GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

 National Defence announced an investment of $1.4 billion to expand Canada’s domestic ammunition production capacity. This investment is possible due to the launch of the Canadian Defence Industry Resilience (CDIR) Program, which will strengthen Canada’s defence industrial base by helping companies increase production capacity, build sovereign defence capabilities, and address critical supply chain vulnerabilities. Under the CDIR Program, the Government of Canada will provide up to $305.4 million in financial assistance to IMT Precision in Ingersoll, Ont. This will establish a new manufacturing facility capable of producing empty metal shells for more modern and effective 155mm artillery projectiles, which will increase Canada’s sovereign ammunition production capacity reducing dependency on foreign suppliers. The facility will also act as a vital backup to North American supply capabilities, strengthening Canada’s position within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ottawa said. Three additional contribution agreements have also been awarded under the CDIR to General Dynamics – Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Quebec, a subsidiary of Virginia-based General Dynamics:

• $355.7 million to construct a nitrocellulose facility.
• up to $57.9 million to establish Canada’s first facility capable of loading, assembling and packing M231/232 charges used in 155mm artillery.
• up to $642 million to establish a manufacturing facility to load, assemble and pack 155mm high‑explosive projectiles.

These investments, guided by Canada’s first Security, Sovereignty, Prosperity: Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy, will strengthen Canada’s sovereign ammunition production capacity by expanding domestic manufacturing of key artillery charge components, and create skilled jobs in the region, National Defence said. National Defence

The Defence Investment Agency (DIA) awarded a contract to Colt Canada of Kitchener, Ont. to acquire up to 65,402 assault rifle systems under the Canadian Modular Assault Rifle (CMAR) initiative. Colt Canada is a subsidiary of Colt CZ Group SE, a European firearms holding company based in Prague, Czech Republic. Colt Canada’s commitment to include at least 80 percent Canadian content in the new rifles will generate opportunities for suppliers across the country, the DIA said. Further economic benefits are expected under the Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy. The CMAR project will be delivered through two phases:

• Phase 1 includes procuring 30,000 General Service (GS) rifles over a three-year period. The estimated value of this initial phase is approximately $307 million, including applicable taxes.
• Phase 2, which is expected to begin in year four under an optional provision, will include procuring the remaining 19,207 GS rifles, 16,195 Full Spectrum (FS) rifles, as well as associated ancillaries.

This contract will provide a modern replacement for the current C7/C8 assault rifle fleet, which has been in service for more than 35 years. The new rifles will enhance the awareness, protection, and reliability of deployed Canadian Armed Forces members. The project also includes system integration and engineering support. Defence Investment Agency

The Defence Investment Agency awarded a $32-million contract to MDA Space in Richmond, B.C., the Brampton, Ont.-headquartered company’s hub for its Earth and Space Observation Business, to deliver ground-based optical capability for the Surveillance of Space 2 project. The contract is expected to create or support close to 80 jobs annually and contribute approximately $9 million to Canada’s GDP annually over the next six years. Through this contract, by 2028, MDA Space will establish three remotely operated telescope sites in Alberta, Manitoba and New Brunswick. These telescopes will provide persistent, reliable space surveillance from the ground, and are an important component of Canada’s broader space surveillance architecture. The Defence Investment Agency said the investment demonstrates how the agency is advancing Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy by leveraging Canadian innovation and expertise to deliver advanced capabilities for the Canadian Armed Forces, while strengthening the broader defence industrial ecosystem. Defence Investment Agency

The Canada Infrastructure Bank and Export Development Canada have agreed to provide a loan of approximately $459 million to support the next phase of Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Que.-based Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie Mine in Quebec. The Matawinie Mine was referred to the federal Major Projects Office by Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025. This nation-building project aims to support economic growth, accelerate the development of an integrated value chain in Canada and help G7 countries and allies secure critical minerals supplies. Once financial close is achieved, the debt facility will enable the development, construction and commissioning of the graphite mine. Canada Infrastructure Bank

The Canada Growth Fund invested $20 million in Solugen Global Inc. as part of a $50-million equity commitment led by Idealist Capital, a growth equity fund. Solugen produces and commercializes Azogen, a fast-release liquid ammoniacal nitrogen fertilizer derived from hog manure, a breakthrough that can help close the crop yield gap between conventional and organic farming. The company’s circular process addresses challenges in manure management while delivering a liquid drop-in solution that has been trusted for over a century in conventional agriculture. Certified organic in the United States and already gaining traction with major growers, Azogen helps organic farmers to sustainably boost their yields. Solugen’s modular, highly automated facility in St-Patrice-de-Beaurivage, Que. is already processing manure, operating 24/7. With this investment, Solugen will expand capacity at its existing plant and construct a second Quebec facility, positioning the company to reach the production scale required to unlock and accelerate its U.S. market penetration. Canada Growth Fund

Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) announced $20 million in federal investment through Genome Canada and regional Genome Centres to launch 33 new genomics R&D projects across the country. Spanning applications from AI-powered precision cancer care to helping farmers target drought-tolerant canola crops, these industry-academic partnerships are designed to accelerate adoption of genomics in sectors critical to Canadian health and economic competitiveness, Genome Canada said. The investment will generate more than $45 million in additional private and other public sector co-investment – demonstrating how targeted federal funding can catalyze broader business growth, job creation and the deployment of genomics-enabled technologies at scale. The announcement was made at the University of Calgary, which is partnering on three of the projects launched. Genome Canada

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) announced a $16-million federal investment, under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative, to support five local companies in Newfoundland and Labrador. The investment will help develop and manufacture critical equipment and technologies in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as support more than 115 highly skilled jobs and strengthen these local companies within Canada’s defence and security supply chains:

• PAL Aerospace Ltd.
• Virtual Marine Technology Inc.
• Solace Power Inc.
• CoLab AI Inc.
• Rutter Inc.

The projects include: a new missionized aircraft solution for maritime and northern surveillance; marine simulation-based training solutions for defence; wireless power and data solutions in harsh environments; AI-powered collaboration software solutions; and enhanced radar technologies for naval and Arctic defence operations. ACOA

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) announced a Government of Canada investment of more than $4.57 million to support six strategic initiatives in Nipissing-Timiskaming. The funded projects will support Canada’s defence sector and accelerate AI adoption, innovation, job creation and business growth in North Bay and surrounding areas. Innovation Initiatives Ontario North will receive funding of more than $2.5 million to support the evolution of its Step Forward Entrepreneurs Program, kick-start its Ignite AI program, and extend its Skills Development Placement Program. Once complete, these projects are expected to support close to 150 businesses, create 120 jobs and maintain 105 more. The funding also includes just over $2 million for Canadore College to support phase one and two of the development of its Advanced Training Simulation Wing and to establish a new Product Development Fund to help businesses commercialize new products. Once complete, these projects are expected to advance aviation education and research, expand Northern Ontario’s defence focused simulation capacity, support business growth, innovation and product development, while creating more than 30 new jobs. FedNor

The Government of British Columbia, through the Community Energy Diesel Reduction Program, is providing approximately $6.6 million to 13 off-grid, remote First Nations to support them in building clean energy projects, including community energy plans, energy-efficiency upgrades and energy-generation projects, helping to reduce their reliance on diesel fuel for their power and heating needs. The clean energy projects vary in size and scope, and range from energy-generation projects, such as roof-top solar systems, to energy-efficiency upgrades in residential homes. For example, the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations Government is receiving approximately $870,000 for completing the engineering feasibility and design of a solar-photovoltaic-coupled pumped storage system in their community. The system will complement a proposed mini-hydro project in Augers Lake that is expected to fulfil the community’s long-term energy needs and fully eliminate their reliance on diesel-generated electricity. Tsay Keh Dene Nation is receiving $1.5 million for the design of a 3.5-megawatt solar photovoltaic project. Ulkatcho Energy Corporation is receiving $1.1 million for the testing and commissioning for a 3.8-megawatt solar plant project and solar control centre in Ulkatcho First Nation. Govt. of B.C.

Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced a federal investment of $4 million, through the Regional Tariff Response Initiative (RTRI), to support four businesses in Alberta. These investments will help expand operations, build resilience and strengthen capacity to navigate global economic challenges. Each of the following represents a $1-million investment under RTRI:

• Barr-Ag will purchase and install automated equipment to improve operational efficiency and build capacity so it can expand its hay product lines and better compete in domestic and global markets
• CAC Metal Recycling will expand and modernize its low-iron (non-ferrous) processing capabilities at its Acheson facility, enabling the company to recover and refine a wider range of recyclable metals.
• GN Corporations will purchase and install automated computer numerical control equipment and digital manufacturing tools to increase production capacity of its  metal parts products.
• Red Deer Ironworks has acquired specialized equipment, including a high-capacity computer numerical control machine, to bring manufacturing of its steel flow-control products in-house. PrairiesCan

 The Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) announced up to nearly $1.8 million over three years for Ampere to develop and deliver Northern Horizons, a digital and entrepreneurship training program for Indigenous and northern women. The Northern Horizons program aims to train up to 1,200 Indigenous and northern women in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon in essential digital skills, equipping participants to launch their own business or expand existing ones. Ampere anticipates the program will lead to the creation of 30 new businesses, with at least half of participants expected to secure or strengthen employment. Eighty percent of trainees will be Indigenous. CanNor

The Government of Saskatchewan’s 2026-27 budget says Innovation Saskatchewan is continuing rollout of its $5.2-million annual program in 2026-27, with four program streams opening this April. The Saskatchewan Technology Startup Incentive is expanding eligibility to include life sciences companies, broadening opportunities for innovation-driven growth.  The budget also confirms an investment of $3 million in the Saskatoon-based Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) as it becomes Canada's Centre for Pandemic Research. The funding supports facility upgrades that enable VIDO to advance vaccines developed in the lab into early production needed for vaccine trials, strengthening national preparedness and elevating Saskatchewan's role in global health security. Innovation Saskatchewan also renewed operating commitments for five other research institutes: Canadian Light Source ($4.1 million); International Minerals Innovation Institute ($256,000); PTRC Sustainable Energy ($1.675 million); Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation ($4.85 million); and the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation ($2.5 million).  Govt. of Saskatchewan

Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced the creation of the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Sector Task Force. The Task Force will explore innovative, made-in-Canada solutions that enhance competitiveness, and long-term growth to support reliable and sustainable access to pharmaceutical products in Canada. A stronger life sciences sector will ensure Canadians can access the medicines they need, when they need them – while supporting job growth, innovation and long-term economic growth across the country, Ottawa said. The Task Force will be co-chaired by Martin Leblanc, co-founder and vice-chairman of CellCarta Biosciences, and Michelle Boudreau, a former associate assistant deputy minister at Health Canada. The Task Force will also include members from:

• Select national industry associations.
• Select pharmaceutical representatives.
• Select biotechnology firms.
• Select regulatory, policy and research partners.

The Task Force will bring together senior leaders and experts from across the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector. Its recommendations will inform the federal government’s approach to strengthening Canada's life sciences ecosystem and ensuring everyone has timely access to safe and effective medicines. Canada’s pharmaceutical sector ranks 9^th globally. Its industry represents two percent of global sales, supports over 80,000 high-skilled jobs, contributes $14 billion to the economy, and invests over $2 billion annually in research and development. Health Canada

The Government of Ontario plans to create a new provincewide primary care medical record system that will integrate patient records, reduce paperwork for doctors, and improve the quality of care received by patients. Through the 2026 Budget, the government is also increasing overall funding for the plan to a total of $3.4 billion between 2025 and 2029. A previous attempt to create a centralized electronic medical record system in Ontario ended in scandal and the resignation of the health minister, with the provincial auditor general reporting in 2009 that eHealth Ontario wasted $1 billion in taxpayers’ money. The government also announced that it has exceeded its 2025-2026 attachment goal under the Primary Care Action Plan, which was to connect 300,000 patients to a primary care provider by March 31, 2026. As of January 1, 2026, the province has attached 330,000 people to care in 2025-2026, surpassing its goal by more than 30,000 with three months still to go. The government also announced 124 successful applicants have been selected to launch a new or expanded primary care team as part of the latest call for proposals under the Primary Care Action Plan. These teams are expected to connect another 500,000 patients to primary care across Ontario, with successful applicants to be announced in the coming weeks. Govt. of Ontario

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Electricity demand and generation poised to grow substantially in Canada between now and 2050: Canada Energy Regulator

Canada’s electricity generation is projected to grow between 30 percent and more than double today’s levels by 2050, according to a report by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).

More than 96 percent of the electricity generation will be from non- or low-emitting sources, said the report, Canada’s Energy Future 2026: Energy Supply and Demand Projects to 2050.

Electricity trade between provinces using transmission interties also plays a growing role in balancing electricity supply and demand, with interprovincial electricity flows more than doubling in all scenarios.

The capacity of the country’s electricity system is projected to double from 160 gigawatts in 2023 to 310 gigawatts in 2050.

The increase in electricity generation will be driven mostly by wind energy, which could expand from 40 terawatt-hours of generation in 2023 to 277 terawatt-hours by 2050, according to the report.

Natural gas production is projected to accelerate in all of the CER’s four scenarios over the next 25 years, reaching between 21 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) and 32 Bcf/d by 2050, compared to around 19 Bcf/d in 2025.

The scale of production growth, and whether Canada reaches markets beyond the United States, depends heavily on future liquefied natural gas export capacity. By 2050, about a quarter of total Canadian gas production is tied to LNG exports, making LNG one of the viable pathways for expanding Canada’s energy trade outside North America.

Crude oil presents more of a mixed outlook over the long term, with production ranging from a 12-percent decline to an 18-percent increase by 2050, depending on several factors, notably global oil prices.

In the higher production scenarios, Canada continues to send most of its oil exports to the U.S. if existing pipeline infrastructure is used much like it is today, as production changes alone do not significantly shift long standing export patterns.

In most of CER’s scenarios, Ontario and Quebec remain reliant on crude oil and natural gas sourced from or transported through the U.S. under current pipeline configurations.

Regional energy self-sufficiency in Central Canada could improve in the Canada Net-Zero scenario, with lower fossil fuel consumption and higher use of domestically produced resources like electricity and hydrogen.

As Canada’s energy system continues to evolve, national greenhouse gas emissions fall across all scenarios. This is driven by a cleaner electricity grid and emissions reductions in most economic sectors.

However, emissions plateau around 2035 under current policies. Reaching net zero by 2050 would require an economy-wide transformation towards low carbon technologies, driven by additional climate action, CER said.

Other findings in CER’s report include:

• Canada’s end-use energy demand grows by 11 percent from 2023 to 2050 in the “Current Measures” scenario, whereas the “Higher” and “Lower” scenarios have around 10 percent more or less demand than Current Measures in 2050, In the “Canada Net-zero” scenario, end-use demand is five percent lower than 2023 in 2050.
• Electricity demand grows significantly in all scenarios, ranging between a 26 percent to 85 percent increase from 2023 to 2050, and growth comes from a wide variety of end-uses.
• In the Current Measures, Higher, and Lower scenarios, fossil fuel demand is relatively stable, with the share being used for non‑combustion purposes, like petrochemical feedstocks, lubricants, and asphalt rising from 15 percent currently, to 20 percent to 25 percent by 2050.
• The Canada Net-zero scenario sees the most change in Canadian energy demand.

Electricity demand is highest among the four scenarios, reflecting greater electrification across the economy. By 2050, electricity is the largest energy type in the mix, accounting for nearly 35 percent of total demand, compared to 23 percent in Current Measures and 18 percent today.

Fossil fuel demand declines by 40 percent but still plays a relatively large role. By 2050, about one-third of fossil fuel demand is for non-combustion purposes, given steeply falling use of combusted fossil fuels.

In every year since 2021, Canadian crude oil production has hit new highs, with production averaging 5.5 million barrels per day (MMb/d) in 2024 and growing even further in 2025.

Most scenarios show potential for further growth, depending on the underlying assumptions. In CER’s modelling, global oil prices are key drivers of production trends. As prices rise, there is a greater incentive for producers to increase production.

Led by growth in the oilsands, total oil production peaks at 6.1 million barrels per day (MMb/d) in Current Measures by 2042, and 6.7 MMb/d in the Higher scenario in 2044. Production peaks at 5.7 MMb/d in 2029 in the Lower scenario, and 5.9 MMb/d in 2036 in Canada Net-zero, before gradually declining.

In the Canada Net-zero scenario, faced with higher carbon capture, storage and utilization (CCUS) costs, oilsands producers increasingly choose to shut down production instead of applying more costly CCUS or other, more expensive decarbonization options.

In the High CCUS Cost sensitivity case, oilsands production trends 27 percent lower than Canada Net-zero by 2050, highlighting how significantly future production could vary in this sort of scenario.

Hydrogen remains a niche technology in Current Measures, and the Higher and Lower scenarios, mostly in the industrial sector.

In Canada Net-zero, hydrogen makes up about five percent of the end-use demand mix by 2050. CER assumes that hydrogen produced for export increases after 2030 in all scenarios, reaching 2 million tonnes (MT) by 2050 in Current Measures, the Higher, and Lower scenarios, and 4.5 MT by 2050 in Canada Net-zero. 

As for bioenergy, total end-use bioenergy demand, including electricity and hydrogen produced from bioenergy, increases by 10 percent in the Lower scenario, 32 percent in Current Measures, 73 percent in the Higher scenario, and around 150 percent in Canada Net-zero.

Policies such as Canada’s Clean Fuels Regulations, and provincial initiatives like B.C. and Quebec’s renewable natural gas blending mandates, are key factors in increasing bioenergy demands by 2050.

In Canada Net-zero, increasing use of electricity and hydrogen produced with bioenergy (mostly with CCUS), as well as sustainable aviation fuel, become a large part of Canada’s bioenergy use. Canada Energy Regulator

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

 National Freshwater Science Agenda released

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) released the National Freshwater Science Agenda, which aims to better align freshwater science and research efforts across Canada.

The Science Agenda is the result of over two years of engagement efforts led by ECCC with input from more than 800 science experts, Knowledge Holders and science users across governments and sectors, Indigenous organizations, and Canada’s freshwater science community.

This report is not an implementation road map for freshwater science. Rather, it serves as a tool to support and guide planning, collaboration and coordination in freshwater science and research across Canada.

The freshwater science priorities are organized under a set of common themes:

• Indigenous science and knowledge systems.
• Water availability.
• Land use stressors and water pollution.
• Freshwater ecosystem resilience and biodiversity.
• Regional perspectives.
• Social-ecological and economic freshwater research.
• Freshwater science and decision support systems.

Each theme outlines key priorities needed to advance freshwater science in Canada.

Throughout the development of the National Freshwater Science Agenda, five overarching and cross-cutting foundational elements for advancing national freshwater science emerged:

1. Comprehensive understanding and reporting on freshwater:

Develop a more complete understanding of, and reporting on, the state and trends of freshwater and the vulnerabilities across surface and groundwater systems by watershed. This includes consideration of intra- and international jurisdictional boundaries and the influence of hydrological factors such as water retention infrastructure (such as dams), water use efficiency technologies (such as conservation), and ecosystem-based approaches that enhance the sustainable management and storage of freshwater.

2. Source attribution and cumulative effects of contaminants:

Continue advancing knowledge on the source attribution, transformation, and fate of contaminant mixtures, as well as the cumulative effects of legacy and emerging contaminants.

3. Understanding freshwater management trade-offs and social dynamics:

Strengthen understanding of the trade-offs, cost-benefit implications, cultural values, and social behaviours that shape freshwater stewardship.

4. Solution-oriented freshwater science and decision-support systems:

Advance science that enables integrated decision-support systems with watershed-based monitoring and predictive capabilities. This includes developing multi-scale approaches and synthesizing knowledge from diverse sources, anchored in indicators that reflect valued water outcomes and management responses to multiple stressors.

5. Enhancing freshwater science capacity and tools:

Strengthen the scientific foundation and technical infrastructure needed to advance the National Freshwater Science Agenda priorities. This includes improving access to environmental, social and economic freshwater data across data providers and holders; expanding watershed-based adaptive monitoring and prediction frameworks; and developing freshwater science assessment initiatives grounded in regional stewardship contexts. ECCC

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Ottawa Heart Institute researchers launch a national platform to give Canadian health researchers secure access to diverse health data

Researchers at the Ottawa Heart Institute launched ARCHIMEDES (Advanced Research Collaboration for Health Integration, Medical Exploration, and Data Synthesis), a national platform designed to give Canadian health researchers secure access to diverse health data, enable responsible data sharing across institutions and health data types, and support the development of advanced analyses, including AI algorithms.

Health research in Canada is often slowed by fragmented data systems, lengthy approval processes to transfer data, and limited mechanisms for secure cross-institutional collaboration.

As a result, valuable health research data remains siloed, projects are delayed, and discoveries take longer to reach and benefit patients.

ARCHIMEDES was created to address these barriers by bringing health research data from across Canada together within a centralized, ethically governed environment that also enables high-performance computing and analytics.

The platform will provide access to multi-modal data, including behavioural data, imaging, genomics, and biospecimens.

Through a secure two-tier access model, researchers can determine how their data is shared, supporting both collaboration and ethical compliance and enabling compliance with new Tri-Council data management policies.

ARCHIMEDES is a partnership between the Ottawa Heart Institute, McGill University, and the University of Ottawa, with funding from the Brain-Heart Interconnectome Research Program through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. University of Ottawa

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New research centre at University of Toronto focuses on real-world evidence for drugs and health technologies

The University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy launched a new research centre focused on real-world evidence for drugs and health technologies.

The Toronto Centre for Real-World Evidence brings together academics, industry experts, policymakers and trainees to build capacity in the field and advance the use of real-world evidence to inform policy and practice.

While large clinical trials remain the gold standard for evaluating the safety and effectiveness of medications, their strictly controlled conditions do not always reflect real-world settings where patients may take multiple medications or live with other health conditions.

Clinical trials also often exclude certain patient populations and can be difficult to conduct for rare diseases or highly-tailored drugs.

Regulators and other decision-makers are increasingly relying on real-world evidence, or RWE – data collected outside of controlled research settings, such as electronic health records and health-care databases – to inform decisions, including when to approve a drug for public insurance coverage.

Because it reflects actual clinical practice, real-world evidence can provide more comprehensive insights into the safety and effectiveness of medications and health care technologies.

As demand for real-world evidence grows, the new centre aims to address knowledge and capacity gaps in the research landscape.

Members will work toward the mission of advancing methodology, fostering open and responsible data use and training the next generation of researchers and policy partners to produce robust evidence that informs decision-making and improves health outcomes. Establishing the centre also promises to create jobs in an industry estimated by Fortune Business Insights to be worth more than $30 billion by 2030.

Researchers, trainees, policymakers and members of the public who use or are interested in real-world evidence can join the centre at no cost.

The centre will offer in-person events, speaker series, tools and resources, networking opportunities and learning opportunities to help expand the community and advance the field. University of Toronto

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The University of Calgary’s Department of Economics in the Faculty of Arts launched a new program to provide a bridge between academic research and real-world policy challenges in the realm of competition and regulation in Canada. The objective of the Research Program on Competition and Regulation (RPCR) is to create a dedicated hub for research, commentary and education focused on the application of economic principles to Canadian regulatory and competition policy. “Regulatory economics considers the potential for government intervention to control the exercise of market power, while competition policy is intervention to preserve competition. The RPCR will enhance engagement with the community, in terms of having a policy dialogue with Canadians, firms, governments and regulators about how we can do things better,” said Jeffrey Church, emeritus professor of economics and co-director of RPCR. Examples of research areas and relevant research questions include:

• Why are there so many regulators involved in permitting interprovincial pipelines, including the Canada Energy Regulator and the federal Impact Assessment Agency, and what will be the effect of the changes in regulatory oversight in the Building Canada Act, included in Bill C-5?

• Should Google be allowed to enter exclusive contracts with Apple to make Google Search the default search engine on the iPhone?

• Why were Rogers and Shaw permitted to merge, and should they have been allowed to merge?

The co-directors say the creation of the RPCR is a response to regulation and competition policy becoming “untethered from their economic moorings. Instead of interventions to promote wealth creation and enhance competition, the focus has been on redistribution, driven by political considerations.” There is currently no independent voice in Canada in the areas of regulatory and competition policy. The RPCR would be able to provide that independent voice and critical commentary on these issues. As its inaugural event, RPCR is hosting a conference to explore Canada’s experience with regulatory oversight of major projects. The 2026 RPCR Conference – Regulatory Reform in Canada: A Discussion and Assessment of Bill C-5 – will be in Calgary on Wednesday, April 29. The conference will address this important legislation from both economic and legal perspectives. To learn more about RPCR, as well as its inaugural event and to register for the conference, visit www.rpcr.ca University of Calgary

The University of Victoria (UVic) is receiving $15.2 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to fund new equipment and instruments across several of its research programs. The Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technology receives $2.95 million for instruments supporting sustainable energy, medical imaging, quantum computing and additive manufacturing. The UVic-Genome BC Proteomics Centre gets $2.7 million for tools to study human, animal and plant health, as well as the environmental impacts of climate change. Another $4.17 million will fund UVic's contribution to an upgrade of Japan's SuperKEKB particle collider, part of a multi-university international collaboration studying the fundamental nature of the universe. Ocean Networks Canada's NEPTUNE observatory will receive $1.65 million to add two power and communication nodes, including one at the Middle Valley site where three tectonic plates meet. UVic will also benefit from three partnership initiatives housed at its facilities: $2.9 million for sustainable hydrogen energy infrastructure, $750,000 for detectors for an electron-ion collider, and $25,000 for open science digital collections. University of Victoria

The 2026 Thrive Top 50 AgTech Companies list recognized five Canadian companies as some of the “most innovative scaleups” in the sector. Thrive, the AgTech investment and accelerator platform of California-based investment firm Silicon Valley Global (SVG) Ventures, released the list in its ninth annual AgTech report. The list recognizes “the leading innovators shaping the future of agriculture and food systems,” John Hartnett, founder and CEO of Thrive and SVG, said in the report. Canada is represented on the list from coast to coast by companies like 4AG Robotics, BinSentry, Vive Crop Protection, Entosystem, and Milk Moovement. To make the list, companies were assessed on funding, valuation, revenue growth, market traction, partnerships, team strength and sustainability impact alongside analysis from its global network of partners, according to Thrive. The list is ordered alphabetically, with each company representing one of five segments: Controlled Environment Agriculture, Animal Technology, On-Farm Decision Support (including automation and robotics), Novel Crop Inputs, and Agribusiness Platforms. Thrive by SVG Ventures, BetaKit

Toronto-based photonic quantum computing company Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. announced a novel quantum computational algorithm to accelerate the discovery and analysis of next-generation battery materials. Published as a pre-print article, Xanadu’s new research, in collaboration with the University of Toronto and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as part of the NRC’s Applied Quantum Computing Challenge program, demonstrates how fault-tolerant quantum computers can solve critical challenges to enable the practical application of higher-capacity lithium-excess cathode active materials for lithium batteries. Resonant Inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is a powerful tool for characterizing how high-capacity batteries degrade over time, a key component for evaluating their predicted performance. However, the lack of accurate simulations of RIXS spectra limits its usefulness for many practical use cases. This new research shows that quantum algorithms can unlock computational simulations that are beyond the reach of classical methods, accelerating the progress towards discovering next-generation battery materials. Throughout this work, resource requirements have also been reduced so that it can run on early, utility-scale fault tolerant quantum computers. “We believe our results position fault-tolerant quantum computing as an essential tool for the battery industry and next-generation battery materials development,” said Christian Weedbrook, founder and CEO of Xanadu. Xanadu Technologies

Toronto-based AI developer Cohere announced it will work with California-based chips maker NVIDIA to develop new models and technologies that meet the growing demand for AI systems that operate securely, on‑premise, and within national borders for tightly regulated industries. Cohere said the two companies will build custom models that are optimized for NVIDIA’s latest architecture and software ecosystem, targeting areas where frontier models still face critical limitations – particularly in specialized enterprise workloads and deployments across specific hardware footprints. Cohere will make these models, and an optimized version of its agentic North platform, available on NVIDIA DGX Spark, bringing a high-performance, locally run enterprise workstation to Spark owners and customers. Cohere said North brings enterprise users a turnkey solution with powerful agents, models and a search stack they can trust to work securely anywhere, at low latency and with their most sensitive internal data. Cohere

Toronto-based photonic computing quantum firm Xanadu Technologies Inc. is set to be the first Canadian tech company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange since late 2021, after getting approval from Philadelphia, Penn.-based Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp.’s shareholders for Xanadu’s merger with Crane Harbor, a special purpose acquisition company. The combined company, which will also be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, will operate under the name Xanadu Quantum Technologies Limited. The transaction is expected to deliver gross proceeds of approximately US$302 million to Xanadu. Xanadu Technologies

AI chatbots often encourage violence and fail to discourage self-harm, according to a Stanford University study that analyzed more than 391,000 messages across more than 4,700 human-chatbot conversations from 19 users who reported psychological harm from chatbot use. The findings reveal chatbots displayed insincere flattery in more than 70 percent of their messages, and nearly half of all messages showed signs of delusions. When users expressed violent thoughts, chatbots encouraged violence in 33 percent of cases – double the rate at which they discouraged it. When users discussed self-harm, chatbots encouraged it nearly 10 percent of the time. In only slightly more than half (56.4 percent of cases did chatbots discourage self-harm or refer to external sources. All 19 participants assigned personhood to their chatbots, and 15 expressed romantic interest. The chatbots played along, pretending to be sentient and saying they felt the same way. Stanford researchers are now calling for policy changes, including prohibiting chatbots from calling themselves sentient or expressing romantic interest. The study did not specify which chatbot platforms were involved. Stanford University, Entrepreneur

Canada’s cyber spy agency says Russian state hackers and proxies are actively targeting governments, the military and businesses in this country as part of its global intelligence operations. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) would not say directly whether Canada has been targeted by Russia as part of a recently revealed, large-scale global cyber campaign aimed at Signal and WhatsApp messaging accounts. According to two Dutch intelligence agencies, Russian state hackers are using phishing techniques to pose as accounts such as “Signal support” in an international campaign aimed at high-profile people to gain access to their messages. While the CCCS said it can’t comment on specifics, it noted that “Russian cyber threat actors are very likely targeting Canadian government, military, private sector and critical infrastructure networks.” The two Dutch intelligence agencies issued a warning Monday that Signal and WhatsApp accounts belonging to high-ranking government officials, military personnel, civil servants and journalists around the world are being targeted. The Globe and Mail

Edmonton-based Wyvern Space announced two international partnerships that will bring its hyperspectral earth imaging to Saudi Arabian agriculture and the U.S. oil and gas sector. Wyvern is partnering with Neo Space Group, a Riyadh-headquartered commercial space services company launched in 2024 by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The partnership will bring high-resolution, hyperspectral data from Wyvern’s Dragonnette satellite constellation to the company’s UP42 Platform. That platform is a data marketplace and analytics system that allows organizations to access, analyze and purchase satellite imagery from a multitude of providers. Wyvern also announced a deal with Colorado-based Orbital Advisors, which uses satellite data for industrial monitoring across projects in energy, mining and agriculture. Wyvern’s partnership centres on pipeline monitoring, with Orbital Advisors leveraging Wyvern’s technology to detect subtle material and environmental changes that might signal leaks along pipeline routes. Wyvern did not disclose the dollar figure attached to the two deals. Wyvern on LinkedIn

Payments Canada, which owns and operates Canada’s critical national payment systems, announced the approval of Meridian Credit Union, Ontario's largest credit union, as a member. Meridian is the first credit union to obtain membership following the recent expansion of eligibility requirements. This milestone follows the approval of five new PSP members in January – the first wave of new members since the expansion of Payments Canada's membership eligibility late last year. Traditionally, provincial credit unions have been represented by their central in Payments Canada governance forums. As a result of amendments to the Canadian Payments Act, membership has been expanded to include credit union locals (such provincial credit unions) that are members of a central. This provides them with expanded flexibility for how they engage with Payments Canada. Payments Canada

Tillsonburg, Ont.-based BMI Group, an industrial redevelopment company, announced a memorandum of understanding with Calgary-based Plum Gas Solutions to pursue the development of a compressed natural gas (CNG) facility at the former pulp mill site in Prince Albert, now operated under BMI as Tellentia Inc. The proposed facility would utilize an existing natural gas pipeline crossing the property, with a new branch connection to support a high-capacity CNG fill station. The project is intended to supply fuel to nearby industrial and mining operations. CNG is widely used by industrial and mining operations that may not have immediate access to pipeline gas, as a cleaner and more cost-effective alternative to propane, diesel, bunker fuel and other physical fuels, including coal and petroleum coke – supporting burners, dryers, heavy-duty haul trucks and onsite power generation systems. Many industrial operations across eastern and northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba operate partially or fully off-grid and depend on trucked fuel for energy security. BMI Group

Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker, a member of the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, introduced the Protecting American Streaming and Innovation Act, legislation to counter Canada’s digital trade barriers targeting American streaming companies and content producers. Under Canada’s Online Streaming Act, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) imposed “costly financial and regulatory burdens on U.S.-based digital services while exempting Canadian competitors,” Smucker said in a statement. The law requires foreign streaming platforms to put part of their Canadian-generated revenue toward Canadian content and news, though the payments are on hold pending a court challenge. The Protecting American Streaming and Innovation Act would launch a Section 301 investigation into Canada’s Online Streaming Act to determine if Canada’s implementation of the law discriminates against or burdens American commerce. If so, the United States Trade Representative is directed to take necessary retaliatory action to combat Canada’s policies. Outside groups supporting this bill include the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Digital Media Association, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Motion Picture Association. Congressman Lloyd Smucker

China’s Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. is laying the groundwork to enter Canada after the two countries reached a deal earlier this year opening the door to electric vehicles from the world’s biggest auto market. Geely expects certification soon from Canadian officials for Geely Auto-branded vehicles, Andy An, chief executive of parent company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., said. In January, Canada agreed to exempt as many as 49,000 Chinese-built EVs annually from a 100-percent tariff imposed in 2024, and Ottawa has been courting investment from China-based carmakers via a joint venture with one or more Canadian companies. China’s BYD Co. said it’s actively considering building a plant in the country, but is unlikely to team up with other firms. China’s largest vehicle exporter, Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., has started staff recruitment efforts in Canada to establish a presence in the country. Financial Post

The Donald Trump administration’s new national AI policy framework says Congress should not create any new federal rulemaking body to regulate AI, but instead support development and deployment of sector-specific AI applications through existing regulatory bodies and industry-led standards. Congress should also “preempt state AI laws that impose undue burdens,” to ensure a “minimally burdensome national standard,” the framework said. “States should not be permitted to regulate AI development, because it is an inherently interstate phenomenon with key foreign policy and national security implications.” Congress also should streamline federal permitting for AI infrastructure construction and operation so AI developers can develop or procure on-site and behind-the-meter power generation to accelerate AI infrastructure buildout and enhance grid reliability. The Trump administration said it believes that training of AI models on copyrighted material does not violate copyright laws, but said it supports allowing the courts to resolve this issue. Congress also “should prevent the United States government from coercing technology providers, including AI providers, to ban, compel, or alter content based on partisan or ideological agendas,” the framework said. The White House

Most Americans surveyed believe that data centres are bad for the environment, home energy costs and the quality of life of people living nearby, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Only four percent of people thought data centres were good for the environment, six percent good for jobs, and six percent good for people’s quality of life. Despite those negative feelings, many of the people surveyed (25 percent) thought that data centres would be good for jobs in the communities where they’re built and would boost local tax revenue. “Data centers do not bring high-paying tech jobs to local communities because they operate as infrastructure projects rather than traditional job-creating businesses,” University of Michigan researchers wrote in a 2025 brief. The U.S. now has more than 4,000 data centres, with especially large numbers in Virginia, Texas and California. 404 Media

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to weaken limits on emissions of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas, from manufacturing facilities that use it to sterilize medical devices. The move revived a long-running debate about the paradoxical effects of ethylene oxide on public health. While it plays a crucial role in sterilizing lifesaving medical devices like pacemakers and syringes, long-term exposure can cause leukemia and other types of cancer among people who work in or live near medical sterilization facilities. The EPA’s proposed rule would loosen limits on ethylene oxide emissions from around 90 commercial sterilization facilities across the U.S. Roughly 2.3 million people live within two miles of these facilities in what are often low-income neighborhoods or communities of color, according to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group. The proposal is the EPA.’s latest move to relax pollution limits in an effort to lower costs for industries. In recent months, the agency has also weakened restrictions on mercury from coal-burning power plants and repealed a scientific finding that allowed the government to regulate planet-warming pollution from cars and trucks. The New York Times

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) Council concluded two weeks of negotiations with no mining approved and no mining code adopted. Unresolved issues ranged from environmental safeguards and liability, to inspection, compliance and benefit-sharing. Governments, including France, Costa Rica, South Africa on behalf of the Africa Group, Mexico, Germany, Palau, and Brazil, among others, raised major scientific, environmental and governance gaps. Several states stressed that these issues must be fully resolved before any mining is considered. “This meeting once again exposed the scale of the unknowns surrounding deep-sea mining and why a moratorium is the credible way forward,” said Sofia Tsenikli, global campaign director at the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an alliance of more than 135 organizations worldwide advocating for the protection of the deep sea. “Pushing ahead regardless is reckless, and risks sacrificing the ocean, and humanity’s common heritage, for short-term commercial interests.” Member states also supported the ISA’s Legal and Technical Commission’s inquiry into “non-compliance” by Vancouver-based deep sea mining firm The Metals Company, and ISA’s preliminary report into contractor non-compliance. The Metals company is planning to mine exclusively through United States regulations, circumventing the ISA process. Canada has legal obligations as a signatory of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to ensure that its nationals, including corporations, do not engage in unilateral mining activities. Deep Sea Conservation Coalition

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Data centres in the U.S. will significantly increase electricity demand and emissions from natural gas plants used to generate electricity

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is building a new data centre, called Colossus, in southwest Memphis to train Grok, one of the world’s most advanced generative-AI models.

If run at full strength for a year, Colossus would use as much electricity as 200,000 American homes, according to an article in The Atlantic, by Matteo Wong.

When fully operational, Musk has written on X, Colossus and two other xAI data centers nearby will require nearly two gigawatts of power. Annually, those facilities could consume roughly twice as much electricity as the city of Seattle.

Even conservative analyses forecast that the tech industry will drop the equivalent of roughly 40 Seattles onto America’s electricity grid within a decade; aggressive scenarios predict more than 60 in half that time.

Siddharth Singh, an energy-investment analyst at the International Energy Agency, predicts that by 2030, U.S. data centres will consume more electricity than all of the country’s heavy industries – more than the cement, steel, chemical, car and other industrial facilities put together.

Roughly half of that demand will come from data centres equipped for the particular needs of generative AI – programs, such as ChatGPT, that can produce text and images, solve complex math problems, and perhaps one day inform scientific discoveries.

OpenAI has announced plans for facilities requiring more than 30 gigawatts of power in total – more than the largest recorded demand for all of New England.

Since ChatGPT’s launch, in November 2022, the capital expenditures of Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google have exceeded $600 billion, and much of that spending has gone toward data centres – more, even after adjusting for inflation, than the government spent to build the entire interstate-highway system, Wong noted.

To power AI, energy and tech companies are turning to natural gas plants, which they regard as more reliable and readily available than wind, solar, or nuclear.

The International Energy Agency estimates that data centre emissions could more than double by 2030 – becoming one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gases in the world.

Cooling AI data centres can require a lot of water. Public records from the Memphis water utility, for instance, show that the address for Colossus used more than 11 million gallons in September alone, as much as 150 homes use in an entire year.  The Atlantic

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

YScope, co-founded by two University of Toronto researchers, raised US$3.9 million in a funding round led by Two Small Fish. Snow Angels, Next Wave NYC, UTEST, University of Toronto, and other founders participated. YScope is building an open source platform for log storage and analytics. YScope said its core technology, CLP (Compressed Log Processor), makes log storage, search and analytics dramatically more efficient for both humans and AI, across cloud and edge environments. Allen Lau on LinkedIn

Toronto-based corporate virtual private network (VPN) startup Tailscale made its first acquisition as it aims to improve its application security layer. Tailscale announced it purchased Border0, a Vancouver-based privileged access management (PAM) security platform. PAM helps companies manage who or what has access to sensitive digital infrastructure, like production systems or databases. Border0’s entire seven-person team is joining Tailscale, including Border0 founder Andree Toonk, who becomes the director of engineering to focus on building out Tailscale’s privileged access management capabilities. With the acquisition, Tailscale is expanding its engineering footprint in Vancouver with a larger office. Tailscale helps companies and individuals secure and control their data with its zero-configuration VPN, which can be installed on any device, manages firewall rules for users, and works from anywhere. BetaKit

St. Paul, Minn.-based Ecolab entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Calgary-based CoolIT Systems, a high-growth, high-margin leader in liquid cooling technology for next-gen AI data centers, for US$4.75 billion. Ecolab said with CoolIT’s rapid sales growth, the acquisition is expected to significantly strengthen the Ecolab’s global high-tech growth engine. CoolIT is a pure-play data centre liquid cooling company with end-to-end capabilities that designs and manufactures high-performance liquid cooling systems, including coolant distribution units, cold plates and direct-to-chip cooling technologies. By combining CoolIT’s anchor thermal engineering technologies and design excellence with Ecolab’s expertise in water, chemistry, fluid management, digital monitoring and global service, Ecolab is bolstering its cooling-as-a-Service offering. This integrated solution helps AI data centers improve performance, reduce downtime and lower water use across their operations, the company said. Ecolab

Canadian entrepreneur Stephen Smith plans to buy a minority stake in the Economist Group, the latest billionaire to purchase an interest in an influential media platform. Smith, co-founder of mortgage lender First National Financial Corp., has agreed to acquire a 26.7-percent stake in The Economist from Lynn Forester de Rothschild and her foundation through his family holding company, Smith Financial. Financial details weren’t disclosed. The Economist has 1.25 million subscribers and has successfully evolved from a weekly magazine to a digital platform. Approximately 70 percent of subscribers read the publication online. The Economist’s governance features multiple classes of shares, with no single shareholder permitted to control more than 20 percent of the company’s votes. The structure is meant to preserve the platform’s independence. The Globe and Mail

REPORTS & POLICIES

Canada lacks an independent food supply chain due to underinvestment in value-added processing, technology adoption and sector-wide modernization

Decades of underinvestment in value-added processing capacity, technology adoption and sector-wide modernization have left Canada's food sector without the support to build the operational resilience needed to respond to disruptions, according to a report by the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN).

“Canada does not have an independent food supply chain, and has significantly underinvested in the commerce, data and technology infrastructure that complex supply chains require,” according to a recent assessment by KPMG, CFIN’s report said.

The food supply chain encompasses everything between the farm and the fork: processing plants that turn raw commodities into usable ingredients, packaging operations that protect and preserve, cold chain logistics that maintain safety across thousands of kilometres, and distribution networks connecting manufacturers to retailers and restaurants.

Canada is among the world’s largest agricultural producers. But the food supply chain that connects that production to Canadian consumers has a fundamental imbalance: strong at the farm gate but weak in the middle, CFIN’s report said.

The midstream processing that turns raw commodities into finished food product – the extraction, formulation, packaging and value-added work that determines cost, quality and supply continuity – “is disproportionately located beyond our borders.”

For example, Canada is the world’s number one exporter of dried peas, yet 88 percent of production over the past five years has been exported as a raw commodity – “a significant missed opportunity for domestic value creation, job growth and export diversification.”

With so much of the supply chain’s middle located outside Canada, the food system is exposed to every tariff, currency swing and natural disaster that the last five years have made routine, the report said.

“The dependency would matter less if Canada’s domestic food sector were well-capitalized or technologically advanced. It is neither,” according to the report.

Of roughly 6,900 food and beverage processing establishments, 92 percent are SMEs with fewer than 100 employees.

Across Canadian SMEs broadly, capital investment in machinery and equipment has declined 16 percent over the past decade, and business productivity fell 0.6 percent from 2019 to 2024 while U.S. productivity rose 10.1 percent.

Canada’s food sector reflects these trends acutely – thin margins, manual processes and minimal automation remain the norm for most processors, distributors and food service operators.

The barriers to investment are well documented and self-reinforcing: high equipment costs, constrained cash flow, lack of digital skills and difficulty finding solutions that fit specific operations, the report said.

Although the 2025 federal budget identified agri-food as a key sector where Canada enjoys a strategic global advantage, agri-food accounts for less than two percent of government-backed growth, venture and infrastructure funds at the federal level, and captured only four percent of total growth capital invested in Canada over the past five years.

Investment values are down 32 percent and deal counts down 29 percent relative to a decade ago. The sector is growing – year-over-year revenue growth in agri-food manufacturing has averaged 5.9 percent over the past decade, outpacing the 3.6 percent manufacturing average – “but capital is not keeping pace,” the report said.

“The consequence is a food system that is simultaneously dependent on foreign processing and unable to grow and modernize its own capabilities quickly enough.”

Closing this gap will require investing in the domestic processing capacity, operational technology, and supply chain infrastructure that Canada has long neglected, the report said.

The evidence that this investment pays off is strong, the report noted. European Union-wide research spanning all 27 member states from 2011 to 2024 found that technological progress in the food sector – including digital tools, cold chain infrastructure, real-time market information, processing automation and logistics systems – significantly reduces both food price levels and food price inflation.

For Canada’s food sector, CFIN’s report said, the path to resilient supply chains requires organizations and programs that span the full innovation cycle: funding and validating emerging technologies with industry partners and accelerating deployment of proven solutions across the thousands of processors, distributors and operators that cannot navigate the process alone.

Import costs were the primary driver of 2025's food price increases, and the structural reason is that the processing which determines cost, quality and supply continuity happens disproportionately beyond our borders, the report said.

With a weak Canadian dollar, every ingredient, component, and finished product sourced internationally costs more – a premium that Canadian processors, distributors and retailers absorb or pass directly to consumers.

“Building a more resilient food supply chain begins with closing that processing gap by investing in the technologies, ingredient capabilities and production models that keep more value in Canada and reduce exposure to foreign cost volatility.”

However, most small and mid-sized processors still operate using manual inspection, fixed-labour packaging lines, and minimal production data – operations where costs stay flat or rise with volume instead of falling.

CFIN’s report provides several examples of Canadian companies that are building the automation, production intelligence and quality control systems that help maximize what Canadian food processors could produce compared to what they currently do.

CFIN’s network's 8,000+ members span the full food value chain – processors, distributors, food service operators, retailers, technology companies, investors and innovators.

Since 2021, CFIN has invested $22.6 million in 122 food technology projects, matched by $25.9 million from industry partners. CFIN-funded companies have gone on to receive a total $82 million in private follow-on investments.

CFIN has identified three patterns that should inform how Canada invests in food

supply chain resilience.

• First, Canada’s food innovation landscape is more capable than most policymakers realize, but it is not yet sufficient.

Canadian companies are building necessary solutions to urgent supply chain vulnerabilities. Some are commercially deployed. Many more need industry validation, operational testing, and supported first deployments to prove they work at scale. The pipeline is promising, but it needs sustained investment from early development through to sector-wide adoption.

• Second, the food sector’s “missing middle” is both its biggest vulnerability and its biggest opportunity.

Canada’s 573 medium-sized food processing enterprises – firms with 100 to 499 employees –  generate $18.4 billion in sales and are heavily trade-oriented, with exports accounting for 71 percent of their revenue.

These are the firms best positioned to adopt new technologies, scale domestic processing capacity, and grow into the anchor processors Canada needs. But there are far too few of them, and they face the same capital constraints as the rest of the sector.

• Third, supply chain technology investment requires commitment and duration to pay off.

The relationship between digital infrastructure and food supply chain resilience is not linear – it requires sustained investment above a minimum threshold before system-level benefits materialize.

Short-term or fragmented funding cycles risk producing isolated gains that never compound into sector-wide resilience. The food systems that perform best are those backed by committed, long-term investment in the ecosystem that connects innovation to adoption.

Countries that once treated food processing and supply chain infrastructure as private sector concerns are now treating them as industrial strategy, the report noted.

The Netherlands, with a fraction of Canada's agricultural land, became one of the world's largest food exporters through decades of sustained public investment in processing technology, supply chain infrastructure, and the institutions connecting research to industry.

Finland, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates are now making similar commitments, explicitly linking food security to productivity and industrial policy. The UAE alone has committed to attracting $48 billion by 2045 for its agriculture, food and water sectors.

Canada has the agricultural base to compete with any of them, the report said. “What it lacks is the downstream processing capacity, operational technology and deployment infrastructure to match.”

Canada’s food supply chain vulnerabilities are structural, according to the report.

The dependency on foreign processing, chronic underinvestment in domestic capacity, and a fragmented sector of small businesses operating on thin margins are features of the current system, not passing conditions. “Every disruption compounds them, and the cost eventually lands on Canadian families”

The path to a more resilient, productive and sovereign food system is visible, the report said. Canadian companies are building the processing capacity, operational technology, and supply chain infrastructure to address these vulnerabilities.

The innovation is real and commercially grounded – with sustained support, the pipeline will continue to grow, the report said. What is missing is coordinated, long-term investment in getting innovation to the thousands of processors, distributors, and operators who make up the backbone of Canada’s food sector.

Canada must champion food supply chain innovation if it hopes to capitalize on agri-food's potential as a strategic national advantage, the report said.

“Aligning capital with stated priorities – through sustained investment in validation, deployment, and the institutional infrastructure that connects the two – is how the innovation mapped in this report becomes the system-wide resilience that Canada needs.” Canadian Food Innovation Network

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It’s time to process what we grow

OPINION

By Tyler Groeneveld

Tyler Groeneveld is CEO of Regina-based Protein Industries Canada, a federally funded global innovation cluster. This op-ed first appeared here in The Hill Times.

Canada has long been a trusted supplier of raw agricultural commodities. For nearly a century, we’ve grown high-quality crops and shipped them around the world. That legacy is a strength, but in today’s geopolitical and economic climate it’s no longer enough. We need to shift to a wider opportunity.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has spoken about the need to focus on what we can control, and to catalyze far greater private investment with public capital. Few sectors offer a clearer opportunity to do exactly that than food production and value-added agriculture.

That is why Protein Industries Canada has just launched the Make it Here campaign: a national call to strengthen our economy by ensuring that in addition to growing world-class crops, we also build the facilities that turn them into high-value ingredients and food products here at home.

When we export the whole seed, we sell it once. When we process it here into ingredients and foods, we multiply its value; we create skilled jobs; we anchor intellectual property; we attract long-term capital; and we embed Canadian ingredients deeper into global supply chains. Doing so has the potential to generate tens of billions of dollars in new economic activity annually. Plant-based protein production alone could add up to $25 billion annually and support up to 17,000 jobs by 2035.

If Canada doesn’t seize this opportunity now, someone else will. Companies are looking to build facilities. The question is – where?

In an increasingly protectionist world, that choice matters. Commodities are easy to tariff and substitute. High-value ingredients are not. Once integrated into formulations, contracts and manufacturing systems, they become far harder to displace. That is how we future-proof our agriculture and food sector, and its seven percent of GDP and over two million people it supports. We cannot continue to send our value abroad and expect to retain the leverage, resilience, and security that come from keeping it here.

The public opinion in this area is clear: Canadians see agriculture and food production as central to our economic future. They want stronger domestic supply chains. They want more processing done here. They understand that food security is strategic. They want to Make It Here.

Primary agriculture remains foundational to that work. Farmers are the starting point of Canada’s agriculture and food potential. Value-added processing simply ensures that more of the economic return from what they grow stays in Canada. It creates additional markets, more competitive pricing, and greater resilience against trade shocks.

Canada has one of the most extensive networks of free trade agreements in the world. We are politically stable. We are sustainable producers. We are seen as trusted partners.

That is a powerful combination, if we use it.

As global demand for protein and functional ingredient rises, so does Canada’s potential to capture new trade opportunities. With countries in Southeast Asia and Europe actively seeking reliable suppliers, Canada can and should be the preferred ingredient partner to the world. But to do that, we need to manufacture here at home and enter global value chains with finished ingredients, not just raw crops.

Doing so requires coordinated action.

We need to mobilize private capital at scale. We need investment incentives that recognize value-added agriculture as a priority sector. We need modern, predictable regulations that keep pace with innovation; and we need the federal government to recognize value-added agriculture as a national economic and security priority.

Federal investment has helped this sector find its footing. But the job isn’t finished.

The Make It Here imperative is not a slogan – it is a strategy. It is about owning more of the value chain. It is about strengthening productivity at a time when Canada urgently needs it. And it is about ensuring that the next generation of food manufacturing assets – long-term, capital-intensive facilities—are built in Canadian communities.

We grow it here.
Now is the time to make it here. The Hill Times

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Number of personnel engaged in R&D in Canada increased across all sectors between 2019 and 2023: Statistics Canada

The total number of personnel engaged in research and development in all sectors in Canada increased to more than 336,000 in 2023 from just over 264,000 in 2019, according to Statistics Canada.

The total number of researchers among R&D personnel in all sectors increased to more than 235,000 during this period, from just over 182,000.

During the same period, the total number of technicians increased to 62,650 from just over 48,000.

In the federal government, the number of personnel doing R&D increased to 14,560 in 2023, compared with 13,830 in 2019. This included an increase in researchers to 7,780 from 6,770.

However, the number of technicians in the federal government dropped to 2,910 from 3,090.

In businesses, the number of personnel doing R&D increased to 232,640 in 2023, up from 168,390 in 2019.

The number of researchers in businesses increased to 155,580 from 110,240 during the same period.

In higher education, the total personnel doing R&D increased to 84,570 in 2023, compared with 77,670 in 2019.

The number of researchers in higher education increased to 69,180 compared with 63,100 during the same period. Statistics Canada

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Canada needs a national forest strategy to capitalize on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technology’s multiple benefits

Canada needs a national forest strategy to take full advantage of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology, according to a report by the Canada West Foundation.

BECCS turns biomass, including wood residuals such as sawdust from sawmills and logging residues from forestry operations or black liquor from pulp mills, into energy while permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

BECCS has multiple other benefits, including utilizing material that would otherwise accumulate in forests as wildfire fuel, like dead trees, undergrowth and thinnings.

For Canada, with its vast forests and declining conventional forest products sector, BECCS offers a way to revitalize forestry communities, generate clean energy, reduce the risk of wildfires through active forest management and help meet Canada’s climate goals – all at the same time.

The report is based on the second annual BECCS Leadership Summit, held in November 2025. The Canada West Foundation and Natural Resources Canada, alongside founding partners TorchLight Bioresources, Emissions Reduction Alberta, Alberta Forest Products Association and Alberta Innovates, brought together leaders from across the forestry industry, government, Indigenous organizations and businesses, finance and technology sectors for the summit.

The resulting report was written by Margi Pandya, policy analyst at the Canada West Foundation.

When biomass is burned to generate electricity or heat (often at pulp mills or power plants), it releases the CO₂ that trees captured from the air during their growth.

In contrast, instead of letting CO₂ go back into the atmosphere, BECCS facilities capture and store the greenhouse gas deep underground in geological formations.

“BECCS is the only energy technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere while simultaneously generating energy,” according to the report.

Unlike carbon offsets, which can be temporary and hard to verify (like planting trees that might burn in a wildfire), BECCS delivers permanent, measurable carbon removal using proven technology that’s already operating commercially around the world, the report said.

However, BECCS can only deliver on its potential when implemented with sustainable feedstocks, robust carbon capture technology, appropriate geological storage and supportive policy frameworks.

Five key themes emerged from the summit:

1. The forestry-wildfire crisis nexus.

Participants consistently framed BECCS as a solution that addresses multiple crises simultaneously: declining pulp mill viability, catastrophic wildfire risks and climate change mitigation (via carbon removal).

2. Policy fragmentation and the need for coherence.

While Canada has the right building blocks, with 50 percent investment tax credits, established carbon markets, world-class sequestration capacity and engineering expertise, those at the summit repeatedly cited policy incoherence as the primary barrier preventing BECCS deployment at scale.

Canada has regulatory processes in place and tremendous CO₂ storage capacity but lacks the clarity and consistency needed to inspire confidence, the report noted. “Constitutional complexity with environmental jurisdiction split between federal and provincial governments creates additional layers of confusion.”

Summit participants’ repeated call for a national forest sector strategy reflects the desire for coherent direction, the report said.

Participants argued that patchwork policies, however well-intentioned individually, cannot substitute for an integrated approach that aligns federal and provincial objectives, coordinates carbon pricing mechanisms and creates clear pathways for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects to secure financing and move forward.

“Without policy coherence, Canada risks squandering its natural advantages,” the report said.

3. Market concentration and offtake risk.

BECCS projects generate revenue by selling carbon removal credits in what is known as the CDR market.

To secure financing, BECCS projects typically need offtake agreements – contracts where buyers commit in advance to purchasing a certain volume of carbon removal credits at an agreed price, providing the revenue certainty that banks require before approving loans.

A striking revelation from the summit was the extreme concentration of the CDR market. Ninety-three per cent of voluntary, private sector BECCS CDR purchases are attributed to a single buyer: Microsoft. “This creates profound vulnerability for Canadian BECCS projects relying exclusively on voluntary market demand.”

Projects stuck in feasibility stages cannot secure financing without guaranteed offtakes. Banks require confirmed buyers before approving loans, but with one company dominating global CDR purchases, “Canadian projects are effectively waiting for Microsoft’s approval to proceed.”

Participants pointed to alternative models, particularly Norway’s approach of government underwriting to de-risk early projects and enable private sector participation.

They called for mechanisms that make “market price not the determinant of the project,” whether through federal offtake agreements, provincial direct investment programs, or mandatory compliance with market participation for CDR.

The Government of Sweden’s allocation of Cdn$5 billion to purchases of BECCS CDRs by the national treasury was also highlighted as a successful approach to reach project final investment decision.

“By introducing mechanisms for stable and reliable demand, such as government offtake agreements or mandatory compliance market participation, combined with a carbon contract for difference on price, Canada can move BECCS projects from feasibility to financing,” the report said.

“Without such intervention, Canadian projects risk remaining perpetually stuck at the starting line while competitors, such as the U.S., Nordic nations and Japan move ahead.”

4. The Paradox: World-class potential, execution gap.

Canada’s advantages for BECCS are substantial and include:

• Storage capacity: While the global capacity for storing CO₂ is vast, many regions lack suitable geological formations to permanently store captured carbon underground or face permitting delays. Western Canada has a competitive advantage in the scale, regulatory structure and human resources expertise for CO₂
• Strong financial incentives: The federal 50 percent investment tax credit significantly reduces project risk compared to the U.S., where vendors must carry operational risk for 10 years. Canadian programs like the Alberta Carbon Capture and Incentive Program and federal Canada Infrastructure Bank financing provide additional support.
• Sustainable feedstock: Canada has abundant, sustainably managed forest biomass from sawmill residuals and forest management operations.
• Engineering capacity: Western Canada has proven ability to build and operate largescale energy and industrial projects.

5. Communication failure and public understanding.

Participants expressed significant frustration about the forest and carbon capture industries’ collective failure to communicate their value to the Canadian public and policymakers.

Without clear communication of BECCS co-benefits (including wildfire mitigation, rural economic revitalization, energy security, permanent carbon removal), policymakers lack the political “cover” to make bold commitments.

Participants called for a coordinated national communication strategy that moves beyond technical jargon and carbon accounting to tell a compelling story about community resilience, forest stewardship and Canada’s climate leadership.

The report concluded that Canada has all the right fundamentals, but lacks the policy coherence, market diversity, political championship and public narrative to translate potential into deployment at scale.

Yet immediate action is required, the report noted. With Ontario reduced from 16 pulp mills to three, every mill closure eliminates not just jobs and economic activity, but a potential site for carbon removal deployment.

BECCS’ success depends on coordinating federal/provincial policy, forestry/climate objectives, compliance/voluntary carbon markets and public/private investment – “no single lever will suffice.”

Summit participants identified critical action areas for policymakers: coordinating fragmented policy frameworks; creating pathways for market diversification beyond concentrated corporate buyers; streamlining regulatory approval processes; and building public understanding of BECCS benefits.

International competitors are advancing BECCS projects, and catastrophic wildfires continue to plague Canada and cause economic and health problems.

Participants called for timely policy action to address barriers to BECCS, warning that continued inaction carries measurable costs: ongoing forestry sector decline, increasingly distant carbon removal targets, and lost opportunities as other jurisdictions move more decisively. Canada West Foundation

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Canada’s ocean and coastal ecosystems provided services valued at more than $7 billion in 2023

Canadians received ecosystem services from oceans and coastal areas valued at $7.1 billion in 2023, according to a report by Statistics Canada (StatsCan).

In 2023, ocean and coastal ecosystems provided services such as carbon sequestration valued at $5.5 billion, harvested wild fish and seafood valued at $1.2 billion, and nature-based tourism valued at $458 million.

These estimates introduce experimental valuation of ecosystem services in monetary terms following the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting.

Monetary values published, along with physical values, can provide a clearer assessment of the importance of ecosystems to human and economic activity.

StatsCan’s report expands on the ocean and coastal ecosystem extent and condition accounts, already developed as part of the Census of Environment, and highlights the links among these accounts.

In 2023, just under 640 kilotonnes of wild fish and seafood was commercially harvested from Canada's oceans, down by almost one-quarter (-23.3 percent) from 2016.

Blue carbon sequestration is the biological processes by which ocean and coastal ecosystems capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in vegetation, water and sediment. It is essential for global climate regulation and is another important benefit provided by these ecosystems.

In 2023, an estimated 22,098 kilotonnes of carbon fixed by phytoplankton in the ocean was ultimately stored in the deep ocean for long periods. This carbon sequestration is impacted by ocean conditions, such as sea surface temperatures that affect marine food webs.

In addition, coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and kelp forests sequestered 858 kilotonnes of carbon in 2023, out of which 497 kilotonnes were sequestered in the Arctic, 222 kilotonnes in the Pacific and 139 kilotonnes in the Atlantic oceans.

In 2023, an estimated 64 million nature-based tourism days were related to ocean and coastal ecosystems, up nearly 1 million days (+1.4 percent) from 2018.

In the coastal regions of the Arctic, nature-based tourism rose from 0.3 million days in 2018 to 0.5 million days in 2023, representing a 66.7-percent increase over the period.

Nature-based tourism services include the opportunities that ecosystems provide for recreation and leisure activities, such as hiking, sightseeing or sea kayaking.

Coastal recreation services also benefit local communities. In 2021, 982,179 Canadians lived within one kilometre of a salt marsh, seagrass meadow or kelp forest, up from 927,823 in 2016.

The share of Canada's ocean area that is protected or conserved rose from 14.6 percent in 2023 to 15.5 percent in 2024, due to the creation of a large Marine Protected Area. This new protected area accounts for roughly 2.3 percent of all protected and conserved ocean area nationally.

Canada has committed to conserving one-quarter of its oceans by 2025 and is working toward conserving 30 percent by 2030. Statistics Canada

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American AI companies use Canadian journalism without permission, compensation or credit, and deliver this news to consumers as their own product

AI companies built their products using Canadian journalism without permission and without compensation, and are now delivering this journalism to consumers as their own product, according to a report by the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.

In February and March 2026, the Centre conducted the first large-scale empirical audit of how AI models use and distribute Canadian journalism.

They ran two studies. First, researchers at McGill University tested four major AI models on 2,267 real Canadian news stories in both English and French (18,134 queries in total), to measure what models have absorbed from their training data and whether they attribute it.

Second, they enabled web search and asked the same models about 140 specific recent articles from seven Canadian outlets across 3,360 experimental conditions, to measure whether AI models produce viable substitutes for current journalism and whether they credit the source.

When asked about Canadian news events drawn from their training data, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok provided no source attribution 82 percent of the time.

When given web access and asked about specific recent articles, the same models covered enough of the original reporting to substitute for the source in 54 percent to 81 percent of cases.

Models linked to Canadian news sites in 29 percent to 69 percent of responses, but named the originating outlet in the response text in only one percent to 16 percent of cases.

When the researchers named the media outlet and asked the same models for citations, attribution rates reached 74 percent to 97 percent.

Researchers found the media outlets that receive the most AI visibility are a handful of large, free, nationally prominent organizations including CBC, CTV and The Globe and Mail.

“AI companies have built commercial products that depend, in significant part, on the reporting that Canadian journalists produce,” the report said.

“They have done so without compensation, without attribution, and without any obligation to sustain the infrastructure they are drawing from. The result is a system that accelerates the economic decline of the journalism it relies on.”

“The rules governing how these companies use journalism (who gets credited, who gets compensated, and what obligations attach to those who profit), are being set right now, by default, through inaction. Canada has tools and precedent to act responsibly,” the report said.

The report makes several recommendations. It noted that that Bill C-18, the Online News Act, “established the principle that technology companies profiting from the work of Canadian journalists should enter into a fair process to determine the value of this exchange.”

Those principles should also apply to AI companies, the report said. “But the Act’s definitional architecture, built around entities that index and display news content, does not capture companies that absorb and synthesize it. The question is whether and how C-18’s scope should be extended to a fundamentally different form of intermediation. That is not a simple amendment.”

Under the heading of “next steps,” the paper recommends reforming the Online News and Copyright Acts to deal with AI systems: enacting statutory licensing and international frameworks; and creating attribution standards for AI answers to news questions.

The report concluded: “In the absence of deliberate policy choices, the terms of AI companies’ relationship to Canadian journalism are being set by corporate design decisions made outside Canadian jurisdiction. The evidence we present here makes the scale of that relationship visible. What democratic institutions do with that evidence is a political choice, not a technical one.” Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, National Post

 THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

Université de Montréal computer science professor Gilles Brassard is the co-winner of the 2025 A.M. Turing Award, a US$1-million U.S. prize given by the New York-based Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The annual award is considered “the Nobel Prize in computing.” Brassard, a pioneer in cryptography, is a co-recipient of the annual prize with Charles H. Bennett, a longtime colleague and physicist with IBM Research, north of New York City. Named after the late British mathematician Alan M. Turing, the award is funded by Google. The ACM said in its announcement that Brassard and Bennett are being recognized "for their essential role in establishing the foundations of quantum information science and transforming secure communication and computing." “Bennett and Brassard fundamentally changed our understanding of information itself,” said ACM president Yannis Ioannidis. “Their insights expanded the boundaries of computing and set in motion decades of discovery across disciplines. The global momentum behind quantum technologies today underscores the enduring importance of their contributions.” Brassard is only the eighth Canadian to win the award since its inception in 1966. Université de Montréal

Platform Calgary appointed Jennifer Lussier as chief executive officer, formalizing her leadership after serving as interim CEO since October 2025. Lussier brings to the innovation hub more than three decades of experience in Calgary’s business community, alongside a deep history within Platform Calgary itself. She joined the organization in 2019 as a startup advisor and has since held progressively senior roles, including director, vice-president of growth, and chief operating officer. Her tenure has spanned partnerships, revenue generation and operational leadership, positioning her as a familiar and experienced figure within the local innovation ecosystem. In her new role, Lussier signalled a focus on scaling Platform Calgary’s impact as the pace of technological change accelerates. Platform Calgary

Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced the reappointment of Dr. Paul J. Allison to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Governing Council. Allison has been a member of the CIHR Governing Council since May 2018. He is professor in the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University, and his research interests include psychosocial and social determinants of oral health and oral health care, including issues of access to dental care. CIHR creates new scientific knowledge and enables its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Health Canada

Vancouver-headquartered Canaccord Genuity Group Inc., one of Canada’s largest independent investment bank, is reworking leadership of its U.S. division in the wake of a US$80-million settlement with market regulators. Canaccord announced in an internal memo that Jeff Barlow, head of the company’s New York-based U.S. investment bank for the past 11 years, is retiring “effective immediately.” Barlow will continue to work as an adviser to the company. Toronto-based Canaccord CEO Dan Daviau will temporarily oversee the U.S. division while the company finds a successor to Barlow. Earlier this month, Canaccord and three U.S. financial regulators announced the investment bank would pay an US$80-million fine to settle a three-year investigation of compliance issues that included failings in the bank’s anti-money-laundering surveillance program. Regulators said it was the largest penalty ever imposed against a broker-dealer for violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. As part of the recent settlement, Canaccord said that, over the past three years, the company “has undertaken a comprehensive transformation of its compliance framework to address these matters and more fully align with regulatory expectations.” The Globe and Mail

Global mining company BHP announced that Brandon Craig will become CEO and a director of BHP Group Limited on July 1, 2026, as part of succession planning. Craig will succeed current CEO Mike Henry, who will step down after six and a half years in the role. Craig brings more than 25 years of operational and corporate leadership experience at BHP to the role. He is currently BHP’s President Americas, leading the company’s growth strategy in future facing commodities across Canada, the United States and South America. BHP

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Global policy brief offers policymakers actional insights to successfully govern using artificial intelligence

A new global policy brief by the University of Ottawa’s AI + Society Initiative and IVADO offers policymakers actionable insights to successfully integrate AI into government functions.

Today, around 70 percent of countries report using artificial intelligence to improve internal governmental processes, while a third use it to support policy design and implementation. Others are even exploring the possibility of using AI as a substitute to core governmental functions.

Yet caution and pragmatic considerations are needed to ensure a successful AI implementation, as statistics show that over 80 percent of AI projects fail. 

To support governments facing these challenges, an international group of experts led by Dr. Catherine Régis (IVADO, Université de Montréal) and Dr. Florian Martin-Bariteau (University of Ottawa) analyzed key factors of AI implementation success and failure in the public sector.

The aim was to propose policy guidance for a transformative and resilient public administration in the age of AI and to better guard against the potentially negative effects and risks brought forth by this technology.

AI is not a shortcut to reforming government, the policy brief noted. Without prior institutional redesign, sufficient capacity and clear governance, its adoption is more likely to entrench bureaucratic dysfunctions, bias and opacity than to improve performance or fairness.

The success of AI in government is ultimately a governance challenge, not a technical one, according to the brief.

Outcomes depend less on the technology’s sophistication than on institutional capacity, accountability mechanisms, vendor power relations, and resilience planning.

“Governments deciding to use AI should go slow and steady, while being ambitious from the start. This should not be seen as indecision, but rather as a mark of seriousness and responsibility,” said Régis, director of social innovation and international policy at IVADO and professor of law at Université de Montréal.

Outcomes for integrating AI depend less on the technology’s sophistication than on institutional capacity, accountability mechanisms, vendor power relations and resilience planning. 

The policy brief’s authors recommend four courses of action to tackle this implementation: 

• Redesign public services around real problems before deploying AI and involve public servants as co-designers to build on proven successes, scaling up what works.
• Invest in institutional capacity through training and cross-functional teams.
• Rebalance power with private sector through collective procurement and collaboration to create and share AI tools that meet requirements.
• Anchor public sector AI by building a public trust stack around transparency, accountability and oversight, plus resilience.

“Bottom-up, problem-driven planning is the only credible way to transform an administration with AI,” said Martin-Bariteau, director of the AI + Society Initiative and associate professor of law at the University of Ottawa.

“Without planning, transparency, accountability and oversight, AI in the public sector will only amplify current dysfunctions and feed distrust from public servants and populations,” he said.

These recommendations have been developed as part of the Global Policy Briefs on AI initiative, a joint endeavour of IVADO, Canada’s leading AI research and knowledge mobilization consortium, and the AI + Society Initiative at the University of Ottawa.

The goal is  provide policymakers with rigorous, actionable public policy recommendations to address major global challenges related to AI. This is the second outcome of the initiative, following last year’s initiative focused on developing a roadmap for protecting democracies in the age of AI. IVADO and AI + Society Initiative

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