GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

 Federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced that the Government of Canada and partners are investing over $41 million in ground-breaking cancer prevention research. This funding will support 19 research teams that will work over the next five years to develop and share new approaches that support cancer prevention, reduce cancer risk, and improve early detection for some of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in Canada and the world. Six research funding organizations, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Terry Fox Research Institute, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, the Cancer Research Society, and BioCanRx, have come together to provide the funding for these teams in a demonstration of the power of collaboration to solve big problems. It is the single largest CIHR-led investment in cancer prevention research to date. Researchers across Canada will explore innovative ideas with the potential to reshape how we prevent cancer – from testing whether common diabetes and weight‑loss drugs can lower the risk of breast, blood or obesity‑related cancers, to uncovering how gut bacteria influence the development of prostate and colorectal cancer. Teams are also investigating how early stomach lesions turn cancerous, advancing the science of cancer vaccines, and developing new prevention options for women at high genetic risk of breast or ovarian cancer. One team is collaborating with researchers from Japan to better understand the links between aging and early-onset colorectal and pancreatic cancers. Together, the government said, these projects will accelerate progress towards a future where cancer prevention is more proactive, more personalized, and more within reach – reducing the number of Canadians who get sick, lowering health care costs, and helping more people stay healthy, active and able to participate fully in work, family life and their communities. CIHR

The Government of Ontario is providing a provincial guarantee through the Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program (IOFP) to support a $250-million investment to increase production of life-saving medical isotopes. This guarantee is part of an agreement between Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) and Bruce Power. The provincial guarantee is the largest of its kind since the Indigenous loan guarantee program began in 2009. Administered by the Building Ontario Fund, the IOFP seeks to advance economic reconciliation and prosperity by enabling financial participation of Indigenous partners in Ontario-based infrastructure projects. As part of the 2025 Ontario Budget, the program was tripled to $3 billion and its scope expanded to include energy projects, critical minerals and resource development sectors. For more than 35 years, the Bruce nuclear station has been a global leader in the production of life-saving medical isotopes used to sterilize medical equipment and support precision oncology for treating tumours and cancers. Govt. of Ontario

The Government of Québec announced a $36-million grant in support of Mila to strengthen the AI institute’s network of university excellence in AI and training and attraction of talent. Mila said it will use the funding to continue its activities aimed at accelerating investment and the adoption of AI innovations in business, while consolidating Quebec's role as a leader in the ethical and responsible development of this technology. "In Quebec, we want to stimulate university research, the training of talent and the use of a skilled workforce in AI. This is essential to create wealth and maintain our global competitiveness in this highly competitive sector,” said Jean Boulet, Quebec’s Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy. “By supporting Mila, we are taking one more step toward achieving these objectives, and ensuring that the results of Quebec research are leveraged to develop the potential of AI in an ethical and responsible manner." Mila

The Government of British Columbia introduced legislation that would create a $400-million Strategic Investment Fund. The proposed fund would allow government to consider loans, equity investments and repayable contributions to enable the province to share in a project’s success. The goal of the Strategic Investment Fund is to co-invest in projects that would be in line to secure up to $20 billion in federal defence investments through Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy, as well as critical mineral projects and other major economic endeavours. The legislation is intended to help B.C. compete nationally, attract federal and private-sector investment, and advance provincial priority sectors, the B.C. government said. Currently, government’s ability to support private sector companies is limited to providing grants, with little to no direct revenue upside for the province. Other jurisdictions, including Ontario, Quebec, the governments of Canada and the U.S., have more funding flexibility, such as:

• taking equity in companies.
• issuing loans.
• signing profit-sharing agreements.
• providing conditionally repayable grants.

These investments can generate significant benefits for these jurisdictions, the B.C. government noted. “This new legislation proposes similar tools, allowing British Columbians to share in the success of projects that receive provincial support.” Govt. of B.C.

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Federal AI Minister Evan Solomon to meet with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to get clarity on company’s safety changes to ChatGPT

Federal Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said he was left "disappointed" following a meeting last week with senior officials from OpenAI.

The meeting was arranged after it was revealed that the California company had banned the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooter's ChatGPT account months before the murders – but hadn't informed police about its contents.

OpenAI banned Jesse Van Rootselaar's account in June, but said its activities didn't meet the company's threshold for informing law enforcement at the time because they didn't identify credible or imminent planning.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Van Rootselaar's account was banned after it was flagged for troubling posts, including scenarios of gun violence.

"We expected [OpenAI] to have some concrete proposals that we could understand, that [they] had changed their protocols in the wake of the horrific tragedy in Tumbler Ridge. But we did not hear any substantial new safety protocols outside of some changes to their model," Solomon said.

He said he’ll meet with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman next week to get more clarity about the company’s changes to ChatGPT, and plans to meet with other AI companies operating in Canada to make sure there is a “consistent and clear approach to escalation, local coordination, and youth protection.”

However, Solomon also didn't rule out the possibility of the government introducing its own regulations.

OpenAI has indicated that since it banned the account of the alleged perpetrator of one of the country’s deadliest mass shootings, the company has tightened its protocols for referring ChatGPT accounts to law enforcement, and would have reported that account to police if the account had been flagged today. 

OpenAI revealed this, as well as the fact that the alleged shooter had bypassed its safeguards by creating a second ChatGPT account following the ban, in a letter the company sent to Solomon following a meeting between its executives and  Canadian government officials earlier this week.

In the letter, OpenAI said that as per the request of Canadian government ministers, the company will establish direct points of contact with Canadian law enforcement authorities to ensure that information is provided expeditiously to Canadian authorities in cases where the company makes a law enforcement referral based on the potential for real world violence.

Meanwhile, the government has reconvened its 12-member advisory group on online safety as it considers legislating age restrictions for social media users, The Logic reported.

B.C. Premier David Eby told CBC News Network's Power & Politics that he is "quite angry" about how OpenAI handled the situation.

"From the outside, it looks like they had a chance to prevent this. I don't know that for sure, but it sure looks like it. And I want to share with them the devastation that they caused on behalf of these families," Eby said.

OpenAI is facing multiple lawsuits in the U.S. on behalf of family members of people who have died by suicide after conversations with ChatGPT, who accuse the company of creating a model that is both manipulative and overly supportive. These lawsuits have not yet been tried in court. CBC News

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Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson launched national calls for proposals under Natural Resources Canada’s forest sector transformation programs, supported by a $500-million commitment. Eligible businesses and organizations can now apply for funding through:

• Investments in Forest Industry Transformation program
• Green Construction Through Wood program.
• Indigenous Forestry Initiative.
• Global Forest Leadership Program.

These programs will help Canadian companies innovate and diversify their production – driving domestic demand, expanding the use of Canadian wood in construction, supporting Indigenous participation and opening new domestic and international markets, Hodgson said. In addition, he announced $2.8 million in existing program funding through the four programs, supporting seven projects that will help strengthen the forest sectors in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These projects will expand the use of mass timber in construction; support Indigenous groups and forestry businesses; increase manufacturers’ capacity to add more value to wood products; and diversify Canada’s forest products and their export markets. Natural Resources Canada

The Government of Ontario is accepting applications for commercial-scale geologic carbon storage projects, starting February 2, 2026. This innovative and safe technology has the potential to help energy-intensive industries cut greenhouse gas emissions by five to seven million tonnes annually, while creating over 4,000 jobs and reducing costs for Ontario’s industries by nearly $1 billion, the government said. Ontario has undertaken years of extensive research and consultation to develop the regulatory framework, the Geologic Carbon Storage Act, 2025 for geologic carbon storage projects, the government said. This framework will provide clarity for industry operators to guide the safe, responsible management of carbon storage projects. The government said it will continue to work closely with industry stakeholders, municipalities,  Indigenous communities, landowners and the public to ensure the framework remains effective. Those interested in submitting project proposals can learn more by contacting CarbonStorage@ontario.ca. Govt. of Ontario

The Government of British Columbia launched a new provincewide mining and critical minerals testbed. The testbed will allow B.C. companies to test their innovative solutions that help speed up permitting, groundbreaking, support mine operations or help strengthen supply chain and processing. The first project through the new testbed will see a partnership between North Vancouver’s EMP Metals and Richmond-based Saltworks Technologies. These companies will work on a demonstration plant that will turn Saskatchewan’s high-quality lithium brines into battery-grade chemicals. This technology will boost B.C.’s capacity to produce battery-grade lithium, while supporting high-value, innovative employment. The new mining and critical minerals testbed is open to companies located anywhere in the province. The testbed is designed to accelerate the development, validation and deployment of cutting-edge technologies in the mining and critical minerals sectors. Govt. of B.C.

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced a federal investment of up to nearly $7 million for Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a global venture accelerator that operates 16 sites globally to help early‑stage tech companies grow through structured mentorship and expert guidance. With support from FedDev Ontario and the Department of National Defence, CDL will operate the CDL Defence program, a new initiative that will help companies develop and advance technologies that contribute to Canada’s national security and the future capability requirements of the Canadian Armed Forces and allies. The CDL Defence program will support and accelerate the growth of ventures developing dual‑use technologies by helping them align to the needs of potential real buyers, navigate government pathways, and position themselves for testing and procurement. This will help build the cutting‑edge capabilities Canada needs under the Defence Industrial Strategy, while strengthening the competitiveness of defence and technology sectors, Ottawa said. FedDev Ontario also is providing an $8-million repayable contribution (or zero-interest loan) to help Aurora-based defence supplier Wolf Advanced Technology, which develops high-performance embedded computing systems for aerospace and defence companies globally, to bolster its in-hours production, inspection and validation capabilities to help deliver sovereign defence components. FedDev Ontario

The Government of Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy won’t apply to the multibillion-dollar procurement process for new fleets of submarines and fighter jets Ottawa is contemplating, despite the generational consequences of those decisions. Those procurements started before the strategy’s release on February 17 and are exempt from the framework it lays out, Nicole Allen, spokesperson for Public Services and Procurement Canada, the department housing the new Defence Investment Agency, told The Logic. The finalist bidders in both competitions are all foreign – American and Swedish jet makers, and South Korean and German submarine companies. Sweden’s Saab is promising to make its jets in Canada and Germany’s TKMS is offering to build at least one shipyard in Canada and teach Canadians how to make submarines; neither of their competitors is doing the same. The Logic

Conservative Leader Pierre Polievre backs the idea of a strategic critical minerals reserve, saying when stored domestically, such a reserve would help not only Canada but its allies "during war, crisis or supply disruption." Canada announced in October that G7 countries agreed to invest $6.4 billion into 26 critical mineral projects across Canada in order to develop and stockpile some critical minerals under the Defence Production Act. Poilievre, in a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto, proposed signing agreements with the U.S. and other allies that would see critical minerals from the reserves shared with those allies, but only if "they honour tariff-free trade commitments." Poilievre also said that as Canada expands its military it should be cautious when buying from America and that all "U.S. defence imports should be proportionate to the trade treatment Canada receives." Polievre said he also wants to make changes to the way the federal government subsidizes and gives tax breaks to ensure that Canadian intellectual property and technology remains in Canadian hands. Achieving that, he said, would begin by requiring companies that shift intellectual property out of the country to repay taxpayer support they received in developing that property. Poilievre also said he would give tax breaks to Canadians that invest domestically and ban foreign takeovers of sensitive industries related to defence and information. CBC News

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced that Chalk River, Ont.-based Bubble Technology Industries was awarded a contract valued at $5.5 million to develop the Canadian Active Neutron Spectrometer (CANS), a compact and autonomous instrument designed to measure neutron radiation exposure in space. Radiation is one of the key challenges faced by astronauts living and working beyond the protective shield of Earth’s atmosphere. Neutron radiation, which constitutes about 30 percent of total radiation in space vehicles, is especially harmful because it can cause serious biological damage and requires specialized protective measures. Data collected by CANS will allow researchers to understand how neutron radiation affects astronauts during space missions of six months or more, supporting the development of better measures to reduce risks. Beyond space exploration, data generated by CANS has potential applications on Earth, including cancer therapy, radiation protection for aircrews, nuclear threat detection and public safety, as well as nuclear and particle physics research. CANS will have the unique combined capabilities of working continuously and autonomously, whereas previous Canadian technologies were larger or mostly relied on human intervention. CSA

The federally funded, Regina-based Protein Industries Canada (PICS) global innovation cluster, in announcing the second cohort of companies participating in its Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain Program, is investing $1.3 million in nine companies’ projects valued at $1.7 million. This initiative builds on PICS’ efforts to increase domestic food and ingredient processing as a key market for Canadian crops. By working with companies to Make It Here, PICS is driving increased food production and value-added agriculture in Canada – critical factors for strengthening Canada’s supply chain and economy. The Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain program helps support Canadian companies to navigate changes in global trade relationships. The nine companies taking part in the second cohort span the value chain and are located from British Columbia through to Quebec. Examples of their projects include:

• Ontario-based 1847 Stone Milling is focused on developing and commercializing a Canadian-grown, high-protein Atta flour. Due to its specialized processing method, Atta flour is largely an imported product in Canada; this project will provide a growing market in Canada with a domestic alternative, while supporting local grain producers.

• Manitoba-based Farmery Estate Brewing Company will upcycle brewer’s spent grain into a protein-rich beverage base and protein ingredient. By developing a sustainable, Canadian-made protein product and reducing brewing waste, the company will strengthen its rural economy, create local jobs and position Canada as a leader in upcycled protein innovation.
• Quebec-based Grazy is reformulating its frozen dessert and beverage lines using Canadian-sourced pea and fava bean protein. By transitioning to all-Canadian plant protein sourcing and improving clean-label offerings, they will strengthen domestic supply chains, mitigate trade risks, and enhance product competitiveness.

The third cohort of the Strengthening the Canadian Supply Chain program is currently open for submissions, closing on April 30, 2026. More information, including how to apply, is available here. Protein Industries Canada

The Government of Alberta’s Budget 2026 makes a record investment of $7.7 billion in 2026-27 – $1.4 billion or 22 per cent more than Budget 2025 – in physician recruitment, training, compensation and development. Family physicians caring for patients with chronic conditions, surgeons performing life-saving procedures and specialist physicians play a critical role in caring for Albertans. This investment helps ensure the province can meet that demand with timely, high-quality care in communities across Alberta, the government said. Currently, more than 13,000 physicians are registered in Alberta, a 34-percent increase over the past decade, including an all-time high of 6,362 family physicians. Govt. of Alberta

The Government of Ontario is supporting $5.8 million in investments by two Kitchener-based medical technology companies as they expand production capacity, scale globally and commercialize their Ontario-made health technologies in the provincial and global markets. This marks the first round of funding under the government’s Life Sciences Scale-Up Fund (LSSUF), and will support the goals outlined in Phase 2 of Ontario’s Life Sciences Strategy, while working in tandem with the Health Innovation Pathway to support the adoption of innovation in the health care system. Intellijoint Surgical Inc. is a leading provider of orthopaedic medical technologies, supporting more than 80,000 hip and knee joint replacements globally. With an investment of $1.3 million, Intellijoint will leverage AI and automation technologies to enhance sales, streamline organizational workflows and increase production capabilities. The project is supported by nearly $450,000 through the LSSUF. Vena Medical is a manufacturer of intravascular imaging devices used by physicians to support stroke interventions and real-time diagnostic imaging. With a $4.5-million investment, the company will establish a new, state-of-the-art facility that will reshore the production of their AI-powered micro-camera to Kitchener and advance their commitment to strengthening Ontario’s domestic manufacturing ecosystem. The project is supported by nearly $1.5 million through the LSSUF. Govt. of Ontario

The Government of Ontario unveiled the final design and awarded the contract to build and maintain the new Ontario Science Centre. The fixed price contract of $1.04 billion was awarded to the Ontario Science Partners, a collaboration that includes Hariri Pontarini Architects, the design firm leading the redevelopment of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and OpenROM. The new 400,000-square-foot facility will include a state-of-the-art building, integrated pod complex, new interactive exhibits and an improved and upgraded Cinesphere, with more space dedicated to programming than at the previous site. Once completed, as early as 2029, the new Ontario Science Centre will be a cornerstone of the revitalized Ontario Place, providing new experiences for families, creating more than 1,000 jobs in the construction and tourism sectors, and boosting economic growth across Toronto and the region, the government said. Designed to inspire the next generation of innovators, the new Science Centre will also elevate Ontario Place as a premier destination for science, education and entertainment and include:

• A state-of-the-art mainland building designed for dynamic programming, exhibitions and immersive visitor experiences, including hands-on exhibits, learning activities and educational workshops.
• Renovated and enhanced pods, fully modernized to create new science-themed experiences.
• The iconic Cinesphere, upgraded with acoustic enhancements to its world-class IMAX theatre and complete interior and exterior revitalization. It will offer double the seating of the former OMNIMAX Theatre. Govt. of Ontario

 Federal Economic Development for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced an investment of $2 million for Toronto-based Foodpreneur Lab to expand its current programming that prioritizes Black and equity-deserving entrepreneurs to overcome barriers in the food and beverage sector. Through this investment, up to 75 food entrepreneurs will gain personalized, hands-on product development support and access to industry expertise, empowering them to scale their Canadian companies and drive innovation, growth, and diversification within southern Ontario’s food and beverage sector. Foodpreneur Lab is a nonprofit leading innovative, customized approaches that help founders overcome systemic barriers and build scalable food businesses that strengthen Canada’s food sector, with a clear focus on prioritizing equity-deserving food entrepreneurs. FedDev Ontario

The Government of British Columbia identified Northisle Copper and Gold Inc.’s North Island Project, Surge Copper Corp.’s Berg Project, and Defense Metals Corp.’s Wicheeda Project to work with the province’s Critical Minerals Office to support early co-ordination as the projects prepares for environmental assessment and future permitting processes. The Critical Minerals Office works with selected advanced project proponents to accelerate their permitting processes by helping co-ordinate First Nations and community engagement, identify regulatory requirements early, align permitting pathways and support readiness for future environmental-assessment and regulatory processes. Northisle Copper and Gold has completed a preliminary economic assessment and continues technical and planning work as it prepares for the environmental assessment process. Surge Copper is advancing the Berg copper-molybdenum project and continues technical and baseline work to support the imminent release of its pre-feasibility study and entry into the environmental assessment process. Defense Metals Corp. has completed a pre-feasibility study. The company is undertaking the environmental baseline, confirmatory metallurgical studies and engineering planning work required to advance the Wicheeda Project through feasibility-level studies and into environmental assessment and permitting processes. Govt. of B.C.

The Government of Manitoba is increasing the Small Business Venture Capital Tax Credit to $30 million from $22 million. The increase will unleash new venture capital investments at a time when investment in Manitoba has risen substantially, said Innovation and New Technology Minister Mike Moroz. Investment in Manitoba increased to $127 million in 2025 from $4 million in 2024, according to the Canadian Venture Capital Private Equity Association’s recent annual report. In addition to the tax credit increase, Manitoba will also be aligning with modern investment practices by recognizing simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs) as eligible investment instruments. SAFEs are widely used in early‑stage financing across North America, Moroz noted, adding this will allow companies and investors to structure deals more flexibly while maintaining a clear path to equity growth in Manitoba. Other updates to investment rules include:

• reducing the minimum eligible investment to $5,000 from $10,000, broadening participation among angel investors and encouraging greater diversification of capital.
• expanding eligibility to include limited partnerships (LPs), the standard structure for venture capital funds.

The eligibility expansion to include LPs strengthens Manitoba’s ability to attract professional investors and mobilize larger pools of capital, Moroz said. Govt. of Manitoba

Employee Ownership Canada has written an open letter to Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne calling on the federal government to make the Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) capital gains tax incentive permanent. This would unlock broader adoption, support thoughtful business succession planning, and allow employee ownership to become a mainstream pathway, the advocacy group said. The letter is signed by some of the leaders of Canada’s top banks, like BMO CEO Darryl White and Scotiabank CEO Scott Thomson, and tech leaders like Build Canada chair Daniel Debow and Borrowell CEO Andrew Graham, as well as Patrick Searle, CEO of the Council of Canadian Innovators, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. The EOT tax incentive provides a path for owners to pass on their companies directly to workers, while receiving relief on up to $10 million of capital gains tax. The tax incentive to encourage the creation of EOTs was introduced as part of the 2023 federal budget. But the incentive is set to expire by the end of the year, meaning future business owners would no longer be incentivized to pass majority control their companies to their employees. Unlike worker-owned co-operatives, in an EOT, employees don’t actually buy the company. Rather, the trust secures a loan for the purchase and holds company shares on the employees’ behalf while the owner is paid back over time with company profits. BetaKit

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Canada’s GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2025, the slowest pace of annual growth since 2020 – mainly due to lower exports to the U.S.

Canada’s real gross domestic product (GDP) declined 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, after rising 0.6 percent in the third quarter, according to Statistics Canada.

The fourth quarter decrease was due to withdrawals of business inventories following inventory accumulations in the third quarter.

Offsetting some of the decline was higher exports, household spending and government capital investment.

On a per capita basis, GDP was unchanged in the fourth quarter after increasing 0.5 percent in the previous quarter.

Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2025, the slowest pace of annual growth since the decline in 2020.

Lower exports, particularly to the United States, were the main contributor to the slower rise in GDP in 2025.

On an annual basis, businesses withdrew from non-farm inventories in 2025, marking the first annual decline of inventory stock since 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, the stock of farm inventories rose for the first time in three years, given strong crop production in 2025.

Exports rose 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, after increasing 0.9 percent in the third quarter. The growth in the fourth quarter was led by higher exports of unwrought gold and of unwrought aluminum and aluminum alloys.

Despite the increases in the latter half of the year, exports fell 1.7 percent in 2025, as shipments to the United States did not fully recover following the drop in the second quarter.

Imports edged up 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter, as higher imports of computers, clothing and footwear, and metal ores were largely offset by lower imports of pharmaceutical and medicinal products.

For the year, imports were down 0.4 percent in 2025 due to the 2.9-percent decline in the third quarter.

Household spending rose 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter after declining 0.2 percent in the third quarter. Higher expenditures on rent and financial services in the fourth quarter were partially offset by lower spending on new passenger vehicles and alcoholic beverages, as overall expenditures on goods declined for a second consecutive quarter.

Total capital investment rose 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter, driven by increased government investment in weapons systems.

In contrast, business capital investment edged down 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, as both residential and non-residential investment decreased. These declines were moderated by increased business investment in machinery and equipment, primarily computers (+19.6 percent) and intellectual property products, namely software (+0.7 percent).

Annually, total capital investment increased 1.4 percent in 2025, led by higher government investment in weapons systems (+45.9 percent) and engineering structures (+6.7 percent).

Business investment rose 0.3 percent in 2025, as higher residential construction (+one percent) and non-residential construction (+1.6 percent) were largely offset by weaker investment in machinery and equipment (-3.5 percent).

The year 2025 was the third consecutive year in which government capital investment contributed more to GDP growth than business capital expenditures.

The GDP deflator was up 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter, following a 0.9 percent increase in the third quarter. The increase in the fourth quarter was led by higher export prices (+1.6 percent), while import prices rose 1.1 percent.

As a result, the terms of trade – the difference between the price of exported goods and services and the price of imported goods and services – increased 0.5 percent. Higher prices for household consumption (+0.8 percent) also contributed to growth in the GDP deflator in the fourth quarter.

Compensation of employees rose 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, following a one-percent increase in the third quarter.

Increased wages in federal government and public administration (+4.5 percent), finance, real estate and company management (+1.3 percent ) and professional and personal services (+0.6 percent) in the fourth quarter were moderated by declines in educational services (-1.5 percent) and construction (-1.2 percent).

On an annual basis, compensation of employees rose 3.9 percent in 2025, the smallest increase since 2016, aside from in 2020, during the pandemic.

In 2025, wages were up in all industries except the retail and wholesale trade sectors (-1.5 percent). The fastest increase in wages was in provincial and territorial administration (+7.6 percent), followed by health care and social assistance (+6.9 percent).

Corporate incomes, termed gross operating surplus, rose 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

The surplus of non-financial corporations increased albeit at a slower pace than in the previous quarter. Income growth in the fourth quarter was bolstered by the mining and primary metals industries, while gains were partially offset by declines in the energy sector, wholesale trade sector and some manufacturing industries.

Continued strength in the earnings of financial corporations throughout 2025, notably among chartered banks, helped to push the financial surplus nine percent higher for the year.

In 2025, the Bank of Canada reduced the policy interest rate four times. Statistics Canada

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services. Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information – initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.” In the State Department cable, dated February 18, 2026, and signed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the agency said such laws would “disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship.” The cable said the Trump administration was pushing for “a more assertive international data policy” and that diplomats should “counter unnecessarily burdensome regulations, such as data localization mandates.” Data sovereignty initiatives have gathered pace, particularly in Europe and Canada. Reuters

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U.S. President Donald Trump orders all federal agencies to stop using AI technology made by Anthropic, after stand-off with the Pentagon

U.S. President Donald Trump on February 27 ordered all federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, a directive that could vastly complicate intelligence analysis and defense work.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump used harsh words for Anthropic, describing it as a “radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about.”

For days, Anthropic and the Pentagon have been locked in an escalating battle about how cutting-edge AI technology will be used.

Trump announced a “Six Month phase out” for the Pentagon and some other agencies, which could allow for more extended negotiations between Anthropic and the Defense Department.

The Pentagon had given Anthropic a deadline on February 27 to either allow them unrestricted access to the company’s most advanced model or face consequences.

U.S. Defense Department officials criticized Anthropic’s leader Dario Amodei after the company rejected their latest offer to settle the dispute.

The Pentagon has threatened to either cut the company off from government business by declaring it a supply chain threat or force it to provide its frontier model without restrictions under the Defense Production Act.

On the surface, the battle between the Pentagon and Anthropic is a contract dispute over technical details of how the artificial model works, and the military’s use of it.

But it has also ballooned into a deeply political fight, involving questions of the military’s ability to employ cutting-edge technology the way it sees fit and what AI can or should be used for.

Anthropic has said it is willing to continue negotiating but will not back down from its red lines. Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said in a statement that the company’s Claude AI model is extensively deployed across the Department of War and other national security agencies for mission-critical applications, such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations and more.

“However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do,” Amodei said.

These uses include for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. “To our knowledge, these two exceptions have not been a barrier to accelerating the adoption and use of our models within our armed forces to date,” he said.

The Department of War has stated they will only contract with AI companies who accede to “any lawful use” and remove safeguards in the two cases mentioned above, Amodei said.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has the same redlines as Anthropic when it comes to working with the Pentagon, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview with CNBC that it’s important for companies to work with the Pentagon, “as long as it is going to comply with legal protections” and “the few red lines” that OpenAI and many in the AI industry have when it comes to AI use in the military.

In a memo to OpenAI staff obtained by CNN, Altman said that “this is no longer just an issue between Anthropic and the DoW [Department of War]; this is an issue for the whole industry and it is important to clarify our stance.”

“We believe this dispute isn’t about how AI will be used, but about control. We believe that a private U.S. company cannot be more powerful than the democratically-elected U.S. government, although companies can have lots of input and influence,” Altman said in the memo, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Just hours after the U.S. government on February 28 designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” CNN reported that OpenAI announced it had reached a deal for the Pentagon to use OpenAI’s models in classified systems, but seemingly with similar guardrails that Anthropic had also requested. The New York Times, Anthropic

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U.S. President Donald Trump's point man on trade talks said Canada needs to accept that tariffs will be a part of any deal with the administration, including renewal of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. In interviews with two CBC News journalists on Capitol Hill just after Trump's state of the union address last week, U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer suggested Canada can't expect to land a trade agreement that is free of tariffs. "When we go to other countries, and we make a deal with them  . . . they agree that we can have a tariff on them," Greer said. "If Canada wants to agree that we can have some level of higher tariff on them while they open up their markets to us on things like dairy and other things, then that's a helpful conversation." It's the clearest signal yet from the Trump administration that it's aiming for a fundamental rewrite of the free-trade deals that have existed between the U.S., Canada and Mexico since the North American Freed Trade Agreement took effect in 1994. CBC News

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

The Government of Canada will contribute $50 million to help build the first Inuit-led university in Canada and more than $170 million for tuberculosis elimination, food security and child and family supports in Inuit communities. Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty made the announcement in Kuujjuaq, Que., last week at a meeting with the Kativik Regional Government, which provides municipal and administrative services to the Nunavik region of northern Quebec. The university, to be built in Arviat, Nunavut, will receive $50M in funding through the federal Budget 2025’s Build Communities Strong Fund. The university has also begun the process of choosing its satellite campuses and regional knowledge centres, where students will be able to study without being away from home for extended periods of time. CBC News

The Government of British Columbia is investing $1.9 million in the University of Victoria’s (UVic) research infrastructure supporting life sciences, natural resources and clean tech. As part of the investment, the government is providing more than $90,000 for quantum computing research equipment at the university. The funding from the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund will help researchers design computers that are capable of solving problems that are beyond the capabilities of the most powerful classical supercomputers, with lower energy use. Companies collaborating with UVic research teams will also be able to use the equipment to develop and test algorithms for commercial quantum computing applications. Thomas Baker, professor of physics and chemistry and Canada research chair in quantum computing at UVic, is leading the design of the new research systems. Students working on Baker’s research will gain hands-on skills to prepare them as the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. Govt. of B.C.

Innovation Saskatchewan is investing $459,095 in three University of Regina (U of R) research projects through the Innovation & Science Fund to advance solutions in water security, environmental sustainability and antimicrobial resistance. The investments match funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s John R. Evans Leaders Fund. The projects build on U of R strengths in climate science and population health, advancing Saskatchewan's priority research areas of life sciences, agriculture and energy:  

• $205,779 for Advanced Antibacterial Research Technology led by Dr. Omar El-Halfawy. Funding will support specialized lab tools, including high-throughput imaging and advanced bacterial genomics to speed up drug discovery for combatting antimicrobial resistance.  
• $170,176 for Water Quality Research Equipment led by Dr. Kerri Finlay. Funding will support new field and lab equipment to expand high-precision monitoring across more than 100 lakes in southern Saskatchewan.
• $83,140 for the Waste Management System Design Laboratory, led by Dr. Kelvin Tsun Wai Ng. Funding will support enhanced computing power, near-infrared spectrometry and new field tools to improve how plastic waste is mapped and analyzed under prairie conditions. Govt. of Saskatchewan

The University of Calgary’s (UCalgary) Institute for Quantum Science and Technology officially joined the Quantum Co-laboratory network for a five-year term. The network, which is entering its second five-year term, also includes the University of British Columbia’s Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, Université de Sherbrooke’s Institut quantique, and University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing. The Quantum Co-lab network provides users from academia, industry, and government with access to world-leading expertise and advanced infrastructure required for quantum innovation, while serving as a national platform to develop the workforce needed to translate quantum capabilities into economic value for Canada. The national partnership will connect UCalgary’s transdisciplinary quantum research ecosystem comprised of professional training programs, provincial partnerships to advance foundational science, and unique research infrastructure through UCalgary’s qHub and qLab to support quantum technology development. UCalgary

Calgary’s tech sector continues to see rapid growth, outpacing global trends and increasing in value by 13 percent in 2025 as international markets declined. According to Platform Calgary’s 2025 Impact Report, membership in the group increased to 869 tech companies last year, up 28 percent year-over-year. In total, those members generated $235 million in annual revenue and secured $323.9 million in investment in 2025, pushing cumulative capital raised past $1 billion since 2018. Platform Calgary directly supported 1,563 founders through its programming – a 36-percent increase over 2024. In 2025, 360 investors and more than 400 founders engaged through Platform’s investor relations activities, with 55 founders formally matched to investors. Currently, 64,600 Calgarians work in technology, with 24,500 tech jobs added over the past five years. Platform Calgary said the city is now among North America’s fastest-growing tech talent markets, citing a 61-percent increase in tech talent growth in 2025. Early-stage investment has grown from roughly $30 million annually in 2017 to about $700 million per year in each of the past three years. Western Standard News

Swiss carbon removal company Climeworks is establishing its Canadian headquarters in Calgary, selecting the Energy Transition Centre as a base to test and scale direct air capture technology in cold-weather conditions. Several employees are already working from the downtown innovation hub, with additional local hiring planned in the coming months. The company says it chose Calgary for its carbon management expertise, infrastructure and regulatory environment – factors increasingly attracting carbon capture and removal firms to Alberta. The next step will be selecting a local testing site, where a mobile direct air capture unit is expected to operate in fall 2026 to gather performance data ahead of a larger commercial facility. The Alberta Energy Transition Study estimates the global energy transition could generate 170,000 cleantech jobs and $61 billion in GDP by 2050. Calgary.tech

Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (OSC) announced that the Ocean Startup Project (OSP) opened applications for the 2026 Ocean Idea Challenge, a national early-stage three-month sprint that helps Canadians turn bold ocean ideas into validated startup opportunities. Selected teams can receive up to $8,000 and hands-on support from Ocean Ecosystem Navigators to test assumptions through real customer conversations, build evidence and make smart decisions early on so they can move forward – or pivot – with confidence. To date, 54 teams have completed the program, with most continuing onto other OSP programming such as Lab2Market Oceans, Ocean Startup Challenge, Boost and Amplify. The Ocean Idea Challenge is designed for individuals and teams who are pre-company or very early-stage, including those who haven’t registered a business yet, or who have been incorporated for one year or less and are still validating. In the coming weeks, OSP will roll out a series of industry-vetted Challenge Statements highlighting priority needs and real-world opportunities across ocean sectors – giving would-be founders clear inspiration and a stronger starting point for idea development and validation. Key dates for the 2026 program include:

• February 26: Registration opens.
• March 12: English program information session #1.
• March 26: French program information session.
• March 31: Workshop: How to talk about your ocean tech.
• April 8: Workshop: Overcoming a customer discovery cold start.
• April 9: English Program information session #2.
• April 12: Registration deadline.

Participant selection will take place in mid-to late-April, with programming following. Full details, including the program information package and registration, are available at oceanstartupproject.ca/idea-challenge. Ocean Startup Project

The Government of New Brunswick is providing $6.16 million to the New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council. Just over one-third of the money, $2.16 million, is for infrastructure improvements; the remaining $4 million will go toward developing a plan for future upgrades. The council is a government-owned research and technology organization that helps safeguard communities by providing testing on things such as food, drinking and beach water, fish health diagnostics and dairy. It also provides industrial hygiene services, as well as science and engineering solutions to help businesses improve efficiency and productivity. Created in 1962, the New Brunswick Research and Productivity Council has locations in Fredericton and Moncton and offers services to about 1,000 clients around the world. Govt. of New Brunswick

The University of British Columbia (UBC) opened its $207.9-million Gateway Health building, a hub for student health, interdisciplinary teaching and collaborative research. The 270,550-square-foot building gives a purpose-built home to the school of nursing, consolidates kinesiology programs from eight campus locations, and centralizes student health and wellbeing services for the first time. Students now have access to modern teaching facilities, labs and study spaces designed to encourage collaboration. Later this year, Gateway Health will also host a new interprofessional teaching clinic, established through UBC Health, that will act as a unique space for developing and testing innovations in education and care. Construction of the project was made possible by the university and the generosity of donors, including students. Expansion of the nursing programs and operating funding for the new teaching clinic are supported by the Government of British Columbia. UBC

The University of Toronto (U of T) partnered with BioLabs to launch Toronto’s largest shared lab incubator, bringing the shared lab platform to Canada’s life sciences ecosystem for the first time. Based in Cambridge, Mass., BioLabs is a global innovation infrastructure company that operates a growing network of shared labs and co-working spaces. The facilities offer access to state-of-the-art research facilities, a proprietary procurement platform and entrepreneurial programming – with industry and investor networks spanning 19 international locations. The collaboration with U of T will see BioLabs operate an existing 40,000-square-foot shared lab and office space in the MaRS Discovery District. The launch of BioLabs University of Toronto – open to startups from U of T’s extensive talent pool and innovators globally – ensures continuity for the more than 30 early-stage life-science startups that currently rely on the facility’s specialized equipment and laboratory infrastructure, while expanding their access to global networks of sponsors and investors. BioLabs replaces Johnson & Johnson, which vacated the MaRS innovation hub at the end of last year. University of Toronto

Ottawa-based accelerator L-Spark, which is no longer an accelerator for software-as-a-service companies, completed its first cohort as a corporate accelerator. At the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa, L-Spark,  showed off what its first client, communications service giant Mitel, and its partners gained from the inaugural Mitel Unified Communications Accelerator. Eight cohort members from across Canada, the U.S., and Europe took to the stage to present their technologies and the progress they made with Mitel over the six-month program. Canadian cohort members included Toronto-based Intelocate, Ottawa-based MicroMetrics, and Ottawa-based Zendelity. Other participants included American companies TeamMate, MosaicVoice, and IDgo, as well as Zurich-based Typewise and Berlin-based SuitePad. “All eight companies in this cohort are extending Mitel’s AI capabilities in ways that are very tangible for customers,” Mitel chief technology officer Luiz Domingos said. “By tightly integrating their innovation with Mitel’s platforms, they are accelerating how quickly customers can realize value from AI in their day-to-day communications workflows.” BetaKit

York University’s entrepreneurship and innovation hub YSpace signed two new memoranda of understanding in Seoul, South Korea with the Korea Business Angels Association and the Seoul AI Hub, giving YSpace the mandate to support Korean startups entering Canada, while opening outbound pathways for Canadian founders into one of Asia’s most industrially advanced markets. Canada and Korea sit near the top in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development rankings for nations with the highest share of young adults with college or university education. Both countries also share priorities in advanced manufacturing and AI. Korea’s strength lies in industrial depth and large-scale deployment, including global leadership in automation and robotics, while Canada brings world-recognized AI research, a flourishing startup ecosystem, and commercialization pathways anchored by a long-running national AI strategy. BetaKit

Tencent has shut down its TiMi Montreal studio without it releasing a game in the five years of its existence. A programmer at TiMi Montreal posted on LinkedIn that the studio had officially closed. Others affiliated with the studio also posted about the closure on LinkedIn. TiMi Montreal was announced in July 2021, with a mission “to create AAA open world multi-platform games.” The news came amid rapid expansion of game studios worldwide, super-charged by the pandemic-era boom in gaming and global investors’ desire to capitalize. A significant amount of the expansion at the time was fueled by Chinese gaming giants NetEase and Tencent, firms with massive success in their home region and on mobile that saw opportunities to build studios that could succeed with more console-style games. Both firms aggressively stood up studios in the West, often with lead developers who had big-budget game releases from Western publishers on their resume. But few games have come from those efforts and a retreat from that strategy has been evident over the past 18 months. The shutdown continues a string of blows to the Canadian game industry, including layoffs at Ubisoft Toronto and, in recent months, the closures of Ubisoft Halifax and NetEase’s Bad Brain Game Studios, another nascent Canadian developer that was closed before it launched its first game. Game File

 Communications company Bell and Montreal-based Hypertec, a leader in large-scale artificial intelligence and high-performance compute infrastructure, announced a strategic partnership to pursue opportunities in delivering end-to-end sovereign AI infrastructure built, hosted and operated in Canada. This partnership combines Hypertec's Canadian-built GPU (graphics processing units) infrastructure, including advanced NVIDIA-based AI systems manufactured through its domestic supply chain, with Bell AI Fabric, a national platform for Canadian-hosted AI compute and data centre services. Together, the companies aim to enable secure, scalable access to advanced AI compute while ensuring that critical workloads and data remain in Canada under Canadian jurisdiction. By integrating Hypertec's domestic manufacturing capabilities and Canadian supply chain with Bell's national data centre footprint, the partnership is expected to enable public sector, enterprise and research customers to deploy AI workloads securely and at scale, while maintaining confidence and control over how and where data and compute resources are governed. Bell and Hypertec said they aim to support Canadian organizations by providing a trusted foundation for the country's most demanding AI use cases, spanning defence, critical infrastructure, health care, financial services, research, advanced manufacturing and more. BCE

TransAlta Corporation entered into a memorandum of understanding with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Brookfield to advance a data centre development in Alberta, for which TransAlta will be the exclusive site and power provider. The MOU establishes a framework for phased development at the TransAlta’s Keephills power station in Parkland County west of Edmonton, including an initial long-term power purchase agreement for approximately 230 megawatts (MW) and the evaluation of opportunities for additional development aggregating up to 1,000 MW of load. All such development is subject to regulatory approvals and the parties reaching definitive binding agreements. TransAlta

Toronto-based quantum computing firm Xanadu announced new research initiative with U.S.-headquartered defence firm Lockheed Martin, to explore how quantum machine learning can be applied in the defence industry. The research will focus on generative models – machine learning techniques that learn from data to create new, realistic representations. Generative models underpin much of today's progress in AI, for example in large language models, but these are data-hungry, energy-intensive techniques that struggle in applications where data is scarce. This new collaboration will explore how quantum computers can exploit Fourier-based operations that are fundamentally inaccessible to classical machine learning methods, opening up new potential applications to the design of complex experiments in industries such as defense, finance and pharmaceuticals. Xanadu

Markham, Ont.-based NordSpace Corp. launched a venture arm, NordSpace Ventures, focused on Canadian space, defence and dual-use technology companies. As one of its first portfolio investments, NordSpace made a strategic investment in Edmonton-based Wyvern, a space data company operating the world's highest resolution commercial hyperspectral imaging satellite constellation, called Dragonette. The amount of the investment wasn’t disclosed. Wyvern serves customers across defence, agriculture, forestry, mining, energy and environmental monitoring on every continent. Nordspace said NordSpace Ventures represents a new model for the Canadian space industry, one in which a vertically integrated launch and space systems company also invests directly in the strategic partners and mission-critical technology providers that together form the backbone of a sovereign Canadian space ecosystem. The new venture division will make targeted investments primarily in Canadian companies whose capabilities align with NordSpace's end-to-end vision: launching Canadian payloads on Canadian rockets from Canadian soil, and eventually bringing that bundled capability to new spacefaring allied nations. Nordspace Corp.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) posted a new opportunity for the Lunar Surface Exploration Initiative (LSEI) Architecture Studies, a strategic effort to define Canada’s next major infrastructure contributions to the NASA-led Artemis campaign. The LSEI studies aim to define functional and technical requirements for a sustainable human and robotic presence on the Moon. The goal is to identify high-value areas where Canada can lead globally and provide “signature technologies” similar to Canadarm3. For these studies, the CSA has identified two technologies:

• Mining & In-Situ Resource Utilization: Identifying and processing lunar materials (like water ice or oxygen-rich regolith) into usable consumables or fuel.
• Power Generation and Distribution: Developing reliable power grids (nuclear, solar, or beaming) to survive the 14-day lunar night and support habitats and rovers.

The CSA will fund up to two contracts per technology study with total available funding of up to $500,000 per contract. The initial contract period is 10 months. An optional extension for a “Refined Architecture Analysis” phase would include additional funding of up to $300,000.

Based on potential bidders’ feedback, the closing date was extended five weeks and will now new close on April 7, 2026 at 2 p.m. Eastern. spaceQ

A group of Edmonton organizations launched the Edmonton Region Defence Alliance (ERDA), a partner-led consortium of leaders across innovation, aviation, workforce and economic development based in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region. Led by a steering committee that includes University of Alberta, Northern Institute of Technology, Alberta’s Industrial Heartland,  Edmonton International Airport, and Edmonton Global, ERDA’s purpose is to advocate for the Edmonton Metropolitan Region as a defence hub and to serve as a bridge between regional organizations and the federal government’s defence industrial strategy needs. Brent Jensen, the senior director of business development with Edmonton Global, said ERDA will help the region present a united front in projecting its value to bolstering Canada’s sovereignty. The Edmonton Metropolitan Region has proximity to Canada’s northern territories, a robust industrial and manufacturing base (including several defence-oriented organizations), a large technically skilled workforce, and is near several key military installations (CFB Edmonton, Wainwright, and 4 Wing Cold Lake). BetaKit

The Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, which paused its work last year after BlackRock and others left the group amid backlash from the Trump administration, has relaunched with more than 250 asset managers signed on to the updated Commitment Statement. Signatories include Brookfield Asset Management, Desjardins Global Asset Management, Sun Life Capital Management, and Vancity Investment Management. “The strong investor backing for NZAM signals that asset managers around the world continue to recognize and take steps to address climate-related financial risks and opportunities,” NZAM said. NZAM provides asset managers with a platform to publicly disclose their individual net zero commitments and implementation approaches. Signatories independently set targets, develop their own strategies, and report annually on progress. Targets previously disclosed by signatories remain valid and have been republished unless signatories requested reviews. NZAM is working with signatories whose targets are still currently in process, supporting them to complete disclosures within the next 12 months. NZAM

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-founded cleantech company CoeusAI is now headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands to help the Dutch government optimize its offshore renewable energy using AI. Coeus AI said it was the lone Canadian firm selected to participate in the North Sea Energy (NSE) program, and the only one of its 30-plus partners asked to work across five NSE program streams. As European nations accelerate efforts to achieve energy independence and climate targets, CoeusAI will provide cutting-edge AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities to optimize the integration of offshore wind, hydrogen production, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies – three pillars of the continent's clean energy future. The NSE research program, now in its sixth phase, brings together industry leaders, research institutions, and innovative technology companies to identify and assess synergies in offshore energy development. CoeusAI's AI/ML platform will analyze vast datasets from offshore operations, enabling predictive maintenance, optimizing energy production schedules, and identifying efficiency gains across the integrated wind-hydrogen-CCS value chain. CoeusAI

 VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

Foreign direct investment in Canada in 2025 reached the highest level since 2007

Foreign direct investment into Canada totalled $25.1 billion in Q4, bringing full-year 2025 to $96.8 billion, above $91.6 billion in 2024, according to a report by TD. This marks the highest annual inflows since 2007.

Merger-and-acquisition activity was the primary driver of the increase.

Sector gains were concentrated in trade and transportation and management companies, followed by manufacturing.

U.S. direct investment into Canada totalled $12.1 billion in Q4 and $52.5 billion for the year, roughly in line with 2024.

Foreign direct investment from countries other than the United States amounted to $3.7 billion in Q4 2025 and $40.9 billion in 2025, up modestly from $39.4 billion in 2024, with the United Kingdom the largest non-U.S. source. 

Canadian direct investment abroad slowed to $13.5 billion in Q4, bringing full-year 2025 to $79.4 billion – well below 2024's $123 billion outflow and the lowest level since 2020.

The softness was driven mainly by a pullback in mergers and acquisitions, which registered $3 billion of total divestment.

Stronger reinvested earnings offered an offset, amounting to $80 billion for the year, up $11 billion from 2024.

Sectorally, trade and transportation and management companies led outward direct investment. Energy and mining, as well as finance and insurance, acted as a drag.

Geographically, the split is telling. Canadian direct investment in the United States was $12 billion in Q4, bringing the 2025 total to $27.6 billion, less than half of 2024's $65.5 billion.

Canadian direct investment to non-U.S. destinations slowed sharply in the fourth quarter, totalling just $1.9 billion and totalling $48.6 billion, down from $62.2 billion in 2024.  

Canadian investors hit the pause button on new direct flows in 2025, the TD report said.

Outward FDI to the U.S. was the main pressure point with the year-to-date flows were well below last year’s pace, as trade-policy uncertainty weighs on long-term capital investment decisions.

Canada remained an attractive destination for foreign investment, as direct investment inflows reached new highs and was driven primarily by M&A activity.

U.S. inflows ultimately exceeded last year's total, supported by a strong fourth quarter, although they lagged throughout the year amid prevailing trade uncertainty.

One notable trend is stronger inflows from the United Kingdom in 2025, which accounted for 12 percent of total inward FDI and acted as a swing factor for overall inflows this year.

As often is the case, these flows are largely equity-driven and likely reflects deepening bilateral partnership, following a string of cooperation agreements beginning in early 2024.

According to Investment Canada Act filing data, there were roughly 50 investment notifications from U.K.-registered entities over the course of the year through November 2025.

The telling pattern is in the composition: over 40 percent of U.K. filings were acquisitions of Canadian software companies, from cybersecurity to AI-powered asset management, suggesting U.K. investors see Canadian tech as both promising and a natural gateway to North American markets.

In dollar terms, however, the largest deal was Rio Tinto’s acquisition of Livent Lithium Quebec – part of its US$6.7 billion global takeover of Arcadium Lithium – completed by mid-2025.

With Canada pursuing more incremental engagements with other partners, including the most recent announcement of visits by Prime Minister Mark Carney to India, Australia, and Japan, “we may see a more diversified flow of direct investment towards the second half of the year. A trend worth watching,” TD said. TD

See also: “Foreign direct investment promotes growth only when host economies have the human capital and deep financial markets to absorb beneficial spillovers” (in the Short Report, February 25, 2026, under “Reports & Policies”).

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Open AI raised US$110-billion in a funding round with investments from Amazon (US$50 billion), Nvidia (US$30 billion) and Softbank (US$30 billion). The investment boosts OpenAI to a $730-billion pre-money valuation. Amazon also announced a multiyear strategic partnership with OpenAI. The companies will develop customized AI models that will help power Amazon’s customer-facing applications as part of the agreement. OpenAI said it is expanding its existing $38-billion agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) by $100 billion over the next eight years. AWS will also serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform Frontier, which it unveiled earlier this month. CNBC

Montreal- and New York-based private equity firm Novacap announced the final close of Novacap Technologies Fund VII, with nearly US$3.8 billion in capital commitments, including affiliated vehicles. Investors from 26 countries participated in the fund, with about one-third of the capital coming from U.S. backers. Tech VII will continue to build on Novacap’s multi-decade track record of investing in profitable, growing North American business-to-business software and technology-enabled services companies, including AI and defence-tech firms, complemented by significant experience executing cross-border add-on acquisitions. The firm plans to make about 12 investments through the fund, at a pace of roughly three deals per year. Business Wire

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan invested in London, U.K.-based autonomous driving software startup Wayve, which raised US$1.2 billion in a Series D funding round. The round also included lead investors Eclipse Ventures, Balderton Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Baillie Gifford and the British Business Bank among others. Existing backers Microsoft, Nvidia and ride-hail giant Uber Technologies also invested. Wayve’s additional deals bring its total new funding to US$1.5 billion, after Uber agreed to invest in bringing Wayve-powered robotaxis to more than 10 cities, starting with London. The Business Times

Montreal-based Stay22 Technologies Inc., whose technology is used by online travel influencers to cash in on bookings made by their followers, has brought on U.S. growth-capital giant Summit Partners as an investor. Summit has invested US$122 million for a minority stake in Stay22, which generates between $70 million and $100 million in annual revenue. The financier is primarily buying shares from early investors and employees in a secondary transaction. Stay22 embeds a script on its customers’ sites, adding monetization links to the regular links. The process is done automatically using AI, which also reads or watches the posts and determines where to drop in links to booking sites, based on content. The system automatically directs users to optimal booking sites depending on the market. The company said it will use money to accelerate its international expansion, invest further in AI-related product innovation, and expand into working with creators beyond the travel category. The Globe and Mail

Toronto- and San Francisco-based NationGraph, an AI-native intelligence platform for businesses selling to the government, raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Perplexity's Fund, XYZ Venture Capital, Reach Capital, and angel investors. NationGraph indexes data from approximately 110,000 government entities across roughly four million websites and applies AI reasoning to enable key capabilities, including predictive intelligence on government purchasing decisions, hard-to-access public records at scale, and AI-identified key buyer titles across departments. NationGraph said the new funding will be used to build upon and improve the company’s platform. NationGraph

Toronto-based IT consulting firm Lightworks secured up to $12 million in financing, led by Round13 Capital, to support the launch of Lightworks’ flagship AI services and accelerate the company's growth. Lightworks helps clients modernize their technology systems, install new cloud software and adopt AI agents. The consultancy said it will extend its focus on the world's largest and most highly regulated enterprises, forging new partnerships to set the standard for managing the deployment of AI agents at scale in regulated domains. Lightworks

Toronto-based AI insurance agent startup General Magic raised US$7.2 million in a seed round led by Radical Ventures, with significant participation from a16z Speedrun and new investment from Figma vice-president of product Brendan O'Driscoll, Larry James Erwin from OpenAI and Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez. General Magic builds AI agents that take over the work insurance teams spend the most time on: answering routine questions, collecting documents, and following up with customers when clarity matters. These agents work across the full insurance lifecycle, covering pre-quote eligibility, post-quote engagement and claims coordination. General Magic plans to expand across insurance lines and workflows. General Magic

Toronto- and San Francisco-based Shakudo, which offers an operating system for enterprise artificial intelligence, announced a $7-million strategic funding round led by Wittington Ventures, which is affiliated with Loblaw Companies Limited. Jim Orlando, Wittington Ventures’ managing partner, has joined Shakudo’s board of directors. Existing investors Golden Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, and RTP Global also participated in the round. Shakudo’s software runs within clients’ private clouds or on their in-house systems, letting their staff manage and roll out large language models, AI agents and coding assistants. Shakudo said the financing will fuel the company's U.S. expansion and the launch of two new products, Kaji and Shakudo AI Gateway, built to bring autonomous AI agents into the most regulated industries in the world. Shakudo

Montreal-based JetScale AI, which specializes in cloud infrastructure optimization, raised $5.4 million in a seed funding round to accelerate its growth and deployment across North America and Europe. The Seed Venture Fund of the Business Development Bank of Canada and Diagram ClimateTech Fund co-led the seed round, with support from several well-established players, including Telegraph Ventures, Fondaction and Mavrik, as well as Cycle Momentum and Spring Impact Capital. JetScale AI’s platform delivers instant diagnostics, clear action plans and easy-to-implement remediations. Business Wire

Burnaby, B.C.-based legaltech company Clio is working with Stripe on a new program, Clio Capital, that helps U.S. law firms qualify for loans issued by Celtic Bank. Fully integrated into Clio’s Intelligent Legal Work Platform, Clio Capital provides eligible U.S. law firms with fast, flexible access to working capital to stabilize cash flow and accelerate strategic growth. Accessing capital has historically been a significant obstacle for legal professionals. Traditional lenders often rely on outdated financial statements and rigid collateral requirements, such as equipment or inventory, which law firms typically do not possess, while recent regulatory changes to U.S. Small Business Administration updates have intensified these challenges. Powered by Stripe, the new program utilizes a proprietary evaluation to offer pre-qualified financing, allowing firms to skip the mountain of paperwork and lengthy bank visits typically associated with business loans. Clio

London, U.K.-headquartered pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK agreed to buy Montreal-based 35Pharma Inc., a biotech with an early-stage drug for pulmonary hypertension, for US$950 million. GSK hopes the drug – called HS235 – will be effective in treating a disease characterized by high blood pressure in the lungs that can cause heart failure. The deal also boosts GSK’s small pipeline of therapies for diseases that also affect the heart and metabolic systems. The company already has a range of medicines for diseases of the lung. Financial Post

Radiant, a Brookfield Asset Management portfolio company, announced its merger with London, U.K.-based Ori Industries, combining Ori’s distributed AI infrastructure platform with Radiant’s global infrastructure capabilities and marking the company’s transition into full operations. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Ori lets customers get on-demand access to AI computing power without having to buy the hardware. Brookfield’s AI Infrastructure Fund provides Radiant with a direct pipeline to a $100-billion investment program for AI infrastructure. Radiant becomes one of the world’s first infrastructure companies engineered from the ground up to deliver integrated AI compute. Radiant’s access to scaled capital from Brookfield, alongside data centre and energy development capabilities, enable it to enter the market to deliver vertically integrated and purpose-built AI factories. Radiant

REPORTS & POLICIES

AI is developing so fast, people in many fields aren’t ready for what will happen to their jobs: AI developer

Artificial intelligence is developing so fast, people aren’t prepared for what will happen to their jobs, says an AI developer.

The future is being shaped by a remarkably small number of people: a few hundred researchers at a handful of companies . . . OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and a few others,” Matt Shumer, who has spent six years building an AI startup and investing the space, wrote in an article on X.

A single training run, managed by a small team over a few months, can produce an AI system that shifts the entire trajectory of the technology, said Shumer, general partner at Shumer Capital and CEO and co-founder of New York City-based Otherside AI.

On February 5 this year, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT).

“And something clicked. Not like a light switch . . . more like the moment you realize the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest,” Shumer said.

“I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job,” he said. “I describe what I want built, in plain English, and it just . . . appears. Not a rough draft I need to fix. The finished thing.”

“A couple of months ago, I was going back and forth with the AI, guiding it, making edits. Now I just describe the outcome and leave.”

Shumer said he tells the AI: "I want to build this app. Here's what it should do, here's roughly what it should look like. Figure out the user flow, the design, all of it. And it does. It writes tens of thousands of lines of code.”

“Then, and this is the part that would have been unthinkable a year ago, it opens the app itself. It clicks through the buttons. It tests the features. It uses the app the way a person would,” he said.

“If it doesn't like how something looks or feels, it goes back and changes it, on its own. It iterates, like a developer would, fixing and refining until it's satisfied. Only once it has decided the app meets its own standards does it come back to me and say: ‘It's ready for you to test.’ And when I test it, it's usually perfect.”

The experience that tech workers have had over the past year, of watching AI go from "helpful tool" to "does my job better than I do," is the experience everyone else is about to have, Shumer said.

That includes in law, finance, medicine, accounting, consulting, writing, design, analysis, and customer service, he said. “Not in ten years. The people building these systems say one to five years. Some say less. And given what I've seen in just the last couple of months, I think ‘less’ is more likely.”

The AI models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago, he said. The debate about whether AI is "really getting better" or "hitting a wall" – which has been going on for over a year – is over, Shumer said.

“ Anyone still making that argument either hasn't used the current models, has an incentive to downplay what's happening, or is evaluating based on an experience from 2024 that is no longer relevant.”

“I don't say that to be dismissive. I say it because the gap between public perception and current reality is now enormous, and that gap is dangerous . . . because it's preventing people from preparing,” he added.

Shumer noted that in 2022, AI couldn't do basic arithmetic reliably. It would confidently tell you that 7 × 8 = 54.

By 2023, AI could pass the bar exam.

By 2024, it could write working software and explain graduate-level science.

By late 2025, some of the best engineers in the world said they had handed over most of their coding work to AI.

On February 5, 2026, new models arrived that made everything before them feel like a different era, he said.

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has said that AI models "substantially smarter than almost all humans at almost all tasks" are on track for 2026 or 2027, Shumer said.

Amodei said AI is now writing "much of the code" at his company, and that the feedback loop between current AI and next-generation AI is "gathering steam month by month." He said we may be "only one to two years away from a point where the current generation of AI autonomously builds the next."

Amodei, who Shumer said is probably the most safety-focused CEO in the AI industry, has publicly predicted that AI will eliminate 50 percent of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. “And many people in the industry think he's being conservative.”

Given what the latest models can do, the capability for massive disruption could be here by the end of this year, Shumer said. It'll take some time to ripple through the economy, but the underlying ability is arriving now, he said.

“This is different from every previous wave of automation,” he noted. AI isn't replacing one specific skill. It's a general substitute for cognitive work. It gets better at everything simultaneously.

When factories automated, a displaced worker could retrain as an office worker. When the internet disrupted retail, workers moved into logistics or services. “But AI doesn't leave a convenient gap to move into. Whatever you retrain for, it's improving at that too.”

Shumer pointed to several examples:

• Legal work. AI can already read contracts, summarize case law, draft briefs and do legal research at a level that rivals junior associates.
• Financial analysis. Building financial models, analyzing data, writing investment memos, generating reports. AI handles these competently and is improving fast.
• Writing and content. Marketing copy, reports, journalism, technical writing. The quality has reached a point where many professionals can't distinguish AI output from human work.
• Software engineering. A year ago, AI could barely write a few lines of code without errors. Now it writes hundreds of thousands of lines that work correctly. Large parts of the job are already automated: not just simple tasks, but complex, multi-day projects. “There will be far fewer programming roles in a few years than there are today.”
• Medical analysis. Reading scans, analyzing lab results, suggesting diagnoses, reviewing literature. AI is approaching or exceeding human performance in several areas.
• Customer service. Genuinely capable AI agents, not the frustrating chatbots of five years ago, are being deployed now, handling complex multi-step problems.

“The most recent AI models make decisions that feel like judgment. They show something that looked like taste: an intuitive sense of what the right call was, not just the technically correct one. A year ago that would have been unthinkable,” Shumer said.

Nothing that can be done on a computer is safe in the medium term, he said. “If your job happens on a screen (if the core of what you do is reading, writing, analyzing, deciding, communicating through a keyboard), then AI is coming for significant parts of it. The timeline isn't ‘someday.’ It's already started.”

Amodei has a thought experiment, Shumer said. Imagine it's 2027. A new country appears overnight. Fifty million citizens, every one smarter than any Nobel Prize winner who has ever lived. They think 10 to 100 times faster than any human. They never sleep. They can use the internet, control robots, direct experiments, and operate anything with a digital interface. What would a national security advisor say?

Amodei said the answer is obvious: "[AI is] the single most serious national security threat we've faced in a century, possibly ever."

Several commentators criticized Shumer’s post as nonsensical hype, “AI slop,” and “a litany of things that aren’t true.” Matt Shumer on X

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America isn’t ready for what AI will do to jobs: Josh Tyrangiel in The Atlantic

AI is a technology that can digest a hundred reports before you’ve finished your coffee, draft and analyze documents faster than teams of paralegals, compose music indistinguishable from the genius of a pop star or a Juilliard grad, code – really code, not just copy-paste from Stack Overflow – with the precision of a top engineer, according to an article in The Atlantic.

“Tasks that once required skill, judgment, and years of training are now being executed, relentlessly and indifferently, by software that learns as it goes,” said the article, by Josh Tyrangiel, a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Seventy-one percent of respondents to an August Reuters/Ipsos poll said they’re worried that artificial intelligence will “put too many people out of work permanently,” he noted.

Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, estimated that AI would eliminate “literally half of all white-collar workers” in a decade. 

AI is already transforming work, one delegated task at a time. If the transformation unfolds slowly enough and the economy adjusts quickly enough, the economists may be right: We’ll be fine. Or better, Tyrangiel wrote.

But if AI instead triggers a rapid reorganization of work – compressing years of change into months, affecting roughly 40 percent of jobs worldwide, as the International Monetary Fund projects – the consequences will not stop at the economy, he wrote. “They will test political institutions that have already shown how brittle they can be.”

Tyrangiel pointed to what’s come to be known as “The Canaries Paper,” written by three academics from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. By crunching data from millions of monthly payroll records for workers in jobs with exposure to generative AI, the authors concluded that workers ages 22 to 25 – the canaries – have seen about a 13-percent decline in employment since late 2022.

Economist Anton Korinek told Tyrangiel he’s “super worried.” Korinek thinks that America will see major job losses – “a very noticeable labor-market effect” – as soon as this year.

Korinek is a professor and the faculty director of the Economics of Transformative AI Initiative at the University of Virginia. Last year, Time magazine put him on its list of the most influential people in AI.

Tyrangiel wrote that the crux of Korinek’s argument is simple: His colleagues aren’t misreading the data – they’re misreading the technology.

“We can’t quite conceptualize having very smart machines,” Korinek said. “Machines have always been dumb, and that’s why we don’t trust them and it’s always taken time to roll them out. But if they’re smarter than us, in many ways they can roll themselves out.”

This is where Korinek parts company with the rearview economists. If AI moves as fast as he expects, for many workers the damage will arrive before institutions can adapt – and each successful use will only intensify the pressure for more.

Consider consulting firms, which have always charged high fees for having junior associates do research and draft reports – fees clients tolerated because there was no alternative.

But if one firm can use AI to deliver the same work faster and cheaper, its competitors face a stark choice: adopt the technology, or explain why they are still charging a premium for human hours.

Once a firm plugs in and undercuts its rivals, the rest must either race to follow or be left behind. Competition doesn’t just reward adoption; it makes delay indefensible, Tyrangiel wrote.

Korinek concedes the two standard objections: The numbers don’t show anything definitive yet, and new technologies have historically created more jobs than they’ve destroyed.

But he thinks that his peers need to start driving with their eyes looking ahead. “Whenever I speak to people at the labs on the West Coast” – Korinek is an unpaid member of Anthropic’s economic advisory council – “it does not strike me that they are trying to artificially hype what they’re producing. I usually have the sense that they are just as terrified as I am. We should at least consider the possibility that what they are telling us may come true.”

Trangiel said Korinek is not sure that the technology itself can be steered by policy, but he wants more economists doing scenario planning so that policymakers aren’t caught flat-footed – “because mass job loss doesn’t just mean unemployment; it means missed loan payments, cascading defaults, shrinking consumer demand, and the kind of self-reinforcing downturn that can transform a shock into a crisis, and a crisis into the decline of an empire.”

AI is just a newborn, Trangiel noted. “It may grow up to transform our lives in unimaginably good ways. But it has also introduced profound questions about safety, inequality, and the viability of a wage-labor system that, despite its flaws, spawned the most prosperous society in human history. And there’s no sign – none – that our political system is equipped to deal with what’s coming.” The Atlantic

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Scenario for 2028 imagines AI-driven “global intelligence crisis” and "economic pandemic"

Artificial intelligence could soon replace human labour at a scale and speed that society cannot handle, according to a new scenario that imagines life in 2028.

The prediction envisions a “global intelligence crisis” that hits the world by 2028 due to the replacement of high-skill labour with AI, Anna Desmaris wrote in an article in Euronews.

James Van Geelen, chief executive of Citrini, a U.S. investment research firm and Alap Shah, an AI entrepreneur, wrote the paper as a fictional memo dating from June 2028, looking back at how the crisis unfolded.

They envision that the layoffs “due to human obsolescence” began in 2026, as companies started employing AI agents to do tasks without human supervision.

Van Geelen and Shah refer to the firings that have happened in the tech sector in January, with Amazon, Expedia and Pinterest all announcing AI-related job cuts. However, experts have previously said that it’s difficult to determine whether AI efficiencies were to blame.

Tech job cuts start a vicious cycle: as companies invest more in AI, the models become more capable and justify more layoffs, the authors wrote.

“Each company’s individual response was rational. The collective result was catastrophic,” the prediction reads.

Businesses had to adopt the latest technologies to stay competitive, so those “most threatened by AI became AI’s most aggressive adopters,” Van Geelen and Shah said.

According to their scenario, displaced white-collar workers moved into lower-paying roles and blue-collar trades, while the few who kept their jobs faced wage stagnation. By mid-2027, the U.S. economy tips into a recession and by 2028, unemployment exceeds 10 percent.

The paper envisions that by 2027, AI agents run in the background of people’s devices. They write all computer code, they handle weeks-long research projects and optimize how users spend their money.

While AI does create some jobs in the new economy, such as prompt engineers, safety researchers and infrastructure technicians, it renders dozens more obsolete. The new roles also pay a fraction of what the old ones did, the scenario predicts.

The shift of white-collar workers to lower-paying jobs further depressed wages as the labour supply surges. Many households are forced to turn to credit cards or retirement accounts to cover their mortgages. By 2028, the U.S. economy is on the trajectory for another mortgage crisis.

To mitigate this, the government needs to transfer more money to households, even though it will be collecting less taxes from them due to their wage losses. The authors note that this could put additional strain on the economy.

“It should have been clear all along that a single GPU cluster in North Dakota generating the output previously attributed to 10,000 white-collar workers in midtown Manhattan is more economic pandemic than economic panacea,” the authors wrote.
“The velocity of money flatlined. The human-centric consumer economy, 70 percent of GDP at the time, withered.”

Travel booking platforms are an early casualty, because they are the simplest, Van Geelen and Shah wrote. By Q4 2026, our agents could assemble a complete itinerary (flights, hotels, ground transport, loyalty optimization, budget constraints, refunds) faster and cheaper than any platform.

Insurance renewals, where the entire renewal model depended on policyholder inertia, are reformed, they said. AI agents that re-shop your coverage annually dismantled the 15 percent to 20 percent of premiums that insurers earned from passive renewals.

“Financial advice. Tax prep. Routine legal work. Any category where the service provider’s value proposition was ultimately ‘I will navigate complexity that you find tedious’ was disrupted, as the agents found nothing tedious,” Van Geelen and Shah

Even places we thought insulated by the value of human relationships proved fragile, they said. Real estate, where buyers had tolerated five- to six-percent commissions for decades because of information asymmetry between agent and consumer, crumbled once AI agents equipped with MLS access and decades of transaction data could replicate the knowledge base instantly.

A sell-side piece from March 2027 titled it “agent on agent violence.” The median buy-side commission in major metros had compressed from 2.5 to three percent to under one percent and a growing share of transactions were closing with no human agent on the buy side at all.

“AI got better and cheaper. Companies laid off workers, then used the savings to buy more AI capability, which let them lay off more workers. Displaced workers spent less. Companies that sell things to consumers sold fewer of them, weakened, and invested more in AI to protect margins. AI got better and cheaper,” Van Geelen and Shah wrote. “A feedback loop with no natural brake.”

The authors also predict an “Occupy Silicon Valley” movement similar to the one on Wall Street in the 2010s, where demonstrators in May 2028 blockade entrances to Anthropic and OpenAI’s San Francisco offices for weeks.

Van Geelen and Shah caution that these scenarios may not unfold exactly as described, but they argue that AI is already changing the economy faster than institutions can adapt.

Shah, in a separate article, acknowledged that there are a few important ways that this forecast could be wrong.

The most likely way is that job losses are very gradual, allowing AI driven productivity to accelerate and boost GDP growth. A roaring economy with near stable jobs would allow for a gradual transition to an AI world. This is the market’s current base case, he said.

While certainly possible, the information sector payroll trend since 2023 looks particularly damning for this theory, he noted. “Moreover, it would likely require AI progress to slow significantly which seems like a losing bet based on current trends.”

The second way involves comparing AI to past technological revolutions. The thinking goes that in every previous cycle when technology and automation replaced jobs it created more new jobs in new sectors.

While true, every previous technology was a complement to human labor, not a near-direct and near-complete substitute. Every previous technology revolution also coincided with periods of robust job growth; U.S. core white-collar jobs have been shrinking for over three years and are hopelessly off the pre-covid trend line.

The third way is that decisive policy action acts to prevent a crisis, Shah said. He said he believes believe there is a credible path to align most of the electorate with many corporate, AI and political stakeholders towards a future that prevents a cris. Euronews

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Still uncertain how many jobs AI will replace, although unemployment rates are rising for younger workers in AI-affected sectors

The verdict is still out on how many jobs artificial intelligence will replace, although unemployment rates are rising for younger works in AI-affected sectors, according to two experts at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

Unemployment rates rising are rising in the U.S. for 22- to 25-year-old in AI-affected sectors like manufacturing, finance, software engineering, marketing, and law, Rick Smith, a professor of practice at Johns Hopkins University, said in an interview with Emily Gaines Buchler, published by the university.

Unemployment rates are more stable, however, for older, more experienced workers in these areas, Smith said.

Smith said studies on wellbeing for Johns Hopkins’ Human Capital Development Lab show that younger workers are experiencing less well-being on the job. They're less engaged and fulfilled. They feel less autonomy, purpose and belonging.

Historically, younger workers have embraced new technologies, while older workers tended to resist change. Now, however, the opposite is happening because employees with more experience and knowledge are needed to implement AI and figure out how to take advantage of its capabilities, Smith said. Junior employees don't have that knowledge and experience.

At the same time, AI is replacing some of the routine automation work performed by junior employees – tasks like data entry, customer service, coding, design and formatting, and document reviews, Smith said.’

“So it's a double whammy. Junior workers are, in some cases, being replaced by AI, and they're not able to manage AI because they don't have the experience,” he said.

AI is significantly changing and will continue the change how we work, but that doesn't mean humans will no longer be needed. Humans will steer the ship and be needed in different capacities, said Ritu Agarwal, the Wm. Polk Carey Distinguished Professor of Information Systems and Health at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

“When people say so many of the job losses are attributable to AI, I have a hard time swallowing that because the cause and effect aren't clearly established,” she said.

There's a lot of media hype and the data is patchy at best, she added. For example, there's the economic argument that companies are retrenching employment in the face of tariffs and the post-pandemic hiring boom – that they're bloated and under pressure from shareholders to retrench and save on labor costs.

Usually, organizations and companies cut jobs for a variety of reasons, and those variables need to be teased apart and analyzed before jumping to a single conclusion, Ararwal said. This will take some time and lots of good data, she added.

Knowledge work requires many human qualities that AI doesn't necessarily replicate so well, she said. “This is why I think of AI as augmenting rather than replacing what humans can do, and especially so in knowledge work.”

Arawal acknowledged that the new plugin for Claude produces extremely high-quality computer code, and that a lot of coding work is being relegated to this software.

“Does that mean we no longer need human coders? No, it means we need software engineers with different kinds of skills,” she said.

We don’t need software engineers to write the Python code or whatever programming language they're using, Arawal said. Instead, she said, we need them to see if the appropriate guardrails have been put into the software, or we need them to test the product, or to ensure its compliance with regulations.

When humans and AI team up on a job, it plays out differently in each context, depending on the nature of both the task and the individual, Arawal noted.

For instance, you might envision a team made up of one or two individuals and four or five AI agents, as opposed to a five-person team. “This takes the teaming discussion and team dynamics challenge to a whole new level. Who delegates tasks? Who leads? Who checks output? Who does the quality control? The roles will need to get redefined and redistributed.”

Smith said we’re still at the stage of AI development where we rely on human judgment – a human filter – to make sure we're on the right track and not hallucinating, as AI agents can do. “But I'm concerned that some organizations are replacing humans with AI without fully understanding the long-term impact not only on people but also on the skills companies will need to succeed as we move into a new kind of work world,” he said.

Arawal said she thinks there will always be an appetite for human creativity, “meaning it will still have a place. But it will be enhanced with powerful AI and go in the bucket of augmentation.”

Smith said today's employers want to hire people who have developed the skills and ability to work with AI. In corporate and professional settings, they want people who are comfortable with the tools and understand how to use them judiciously for certain tasks, but not others. “These are learned skills and capabilities. As educators, we have to build in this training for our students and faculty. And as managers and leaders, we have to spend the time and resources required to train our existing workforce,” he said.

Said Arawal: “The message is to start learning [AI] now, to embrace it and discover how it can be deployed to effectively advance individuals, businesses, and societies. That's our collective future.” Johns Hopkins University

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AI safety relegated to the back burner at this year’s global artificial intelligence summit

The annual global artificial intelligence summit, which took place in New Delhi this year, has largely abandoned its original motivation to develop safeguards for AI, according to a story in  Politico.

The final summit declaration will fail to include the word “safety,” according to a draft text reported by POLITICO.

After the first two summits addressed catastrophic risks to humanity and threats like job losses and environmental damage, India has instead switched the focus to practical applications and dealmaking.

With a White House friendly to Big Tech, a better understanding of how the technology will reshape global economies and a more complicated geopolitical environment, the conversations in New Delhi exemplify a stark shift, according to Politico. “The global elite are no longer obsessing about how to control the risks of AI but figuring out who can benefit.”

For those on the ground in the Indian capital, the gathering was a marketplace for anyone to sell their version of what an AI-powered future should look like without having to address complex questions over how to ensure the rapid technological advances in AI land in a safe way.

Amber Sinha, executive director of digital rights group EDRi, described safety as “very much on the back burner,” a shift he said was already coming into view at the last summit in Paris.

Sinha described the shift toward investments as “what we saw play out in Paris last year, and what, in even more stark terms, we’ve been seeing playing out now.”

At last year’s meeting in Paris, the U.K. – the summit’s original organizers – refused to sign the final declaration, in part because of how far it had strayed from the aims on safety. This year, the U.K. has got on board with the trade-fair vibes. 

A delegation led by U.K. AI minister Kanishka Narayan and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy will try to sell Britain as a destination for talent and investment.

“The business leaders joining us in India will build concrete partnerships and secure investment that delivers opportunity for working people in the U.K., India and across the globe,” Lammy said.

The U.S., meanwhile, arrived in New Delhi to sell its AI stack to the world through its AI Exports Program, the administration’s official policy to “extend American leadership in AI and decrease international dependence on AI technologies” – a reflection of its view of AI as a competition between U.S. firms and China’s. 

The European Union wants both to flex its position as a global regulator and to show it’s open to attract investment. That tension has been on display in recent months as EU authorities implemented the bloc’s flagship AI law while simultaneously rolling back safety provisions through a “simplification package,” after complaints from European companies that the law was too burdensome. 

Some argue the EU could gain traction at the summit for its governance model under which companies conduct voluntary assessments, including with the hosts. 

There are questions about the future of the summit series itself, given how far it has moved from its origins.

Some argue safety conversations may begin to take place elsewhere. “The summit series evolving to more of a global trade fair will push decisions on global AI governance into other forums,” said Jakob Mökander, director of tech policy at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

“We need to choose whether we want to move toward a COP (Conference of the Parties, the annual United Nations summit on climate change) model, with the gradual formation of a body of texts, or toward a G7 model, with one country setting its priorities each year,” said Martin Tisné, a former French government envoy to the Paris AI summit.

“Personally I think institutionalization [as with COP] is a very good idea to address the fragmentation of AI governance at the global level,” he said. Politico

THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

Ted Hewitt’s term as president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) comes to an end on February 28, 2026. As the federal government pursues its search for the next president, Normand Labrie, chair of SSHRC, will assume the powers of the president, in accordance with the SSHRC Act. At the same time, Labrie will become chair of the Canada Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC). The CRCC chair position rotates annually between the presidents of Canada’s three federal research funding agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and SSHRC. Day-to-day operations at SSHRC will be led by Sylvie Lamoureux, vice-president, research, who will take on the role of chief operating officer during this transition period. Hewitt joined SSHRC in 2012 as executive vice-president before being appointed president in 2015. He served as the inaugural chair of the CRCC, becoming the first to hold a second term in 2023. Throughout the last decade, Hewitt has made several lasting contributions to Canada’s research ecosystem and broader Canadian society. Some of the many highlights include: the recent launch of the Canada Impact+ Research Chairs and Emerging Leaders programs to attract world-leading researchers whose work will help build a stronger, more resilient Canada; the new SSHRC Policy Innovation Partnership Grants to drive long-term research on issues of importance to Canadians; the creation of the New Frontiers in Research Fund to support high-risk, high-reward, interdisciplinary and international research; pursuing Indigenous reconciliation through strengthening Indigenous research and research training capacity; enhancing equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility within Canada’s research ecosystem; and driving outreach and engagement activities to ensure the benefits of federally funded research are experienced in communities across Canada. SSHRC

Stéphane Dion, former federal cabinet minister and ambassador to Germany and France has accepted a position as “diplomat in residence” in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Université de Montréal (UdeM). Dion has resettled in Montreal after nearly a decade in Europe. He will make himself available to professors and students to discuss subjects in which he is expert: foreign policy, political leadership, public administration, and the environment, particularly the global water crisis. Dion is an Université Laval alumnus who last taught at Université de Montréal as a professor of political science from 1984 to 1996. He is not returning to UdeM to teach as a staff member. Université de Montréal

Entrepreneur and business strategist Karen Stewart was appointed to the University of Saskatchewan (USask) board of governors. A seasoned business leader, self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” and USask alumna, Stewart brings decades of experience in building and scaling companies across finance and other sectors, as well as a strong record of innovation and advocacy for women in business. Her career spans more than 30 years across financial services, mediation and venture capital. Stewart founded Fairway Divorce Solutions, Canada’s first national alternative to traditional divorce litigation. Before Fairway, Stewart founded Milestone Asset Management and led teams managing over $250 million in financial. She also founded Bumble Bees Venture Capital, championing female investors on mission-driven ventures by expanding access to early-stage capital. University of Saskatchewan

Memorial University reduced its number of vice-presidents from seven to three, with dedicated campus leadership vested in three deputy provost roles. Memorial made the move to reduce executive compensation, streamline leadership and improve operational efficiency. The deputy provost and dean of graduate studies replaces the associate vice-president (academic) and dean of graduate studies role, which will be eliminated effective Feb. 28, 2026. Dr. Amy Warren, who was appointed associate vice-president and dean of graduate studies for a five-year term in December 2023, was appointed deputy provost and dean of graduate studies effective March 1, 2026, until Dec. 7, 2028. Dr. Ken Jacobsen was appointed interim deputy provost (Grenfell and Labrador campuses), effective March 1, 2026. This position replaces the vice-president (Grenfell Campus) role and  Jacobsen will serve for one year or until the completion of the search for the five-year term appointment of a deputy provost, whichever occurs first. Dr. Paul Brett was appointed interim deputy provost (Marine Institute) and executive director (professional and continuing education) effective March 1, 2026. This role replaces the vice-president (Marine Institute) position. Brett will serve in the role for one year or upon the completion of the search for the five-year term appointment, whichever occurs first. Also, Catharyn Andersen was appointed special advisor to the president on Indigenous affairs on a permanent full-time basis, effective March 1. This essential leadership role replaces the vice-president (Indigenous) position. Memorial University

A new partnership between Dalhousie University and two of India’s elite research institutions will create a flagship innovation campus linking graduate training and research with industry to drive innovation and expand market opportunities for Canada and India. The Tirupati Tri-Institutional Global Innovation Campus will be established in the eastern Indian city of Tirupati, close to the existing campuses of IIT Tirupati and IISER Tirupati – Dalhousie’s counterparts on the initiative. The campus will be developed in phases over the next decade starting with collaboration on programming and industry sponsorship and scaling towards shared physical spaces. The initiative will include the establishment of centres of excellence around areas of shared expertise, unlocking new opportunities across a range of sectors, including:

• clean energy, critical minerals and electric mobility. 
• digital and precision agriculture. 
• health technologies and biomanufacturing. 
• digital systems and applied AI .

Highly skilled learners will gain access to industry-embedded professional master’s programs, co-supervised doctoral training, and executive education on the campus, which will also enable Canadian and Indian firms to find new opportunities to collaborate and access each other’s markets and supply chains. Dalhousie University

Simon Fraser University (SFU) signed memoranda of understanding with three strategic partners to build on the industry-leading efficiency and sustainability of the Cedar Supercomputing Centre at its Burnaby campus, which houses Fir, the fastest and most powerful academic supercomputer system in Canada. The Cedar Supercomputing Centre empowers Canadian companies and public institutions to harness world-class artificial intelligence infrastructure, while safeguarding Canadian sovereignty, security and sustainability. AI is a research priority for SFU, and the university ranks in Canada’s top five for AI (AI Rankings, 2025), with more than 100 researchers focused on AI solutions. The agreements formalize collaborations with industry-leading partners, targeting specialist needs: 

• Cerio (Ontario) designs systems for more sustainable data centres.
• Corix (Burnaby, B.C.) is a leading developer, owner, and operator of district energy systems.
• Moment Energy (Coquitlam, B.C.) a leader in energy storage, providing backup energy systems using repurposed electric vehicle batteries. Simon Fraser University

The Pathways Alliance industry association is changing its name to Oil Sands Alliance to better reflect the purpose and mandate of the organization to promote growing the oil sands industry for a stronger Canada. As the Oil Sands Alliance members work toward a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian and Albertan governments, the Pathways name will be used exclusively in reference to the proposed $16.5-billion CO₂ Transportation Network and Storage Hub, which will continue to be known as the Pathways Project. Oil Sands Alliance represents five of Canada’s major oil sands producers: Canadian Natural, Cenovus Energy, ConocoPhillips Canada, Imperial, and Suncor. Canadian Natural will continue to advance the proposed Pathways Project on behalf of the five project proponents. Oil Sands Alliance works collaboratively with governments, Indigenous communities and stakeholders to promote a policy and investment environment that supports a globally competitive oil sands sector. Oil Sands Alliance

Vancouver-based B2Gold Corp. announced that Clive Johnson has decided to retire from his role as president, CEO and director of the company at the annual general meeting of the company scheduled for June 4, 2026. The board of directors named Mike Cinnamond, senior vice-president, finance and chief financial officer of B2Gold, to succeed Johnson as president and CEO and replace Johnson on the board of directors. Johnson has served as president and CEO of B2Gold since the company’s founding in 2007. Over that 19-year period, he led the successful transition and growth of B2Gold from a junior exploration company to a responsible international gold producer, with four operating mines producing approximately one million ounces of gold per year, along with several development and exploration projects around the world. In recognition and appreciation of his unique and important role as a founder and his invaluable contributions to the company, Johnson will be named chair emeritus of B2Gold. B2Gold

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High salinity in drinking water linked to higher blood pressure levels and increased risk of hypertension

An international group of researchers, including a University of Manitoba researcher, has shown that higher salinity in drinking water was associated with higher levels of blood pressure and a 26-percent increased risk of hypertension.

The associations were stronger in coastal populations and in studies conducted after 2000.

Groundwater – which makes up nearly half of the world’s drinking water – can become salty as rain and surface water seep into the ground and pick up minerals, said Dr. Setor Kunutsor, Evelyn Wyrzykowski Research Chair in Cardiology and a professor of internal medicine in the Max Rady College of Medicine.

In a recent study published in BMJ Global Health, Kunutsor partnered with an international group of researchers to explore whether hypertension may be linked to drinking water salinity.

“We didn’t know whether this salinity is an environmental risk factor for hypertension and heart disease,” he said. “The studies available are quite limited and the results are inconsistent. So we combined all that evidence to look for a clear pattern.”

The research team conducted a systematic literature review, gathering all studies that reported associations between drinking water salinity and cardiovascular outcomes such as high blood pressure.

They compiled 27 studies, involving more than 74,000 participants from Australia, Bangladesh, Israel, Kenya, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam. 

Climate change and rising sea levels are causing sodium levels to increase, Kunutsor said.

“Sea water is moving into fresh water,” he said. “In many coastal populations especially in low- and middle-income countries, people depend heavily on groundwater and may not have access to treated municipal water systems.” 

Kunutsor said sodium levels in developed communities typically range from 20 to 50 milligrams per litre, compared with levels of more than 200 milligrams per litre in high-sodium areas.

“Drinking-water salinity is unlikely to be a concern in developed communities like Winnipeg,” he said. “But for rural and remote communities outside of Winnipeg that depend on untreated freshwater and open water sources, that may be a cause for concern.” 

Kunutsor shared several recommendations, including:  

• Routine monitoring of sodium levels in drinking water, particularly in coastal regions and areas that rely on open water sources.
• Providing rainwater harvesting systems, which offer low-sodium alternatives.  
• Protecting freshwater wells to reduce salinity exposure.
• Integrating water-quality considerations into hypertension prevention strategies, which currently focus on diet and lifestyle.
• For clinicians in coastal regions, considering water salinity as an environmental risk factor when managing patients with hypertension and running targeted blood-pressure screening in communities affected by salinity to help identify at-risk individuals earlier. University of Manitoba

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