chatbot validate delusions and lead people to detach from reality and harm themselves or others.  Mila’s Safety Studio team is building infrastructure for open-source, independent guardrails, as well as reliability tests and risk-assessment tools. BetaKit

COAST global startup investor, Founders Factory and climate investor Blue Action opened applications for the second cohort of Blue Action Canada, a hyper-focused ocean venture accelerator for early-stage startups in the blue economy. The 2026 program will be funded by Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. This year, the Blue Action Canada program will select up to eight ventures focused on maritime and port innovation, coastal infrastructure and adaptation, nature and biodiversity and defence/dual-use technologies. It will support founding teams over a four-month program with a particular emphasis on operations, product development, technology, customer discovery, commercialization, and fundraising. Blue Action Canada also provides a unique opportunity for selected companies to access a global community of investors and partners, including Blue Action’s growing network of ports and government partners spanning 10 countries, to explore pathways to pilots, testing grounds and commercial partnerships. Blue Action Canada was launched in 2025 during the COAST catalyst phase supported by Pacific Economic Development Canada and the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions. Cohort companies attracted over $2 million in dilutive and non-dilutive funding from international investors and almost $1.74 million in pre-order sales from global markets due to the connections made through participating in the Blue Action Canada program. Applications for Blue Action Canada 2026 close February 15. COAST

For the second consecutive year, Canada has nine cleantech companies on the 2026 Global Cleantech 100 list. The Global Cleantech 100 is developed by San Francisco-based research and consulting firm Cleantech Group to showcase private cleantech companies from around the world that a panel of experts predicts will make a substantial impact on the market in the next five to 10 years. Last year, the number of Canadian companies on the list dropped below 10 for the first time since 2015, with all but one of the remainder returning from the 2024 Cleantech 100. This year, Canada didn’t gain or lose any more ground, but a few companies have been swapped out. The Canadian companies on the 2026 Global Cleantech 100 are Carbon Upcycling, CO280 Solutions Planetary, Eavor Technologies, Moment Energy, Mangrove Lithium, Cyclic Materials, Augmenta, and Pani Energy. Clean Energy

The Aerospace Innovation Hub at Calgary International Airport (YYC) is now fully operational and ready to welcome startups, researchers and industry partners. Managed by Innovate Calgary and the University of Calgary (UCalgary) the facility is designed to help aerospace ventures move from research to real-world products by connecting them with equipment, expertise and industry connections. Members get access to business advisory support, connections to corporate partners like YYC and WestJet, and opportunities to pitch to investors including Chapter.AI and UCeed, UCalgary’s early-stage investment fund for startups. The facility also provides millions of dollars’ worth of prototyping equipment and labs. The airport location gives innovators immediate access to industry partners and infrastructure. Calgary Tech Journal

Montreal-based Bombardier announced it will build a new 126,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art manufacturing centre in Dorval. Located near the Challenger jet manufacturing centre and the Laurent Beaudoin Completion Centre, this new facility will further expand Bombardier’s industrial footprint and strengthen its production capabilities. The project represents an investment of approximately $100 million and is part of the company’s long-term strategy to boost productivity as it responds to growing demand for its business aircraft. The Government of Québec is providing a $35-million repayment loan, through Investissement Québec, to back the project. The new facility is set to open before the end of 2027. Bombardier

Toronto-based AI developer Cohere and Germany-based defence contractor TKMS signed an agreement to jointly explore the integration of advanced AI technologies into the Canadian Patrol Submarine Program. Through the collaboration, the companies will assess opportunities to apply state-of-the-art language and data-driven models to support decision-support workflows, onboard information management, training environments and secure naval interfaces. The initiative aligns with Canada's future submarine requirements and modernization priorities. The partnership will focus on research, prototyping and evaluation activities. Both organizations emphasized that any AI-enabled capabilities will adhere to the strict security, compliance, and operational demands of the Royal Canadian Navy and the Government of Canada. TKMS is competing with South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean to sell up to 12 patrol submarines to the Canadian navy, in a procurement worth a reported $60 billion. TKMS

Lorton, Virginia-based PolArctic and Halifax, N.S.-based Arctic Economic Development Corp. launched a new Canadian joint venture PolArctic Canada, to deliver advanced Arctic ice intelligence tools for customers operating across Canada and around the world. PolArctic Canada, based in Halifax, will provide AI-enabled Arctic ice forecasting, analytics, and decision-support solutions designed to support safer navigation, improved operational planning, and informed decision-making in rapidly changing Arctic environments. The company will be led by Leslie Canavera, founder of PolArctic, who will serve as CEO of the Canadian joint venture. PolArctic’s platform combines machine learning, oceanographic modelling and satellite data to generate high-resolution, geographically referenced forecasts of sea-ice conditions. Arctic Economic Development Corp.

Kitchener, Ont.-based Miovision and Amsterdam, Netherlands-headquartered TomTom announced a partnership to further improve traffic management and traffic infrastructure investments worldwide. This collaboration combines the TomTom Traffic Analytics portfolio with Miovision traffic software and hardware technologies to support building safer, more efficient road networks. Miovision will extend essential TomTom probe data to all Miovision One platform users, expanding covered intersections to 300,000+ globally from hundreds of millions of mobile endpoints. Miovision will also serve as a distributor of TomTom Traffic Analytics products for public sector clients and traffic agencies, expanding available traffic data for mutual customers to include congestion heat maps, detailed corridor and highway analytics, and more. This expanded layer of cloud data will complement the existing network of Miovision connected intersections, vehicles and GPS endpoints, as well as permanent traffic cameras and sensors, and mobile traffic study solutions to help traffic agencies pinpoint issues and prioritize investment. Movision

Mitacs and Korea’s Quantum Information Research Support Center (QCenter), which supports research activities in the domestic quantum information science field, signed a letter of intent to establish collaboration in quantum research and talent development. The agreement signals the organizations’ shared commitment to innovation in quantum, while strengthening international research collaboration between Canada and Korea. Under the agreement, over a two-year period, Mitacs and QCenter will:

• Promote joint research collaboration and workforce development in quantum information science.
• Enhance the mobility of students and researchers between Canada and Korea through funding programs and processes.
• Support joint partnerships with academic institutions to advance the countries’ respective national quantum strategies.
• Strengthen global innovation networks and encourage future collaborations in quantum technologies at Canadian and Korean postsecondary institutions. Mitacs

The Wei Wai Kum First Nation became the majority owner of one of Vancouver Island’s largest new power sources: a proposed $600-million, 197-megawatt, 30-turbine wind farm expected to generate enough electricity to power 56,000 average B.C. homes. The Yə̓yus Energy, formerly known as the Brewster Wind Project, will be located northwest of Campbell River. Wei Wai Kum owns 51 percent of the wind project while Capstone, a Toronto-based renewable energy firm, owns the remainder. Environmental studies and on-the-ground surveys will continue this year and a regulatory application to the province will occur in early 2027, said Andrea Kausel, vice-president, development at Capstone. Construction may start in 2028 with the project expected to come on line by 2031, she said. The Yə̓yus wind project, which has secured a 30-year electricity purchase agreement with BC Hydro, was one of 10 Indigenous-led renewable projects selected during the utility’s 2024 call for power proposals. Canada’s National Observer

Parc éolien Canton MacNider Commandité inc, a partnership formed by Clearlight Energy and the Alliance de l’énergie de l’Est, announced that the Government of Québec authorized the construction of the Canton MacNider Wind Farm Project. Located between the municipalities of Saint-Damase and Saint-Noël in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, the Canton MacNider wind farm will include 20 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 122.32 megawatts of renewable electricity. Construction of the project is set to begin in the coming weeks and will be carried out to deliver energy in accordance with the schedule agreed upon with Hydro-Québec. All wind turbine towers will be manufactured by MARMEN inc., a manufacturer based in Trois-Rivières and Matane and globally recognized for its expertise in the production of these components. ReNew Canada

Construction started on the Kennedy Green development, which will host more than 600 co-op units in Scarborough, a district of Toronto where buildings produce nearly 60 percent of the city's emissions. The first phase, which includes two non-profit co-op towers, is set to finish up in 2029, while an additional 307 market units will be built as part of the second phase of construction. Kennedy Green is heated and cooled with geothermal energy. Each unit in the development will emit 91 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than a code-compliant building and also reduce embodied carbon emissions by using concrete and rebar with recycled content. The geothermal energy system will make the buildings cheaper to heat and cool than with natural gas. The energy will snake up to the building from wells that are currently being drilled 850 feet into the ground to access water naturally warmed by the earth. The City of Toronto contributed $35 million in funding and accelerated the required zoning approvals, a process that took just 69 days in total, while the Government of Canada kicked in $289 million through its co-op housing development program. Canada’s National Observer

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is seeking to exclude the transportation of the high-level radioactive wastes from the federal impact assessment process for Canada’s deep repository, said We the Nuclear Free North and other groups opposed to the nuclear waste storage site. “In effect, that is excluding the concerns and voices of those who live along the route or use the transportation route from the federal review,” said We the Nuclear Free North. “For us, it will be all risk, no reward, and not even the opportunity to have the impacts on our communities assessed in the federal review (expected to begin in 2028).” There is substantial public concern with nuclear waste transportation because of the ongoing risk from the low levels of radiation that will be emitted from each shipment, and because of the risk of larger releases under accident conditions, the organization said. The NWMO estimates that transportation of the current waste inventory will require two to three day for more than 50 years. Those trucks will make the (on average) 1,700-kilometre trip from the reactors in southern Ontario (Darlington and Pickering Nuclear Generating Stations just east of Toronto the Bruce station in Kincardine in Bruce County) and the even longer distances from reactors in Quebec and New Brunswick. On November 28, 2024, after a multi-year siting process, the NWMO announced it had selected the Revell site between Ignace and Dryden in northwest Ontario as its deep geological repository for all of Canada’s high-level nuclear fuel waste. On January 5, 2026, the federal review of the NWMO's nuclear waste project was initiated when the initial project description was posted on the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s website and a 30-day comment period began. We the Nuclear Free North

Toronto-based Kepler Communications announced the successful launch of the first tranche of its optical relay satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Kepler intends to create a space-based wireless internet service that can relay data among customers’ own satellites and from space to the ground and back; these are the first major elements of that network to go into orbit. The satellites will now begin commissioning as Kepler transitions its optical data relay network into operational service. The tranche consists of 10 satellites, each approximately 300 kilograms, equipped with high-capacity standards-compatible optical terminals and multi-GPU (graphic processing units) on-orbit compute modules with terabytes of storage that enable low-latency data transfer, secure routing, and edge processing directly in space. Once operational, the network will provide real-time connectivity, advanced computing, and hosted payload capabilities, creating a cloud environment on orbit for critical commercial and sovereign space missions. Kepler

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced several possible two-hour launch dates beginning Feb. 6 until the end of April for the Artemis II mission, which will include Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The first crewed mission of the Artemis program is also the first journey to the Moon by astronauts since 1972 – and Hansen’s first mission in space. Hansen, 49, of London, Ont., would become the first non-American to travel beyond the low Earth orbit. The Orion spacecraft, named “Integrity” by the four-person crew, will travel around the Moon before returning to Earth over a roughly 10-day stretch. The mission is the first crewed flight for Orion and officials warned that delays are possible. The Artemis I mission, which did not have a crew, was delayed three times because of technical issues and poor weather before it launched in November 2022 for a 25-day mission. NASA announced last week the rollout of the spacecraft to the launch pad could begin as early as this weekend. CTV News

Meta has cut a trio of deals to power its artificial intelligence data centres, securing enough energy to light up the equivalent of about 5 million homes. The parent company of Facebook announced agreements with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra for nuclear power for Meta’s Prometheus AI data centre being built in New Albany, Ohio. Meta announced Prometheus, which will be a one-gigawatt cluster spanning across multiple data center buildings, in July. It’s anticipated to come online this year. Financial terms of the deals with the three companies were not disclosed. Meta said the three deals will support up to 6.6 gigawatts of new and existing clean energy by 2035. Ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic are already paying higher electricity bills to support new and proposed data centers. Associated Press

New Jersey joined a growing list of U.S. states to restrict student phones in public schools. Gov. Philip D. Murphy signed what he called a bell-to-bell ban into law during a ceremony at Ramsey High School, 12 days before he is scheduled to leave office. The law will take effect during the 2026-27 school year and requires education boards throughout the state to adopt rules that prohibit the use of cellphones and other “internet-enabled devices” throughout the school day. It is an effort to ensure that students are not distracted by text messages, doomscrolling, TikTok and Candy Crush during class. The move tracks with similar efforts in about three dozen other states that have set rules restricting students’ use of phones in public schools, some of which also won’t take effect until later this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The New York Times

Crypto-crimes surged to a record US$154 billion in 2025 driven largely by state-backed actors and sanctions evasion using stablecoins, according to a report by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. Illicit cryptocurrency addresses received a record $154 billion in 2025 – a 162-percent increase from the revised $57.2 billion reported in 2024. Stablecoins represented 84 percent of all illicit transaction volume as professionalized infrastructure networks merged cybercrime with geopolitical sanctions evasion. Chainalysis attributed a significant share of 2025’s illicit volume to a narrow set of state-linked actors, led by North Korea, Russia, Iran-aligned networks, and Chinese money laundering groups. Despite the record nominal value, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency transaction volume remains below one percent. The Block

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) is investing an additional $750 million, for a total of $3 billion in the past 20 years, in small and mid-sized Canadian companies through private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners. CPP Investments also recently completed a deal to invest about $160 million to acquire exposure to a portfolio of mid-market funds and companies as part of Northleaf's global private equity program. The Canadian Press

YZi Labs, the family office of Canadian Binance company co-founder Changpeng Zhao and his partner, Binance co-CEO Yi He, made a “multi-eight-figure” investment in the privacy-focused trading platform, Genius Trading. Zhao will join Genius as an advisor. Genius is a decentralized exchange, a crypto platform that runs automatically based on software and lets parties trade with each other directly. Genius plans to use the money to speed up development for its public launch in late 2026 and provide more trading liquidity in the markets it supports. YZi Labs

Toronto-based healthtech company Science&Humans raised $10 million in funding, including $7 million in equity and $3 million worth of venture debt as part of its Series A round, which closed in December 2025. The round was led by Pender Ventures, with participation from fellow Vancouver firm Well Health Technologies, Michele Romanow, and undisclosed U.S. healthcare investors, physicians, and longevity experts. CIBC Innovation Banking provided the venture debt. Science&Humans offers software that helps Canadian men and women digitally access personalized treatment for hormone health imbalances. It connects them with specialists to diagnose and address often-stigmatized issues like low testosterone, menopause, weight management, hair restoration, and sexual wellness with a combination of continuous care and prescription drugs, if necessary. The company plans to use the funding to expand the business-to-business side of its business, grow its tech and AI capabilities, and scale nationwide. BetaKit

Ottawa-based startup Musical AI, which handles music rights for use with AI, raised US$4.5 million in a round led by Heavybit with participation from BDC and Build Ventures. Musical AI plans to use the funding to hire new staff and expand its client base. Musical AI on LinkedIn

Vancouver-based fintech startup Slate raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding to build embedded lending infrastructure for platforms serving small businesses. The round was backed by N49P and North Exit Ventures. Slate is focused on embedding lending directly into the software platforms small businesses already use. The company aims to help platforms offer financing without having to build capital markets infrastructure, underwriting models, compliance frameworks, or risk operations from scratch – barriers that have historically made embedded finance slow, costly and misaligned with platform economics. Slate plans to use the funding to continue developing its embedded lending infrastructure and work with Canadian platforms looking to deliver financial products to their customers. Fintech.ca

An affiliate of Portage, the venture capital arm of the Desmarais family’s Montreal-based asset management giant, will manage select fintech assets from Stamford, Connecticut-headquartered Point72, which the firm has transferred to a new US$280-million fund. Point72 will retain a 40-percent stake in the new fund. As part of the deal, Tripp Shriner, partner at Point72 Ventures, joined Portage as a general partner. In his new role, Shriner will oversee the new fund while contributing to Portage's broader investment strategy. Portage

Toronto-based Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., through its U.S. capital markets arm, acquired New York-based Carbon Reduction Capital, LLC, a renewable energy-focused investment banking company. Carbon Reduction Capital has experience in the wind, solar, storage, carbon capture and energy transition segments. As part of the deal, Carbon Reduction Capital partners Conor McKenna, Nick Knapp, Britta von Oesen, and Gary Durden will serve as co-heads of Canaccord Genuity's newly formed Energy Transformation group within its U.S. Sustainability-Energy and Industrial Transformation investment banking platform. Canaccord Genuity Group

Vancouver-based Orion Digital Corp. announced that it sold its remaining shares in Toronto crypto firm WonderFi, which will increase Orion Digital’s cash and equivalents by more than half compared to the third quarter of 2025. Orion Digital a founder-led digital finance platform operating primarily across wealth, payments and digital assets. In a release, Orion said it is “prioritizing the time value of capital and immediate balance sheet flexibility” by selling its remaining shares at a discount. Business Wire

New York City-based Polygon Labs announced agreements to acquire Toronto crypto firm Sequence and Seattle-based Coinme for more than US$250 million. Polygon didn’t disclose the acquisition price for each individual company. Polygon said it plans to use the two companies’ products – which include Coinme’s network of 50,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Sequence’s crypto wallet software – to expand beyond crypto and become a major international payments company. In an interview with Fortune, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron and Polygon Foundation founder Sandeep Nailwal said they bought the two companies in an effort to compete with payments giants like Stripe. Polygon Labs

Canada’s capital markets raised about $597 billion through more than 1,100 deals in 2025, the highest dollar amount in 15 years – to the surprise of some analysts who thought U.S. tariffs would have more of an effect on the economy. “Despite all the headlines, most Canadian companies were/are still able to export to the U.S. with zero or minor tariffs due to exemptions set by the U.S.,” said Peter Miller, head of equity capital markets at Bank of Montreal. The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement has helped shield Canada from the worst of Trump’s tariffs. The industries most heavily hit by tariffs, such as steel, aluminum, auto, and lumber, comprise a small percentage of the public market capitalization in the Canadian public equity market, Miller said. What surprised him, though, was how well the secondary market – where investors buy and sell previously issued securities and assets among themselves rather than from the original issuing entity – performed. For example, three of the top five ownership equity deals in 2025 were secondary offerings: Restaurant Brands International Inc. raised 1.7 billion in November, and GFL Environmental Inc. raised $1.29 billion and $1.06 billion in March and November, respectively. A strong capital market is good for the economy because it shows businesses and governments are keen on raising long-term funds to make investments and expand operations and create jobs and boost productivity in the process. Canada’s strong capital market contrasts with Canadian venture capital firm fundraising in 2025, which continued to trend downward. Financial Post

REPORTS & POLICIES

Canada needs to improve patenting performance and better align  inventive strengths with sectoral priorities

Canada has fewer patents per owner than the world average across all technology owners and fewer owners with large patent portfolios than the world, according to a report by the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC).

Canada’s sectoral priorities align well with the nation’s inventive strengths in clean technologies, resource-based sectors and life sciences.

But the country’s sectoral priorities only partially align with its inventive strengths in advanced manufacturing, agri-food, and digital technology/AI, the report said. “To become leaders in new and emerging areas, we need supportive policies and programs.”

Intellectual property plays a vital role in fostering innovation and economic growth by giving businesses the freedom to compete, charge rents for their inventive assets, and protect their ideas globally. Among different forms of IP rights, patents stand out as one of the most important and widely used statistics.

A strong patent portfolio is an indication of businesses’ ability to grow and gain market share with monopoly rights to their inventions.
The report’s key findings are:

• Using intellectual property (patents) as a measure of technology specialization and global competitive advantage, Canada has a mix of inventive strengths and weaknesses across 35 technology areas.

The country has leading inventive strength in 10 areas; slipping inventive strength in seven areas; lagging inventive strength in 13 areas; and emerging inventive strength in five areas.

Areas that Canada is slipping in include digital communication, computer technology, and semiconductors.

• Canada’s highest degrees of specialization are in civil engineering (2.0); pharmaceuticals (1.62); and biotechnology (1.54). (As measured by relative specialization index, or technological concentration in Canada compared with global and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development averages, with values greater than 1 indicating specialization).

These indices indicate that as a share of its total patents, Canada has 1.5 times or more active patents in these areas than the world on average.

• Canada’s highest degrees of competitiveness (as measured by shift-share analysis comparing patent growth performance with global and OECD peers) are in engines and turbines, nanotechnology, and thermal processes.

Canada’s patent growth rate in these areas surpassed the world average by 43.6, 35.8, and 30.5 percentage points, respectively, over the 2012-2022 period.

• On average, Canada has four active patents per owner, while the world has eight active patents per owner.

Having fewer patents per owner than the world average indicates a limited freedom to operate and a more complex path to commercialization for Canadian organizations.

• Canada has 1,721 owners with 10 or more patent families, which is 60.1 percent of what it would be if the patent ownership structure in Canada were the same as in the world (i.e. 2,863 owners).

Having fewer large entities holding extensive patent portfolios means Canadian innovators face challenges in their efforts to reach global leadership levels.

Even in sectors where Canada has inventive strengths, limited freedom to operate – the ability to use a product or process without infringing on existing IP rights – hampers commercialization, the report noted.

Relatively low patent concentration in Canada impacts companies’ ability to compete globally. A distributed ownership structure complicates firms’ path to commercialization.

“With a complex path to scale, Canadian innovators will continue to struggle to turn invention into economic success,” the report said.

When it comes to major ongoing innovation and economic growth programs and policies targeted at specific sectors, report author Zafer Somez, lead research associate at the CBoC, said: “We believe that Canada should focus sector-specific policies on technologies where it is already strong, because these areas have proven their value in the market and offer the highest potential return on investment.”

Areas where Canada has inventive strengths are where sector-specific policies would have the greatest return on investments because these technology areas have already passed a “market test,” Somez said.

These areas include clean technologies, resource-based sectors, and life sciences, especially the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

When it comes growing Canada’s digital economy, the report’s assessment of technologies related to digital infrastructure and services found that the country specializes in only two of the seven related technological areas – digital communication and IT management.

“More concerning, it is not competitive (i.e. lower patent growth from 2012 to 2022 than the world average) in any of the related technological areas,” the report said.

“The number of sectors that are deemed national priorities in which we lack even emerging inventive strength should be a wake-up call for policymakers that current fragmented efforts are not effective,” Kyle Briggs, entrepreneur in residence at the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa, said in a LinkedIn post.

This is not just a matter of economic competitiveness, but also one of economic security, he said. “Priority sectors that Canada funds heavily but in which we lack emerging inventive strength in particular should be reviewed carefully, as these sectors are likely to be leaking IP.”

Digital technology-AI shows the least alignment between Canada’s inventive strengths and sectoral priorities, the CBoC report noted.

However, patent data may not full capture innovation in this sector, where firms often rely on non-patent IP such as trade secrets, proprietary algorithms, or data assets, the report pointed out.

“A broader assessment of IP use in the digital sector is needed to ensure policy and investment decisions reflect the full scope of innovation activity in Canada.”
The report said that to position Canada as a global innovation leader, the federal government can consider these actions:

• Scale up federal and Crown corporation investment supports in clean technologies, resource-based sectors, and life sciences over the next three to five years where Canada has both specialization and competitiveness.
• Develop a targeted recruitment strategy focusing on attracting top medical scientists – particularly those facing job displacement in the U.S. – to reverse Canada’s declining patenting activity in biotechnology.

The Canada Research Chairs Program – which invests $311 million annually to attract and retain top researchers – could be expanded to target scientists with a track record of generating IP or contributing to clinical trials, the report said.

To ensure inventions benefit Canada’s innovation system, recruitment efforts should prioritize pathways that link researchers to Canadian institutions, so that resulting IP is more likely to be assigned domestically, according to the report.

Recruitment packages should include provisions for relocating top medical scientists’ key team members as well.

• Conduct an assessment of the survival rate of companies and barriers to patenting in advanced manufacturing, agri-food, and digital technology-AI, to determine why Canada has both weak specialization and competitiveness in these areas.

Given the public investments made in these sectors through multiple government programs – including global innovation clusters, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the Business Development Bank (BDC), Economic Development Canada, Invest in Canada, and world-class talent in Canada – “one wonders why our results are not better,” the report pointed out.

• Close the patent ownership gap with other countries in all priority sectors where Canada has specialization within the next five years by strengthening patent ownership among Canadian firms.

To close the gap in patent intensity and portfolio scale, the report said that Canada can build on existing initiatives such as the Global Hypergrowth Project and BDC’s Growth Venture Fund by introducing a dedicated funding mechanism to help high-potential firms acquire, consolidate and protect valuable IP. Conference Board of Canada

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Canadian tech companies get bought – nearly half by U.S. buyers – before companies reach full scale: Fasken report

U.S. buyers were involved in nearly half (47.5 percent) of acquisitions of venture capital-backed Canadian tech companies, while Canadian buyers participated in 40 percent of such deals, according to a report on tech exits by law firm Fasken.

The vast majority of buyers, 82.5 percent, had a strategic reason for buying a company, while private equity buyers participated in 17.5 percent of deals, the report found.

Relatively few sellers tended to be involved in each deal, suggesting there’s a high concentration of ownership within Canadian venture capital-backed businesses.

The data points to one consistent theme: that exits in Canada tend to happen before companies reach full scale, Fasken partner Constantinos Ragas told BetaKit.

“It’s a healthy market, but it’s very much a mid-market jurisdiction,” Ragas said of Canada’s mergers and acquisition landscape. “Our companies are getting transferred fairly quickly and at a point in their development where they’re not the behemoth on the block.”

Early exit windows show up while management teams are still thinking about expansion, products they haven’t shipped yet, or markets they haven’t entered.

Companies sold relatively early in the growth cycle, with 77.5 percent of exits falling between $50 million and $500 million, and only 2.5 percent of deals surpassing $1 billion.

The Fasken team analyzed over 250 deal points from deals during the 2019-2024 (Q1) period to highlight key trends in the evolving tech M&A landscape.

It’s the first time this depth of Canadian tech M&A data has been compiled into a single study, and for founders thinking about an exit in 2026, it offers a reference point for when buyers tend to appear and what the landscape looks like when they do.

The dataset includes a range of tech private M&A transactions in Canada, with an average transaction value of $213.7 million. More than three-quarters of the transactions are mid-market

deals, in the $50 million to $500 million range.

Notably, 30 percent of the transactions are concentrated in the $50 million to $100 million bracket, followed by 25 percent in the $100 million to $250 million range, and 22.5 percent between $250 million and $500 million.

Only 2.5 percent of deals exceed the $1 billion mark, underscoring the predominance of  midmarket activity.

Software as a service leads as the dominant technology vertical, appearing in 42.5 percent of deals. The internet of things and artificial intelligence also hold significant positions, featuring in 35 percent and 17.5 percent of deals, respectively.

The seller distribution within these deals is relatively concentrated. In 37.5 percent of transactions, there were five or fewer sellers involved.

A further 25 percent of deals involve between five and 25 sellers, while 20 percent feature 25 to 50 sellers, 12.5 percent involve 50 to 100 sellers and 2.5 percent involve 100 to 200 sellers.

Only 2.5 percent of transactions involve more than 200 sellers.

Ragas said the data mostly indicates a “healthy market,” although it doesn’t capture the impact of recent economic tensions between Canada and the U.S.

An analysis from Export Development Canada found steep drop in cross-border M&A between February and August last year. EDC’s analysis showed:

• Compared to recent history, there have been fewer Canadian companies buying U.S. firms – 51 announced deals less than the average over the past five years (2019 to 2024) – representing a 29-percent decrease. However, the total disclosed value of these deals increased 10 percent (US$2.7 billion), signalling some larger transactions in 2025.
• Across the border, activity from U.S. companies buying Canadian firms fell by 44 announced deals compared to the five-year average, representing a 24 percent decrease.
• However, the disclosed value of announced M&A transactions was more than double the five-year average value, suggesting that U.S. companies may not be facing the same headwinds as Canadian ones.

Fasken

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National AI literacy program for Canadian consumers and within financial institutions is required to ensure consumer protection

Canada needs a “national AI literacy program” – including integrating AI literacy into the K-12 school curricula – to close the AI literacy gap among Canadian consumers and within financial institutions, according to a report from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) and the Global Risk Institute (GRI).

Improving financial institution employee literacy will help ensure that consumers receive accurate, appropriate, and timely information about financial products and services, including the role that AI may play, the report said.

Financial institutions need to maintain a rigorous focus on core consumer protection obligations, including disclosure, consent and transparency, according to the report. “Robust risk management and governance frameworks remain essential guardrails for financial well-being and consumer trust.”

Similarly, management and boards of directors should be accountable for ensuring that governance frameworks adapt to address new or emerging risks arising from AI adoption.

The FCAC and GRI report stems from the organizations’ fourth workshop in November 2025 of the Financial Industry Forum on Artificial Intelligence II: A Collaborative Approach to AI Threats, Opportunities, and Best Practices, dedicated to financial well-being, consumer protection and artificial intelligence.

The workshop was “focused on ensuring that innovation in the financial marketplace is not only forward-thinking and efficient, but also grounded in fairness, transparency, and a strong commitment to protecting consumers,” said Shereen Benzy Miller, commissioner of FCAC.

The workshop formed part of a broader collaborative initiative, which began in 2022, to address the opportunities and risks posed by AI in the financial sector.

Canada’s financial institutions can strengthen accountability by embedding an inclusion-by-design principle into the development of AI-enhanced products and services, the report noted.

This approach is particularly critical as generative AI becomes more prevalent and as agentic AI services emerge. “Prioritizing accessibility and fairness from the outset will help meet accountability expectations and foster trust.”

One identified way to increase consumer protection and limit the risks of AI adoption for consumers is to harmonize oversight of AI across Canada’s 14 jurisdictions, the report said.

Participants also thought that updating privacy laws to better reflect changes driven by the digital economy could improve consumers’ outcomes.

Participants strongly supported expanding the scope of consumer protection oversight to include new, unregulated entrants in the financial services market.

Many workshop participants argued that current disclosure requirements are often seen as “written by lawyers, for lawyers.” They suggested that tailored, context-specific disclosures would be more effective than generic, one-size-fits-all methods.

Many favoured a “tiered” disclosure system to give consumers “disclosure choice,” offering varying levels of detail – from a simple, high-level summary to comprehensive data similar to what is currently provided – based on the specific consumer’s information needs. Participants emphasized the importance of using plain language in all disclosures.

Participants underscored that coordinated information sharing within the financial ecosystem and with the tech sector (including cyber agencies) supports efforts to improve consumers’ financial well-being.

Participants acknowledged the value of initiatives like Financial Industry Forum on Artificial Intelligence as they contribute to information sharing and raising awareness within industry and among other stakeholders of the risks and barriers consumers face when accessing financial products and services.

A continued emphasis on collaboration enables ongoing coordination among regulators, financial institutions, academics and researchers, relevant technology firms, and consumer advocates.

Future discussions could include developing standards, exchanging information and data, and promoting AI literacy.

Workshop participants described digital authentication as a crucial tool that can substantially reduce the financial risks of online fraud and financial crime faced by consumers. It would add a layer of information security protection that is currently absent from the existing system.

The ambitious agenda outlined in the report – national AI literacy programs, regulatory harmonization, enhanced oversight capabilities, and industry transformation – requires substantial investment, the report said.

Workshop participants identified the lack of clear funding models as a critical barrier to implementation. Without explicit funding commitments, the identified opportunities risk becoming aspirational rather than actionable.

“Workshop participants stressed that the cost of inaction – fraud losses, exclusion costs, and trust erosion – far exceeds the investment required for proactive consumer protection.”

The FIFAI II forum focused on security and cybersecurity, financial crime, consumer challenges, and AI risks to financial stability.

A final report that synthesizes the forum’s views from across the four workshops will be released in the spring of 2026. Global Research Institute

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Canada’s AI strategy should avoid excessive precaution

OPINION

By Daniel Schwanen

Daniel Schwanen is senior vice-president of the C.D. Howe Institute. This op-ed first appeared here, with several more hyperlinks, in the Financial Post.

Ottawa’s forthcoming AI strategy needs to walk a tightrope between two equally important principles: safeguarding Canadians from possible misuses of AI but also giving our private and academic sectors the leeway to use Canada’s AI strengths to develop and commercialize new technologies and products.

Commercial success – including adoption by both the private and public sectors here at home –can help AI generate new opportunities for businesses, raise Canada’s dismal productivity performance and lift Canadians’ future incomes.

Canada has already made significant and growing investments in AI capacity. But nurturing talent, performing R&D and even owning the intellectual property the R&D produces, while necessary, are not sufficient to spur growth. Growth does not come just from accumulating its ingredients. In fact, the causation runs the other way: talent and IP will ultimately flow to where they are best able to explore and benefit from growth opportunities.

Canada’s strategy needs to begin with the understanding that, even in this era of re-emerging industrial policy, profit-driven private-sector growth, far from being driven by irresponsible or harmful actors, is crucial.

The White House’s AI Action Plan, the British prime minister’s recent response to that country’s nuclear industry review and, to a certain extent, Canada’s “energy superpower” vision all accept this point. Governments can open doors, foster strategic initiatives and partnerships, and even in some cases directly support initiatives that can build capacity and unlock their countries’ comparative advantages. But in all cases, this is also accompanied by removal of unnecessarily burdensome regulations to allow the private sector to thrive.

The role of AI regulators should be to help prevent clearly spelled out harm to privacy, reputation, competition and security writ large. They can do this using a principles-based approach, like Canada’s banking regulation, rather than an overly prescriptive precautionary approach, which presumes to know who will cause which harms how.

Regulators need to track the capacity of actors using AI systems to do harm. Specific new tools should be adopted as necessary to enforce prohibitions against such harms – whether caused by deepfakes or by AI systems colluding to fix prices or rig public sector bids.

But because AI’s evolution is constant and rapid and its greatest advances are probably ahead of us, what makes most sense is to embed the principles of responsible use right from the start, while allowing room for experimentation and development of new products and business models.

How we protect troves of personal data collected from Canadians by public entities, while also making it available, once de-identified, to public and private sector researchers, can illustrate this approach. Such data is the raw material of AI, which likely will have trouble proceeding without it. Careful protocols could ensure its safe, de-identified sharing.

Data sovereignty is often taken to mean keeping complete control of our data. But it should also be about giving Canadians access to the data they need in order to thrive, helping to differentiate AI models trained in part with uniquely Canadian data from others, a potential competitive advantage in global markets.

More broadly, Canadian regulators need to avoid being bound by – and binding Canadians to – what in a recent paper for the C.D. Howe Institute, former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick calls the “deadweight of dogma” – prioritizing the prevention of everything that could go wrong rather than facilitating what might be successful.

In aiming for the right balance, Canada’s AI strategy should lean more toward making room for experimentation and rewarding success, and less toward ill-targeted pre-emptive rules and regulations. Financial Post

THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

Vancouver-based Juno Industries Inc., a defence-technology company building autonomous systems for Canada and its allies, announced its launch. Former national defence minister (2015 to 2021) Harjit Sajjan will serve as executive chairman, alongside technology entrepreneur Hunter Scharfe as CEO. Scharfe previously worked at Paterson Partners – venture capitalist G. Scott Paterson’s family office – and co-founded investment firm Alset AI. Juno Industries closed $3 million in seed financing in the fall of 2025 and is backed by prominent Canadian entrepreneurs and investors, including Geordie Rose, founder of D-Wave and Sanctuary AI, who serves as senior advisor to the company. Juno Industries

The Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) promoted Laurent Carbonneau to vice-president of policy and advocacy. In this role, he will oversee CCI’s government relations and advocacy work, including coordination of the Council’s national policy priorities and support for lobbying activity across Canada. Carbonneau played a leading role in establishing CCI’s Policy and Research Department and in expanding the organization’s policy outputs. He also led the development of new policy products, including Mooseworks, to bring CCI’s research and analysis to a wider audience. Carbonneau has driven many of CCI’s flagship reports, including A Mandate to Innovate, Buying Ideas and Building Winners, alongside a wide range of submissions to governments across the country. CCI also promoted Gabriella Boulos to vice-president of programming. In this expanded role, she will continue to lead CCI’s programs and events, while taking on a broader mandate to grow revenue and extend the reach of CCI’s mission through high-impact programming. Boulos played a central role in building CCI’s program portfolio into a national platform for founders, executives and policy leaders. In 2025 alone, she oversaw dozens of events, delivered CCI’s first event services contract, and launched Cannector, a new executive search service designed to strengthen the leadership bench across Canada’s scale-up economy. CCI

Toronto-based quantum computing firm Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. announced the addition of two strategic leaders to their executive team: Michael Trzupek as chief financial officer and Natalie Wilmore as chief legal officer. Trzupek, who joins Xanadu from Imagination Technologies, is a seasoned financial and operating executive with a track record of scaling organizations, strengthening balance sheets, and leading complex capital markets functions across a variety of advanced manufacturing and semiconductor companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Imagination Technologies and Core Scientific. Wilmore is an experienced in-house attorney with expertise in scaling high-growth public companies. She joins Xanadu from Pagaya Technologies, an AI-powered fintech platform, where she served as vice-president, deputy counsel and corporate secretary. GlobeNewswire

Vancouver-based biotech company Zymeworks promoted Mark Hollywood to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Dr. Sabeen Mekan to Senior Vice president and chief medical officer. The company announced the departures of its chief financial and business officer, Leone Patterson, and its general counsel, Daniel Dex, as part of a management shakeup. Zymeworks also appointed Brian Cherry to its board of directors. In addition, the following individuals have been promoted or appointed to the leadership team:

• Laura O’Connor, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.
• Bijal Desai, Senior Vice President, Finance.
• Lindsey Foulkes, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy.
• Charles Chen, Vice President, Translational Sciences
• Shrinal Inamdar, Vice President, Investor Relations
• Diana Papove, Vice President, Corporate Communications
• Victoria Spencer, Vice President, Treasury and Tax
• Lingxing Zheng, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs.

Zymeworks develops antibody-based treatments and has both its own drug candidates and partnerships with large pharma companies. Zymeworks

Toronto-based identify security firm 1Password appointed Nancy Wang as chief technology officer, where she will lead the global engineering organization and drive the company’s AI strategy. In this role, Wang will guide the evolution of identity, privileged access and security as agentic AI increasingly acts on behalf of humans within modern organizations. Wang previously served as general manager and director of engineering and product for Amazon Web Services’ data protection business, where she helped grow the portfolio to more than 160,000 enterprise customers, protect over two exabytes of data, and scale to more than several billion in annual recurring revenue. Wang is also a venture partner at Felicis Ventures and an active angel investor. Yahoo!finance

London, U.K.-headquartered law firm DLA Piper named Toronto-based mergers and acquisitions lawyer Russel Drew as the new managing partner in Canada, amid plans for expansion. He took the helm on January 1, succeeding Robert Seidel. Drew also joins the U.S. executive committee in the process. As managing partner, Drew guides DLA Piper’s strategic vision in Canada. He is also tasked with encouraging cross-border collaboration and innovation. Drew started with DLA Piper in April 2016, making partner in January 2018. Law Times

Vancouver-based NorthX Climate Tech appointed Ka-Hay Law as its new chief investment officer, bringing on someone with over a decade of experience backing climate technologies as they scale from demonstration to commercialization. Law will lead investment strategy, portfolio development and capital mobilization for the Vancouver-based organization, which focuses on funding hard tech solutions that can transform industries and cut emissions. Law comes from Telus Global Ventures, where she led climate tech and sustainable agriculture investments and served as a partner at the $100- million Telus Pollinator Fund. Vancouver Tech Journal

The Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) announced it will have a new name, Singal49 Research, effective January 26, 2026. The new name reflects the organization’s focus and deep Canadian roots. “While our name is changing, our purpose, leadership, and team remain the same. This evolution underscores our commitment to Canada and our role as the nation’s leading independent research organization,” said Dr. Susan Black, the CBoC’s president and CEO. The name change follows the conclusion of a decades-long licensing agreement with The Conference Board, Inc., the global non-profit think tank and business membership organization, paving the way for a brand that reflects the organization’s independence and Canadian identity. Developed in collaboration with an external branding agency, the new name pays homage to the 49th parallel and draws inspiration from Signal Hill in Newfoundland, where the first transatlantic wireless message was received – symbols of connection, innovation and progress. The Conference Board, Inc., a separate and unaffiliated organization, will resume exclusive use of “The Conference Board of Canada” name and related trademarks going forward. CBoC

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