GOVERNMENT FUNDING & NEWS

 Federal government launches a new National Electricity Strategy to double the capacity of Canada’s electricity grid

The Government of Canada launched a new National Electricity Strategy aimed at doubling the capacity of the country’s grid by 2050.

To develop this strategy, the federal government has launched  consultations with provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples, utilities, and unions.

“With our new National Electricity Strategy, we will build at scale and speed to double our grid and power Canada strong with clean, affordable, reliable energy for all generations. When we master energy, we master our destiny,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said.

Canada’s National Electricity Strategy could deliver up to $15 billion in total energy savings by 2050 and lower total energy costs for seven in 10 Canadian households, the government.

Realizing these savings will require a willingness to use a wide range of energy – including natural gas, according to the government.

Ottawa said it intends to adjust clean electricity regulations “to provide the flexibility needed to keep energy costs for all Canadian families reliable and affordable, while reducing emissions and building the clean energy system of the future.”

This strategy will require major investments to generate more clean energy, connect fragmented electricity grids, train thousands of skilled Canadian workers, and strengthen Canadian manufacturing so more of the technologies powering our grid are made here at home, the government said.

The strategy will be guided by four pillars:

1. Build the infrastructure needed to double Canada’s electricity generation.

This will require generational investments in generation, transmission, distribution, storage and grid modernization. These new consultations will explore how to most effectively finance the build-out, to spread the costs over time to match the benefits, keeping energy affordable and our country competitive.

1. Connect Canada’s fragmented grids East-West-North through new and expanded transmission lines.

Canada’s electricity system is currently fragmented across provincial and territorial grids, costing billions of dollars in outages, duplicative infrastructure and wasted power. These consultations will tackle common barriers to interprovincial interties so we can unite our grids and deliver more reliable, affordable power to all Canadians.

1. Train, attract, and retain the talent needed to build the grid of the future.

Doubling the grid will require more than 130,000 high-skilled workers by 2050. Through these consultations, the federal government will work with industry, labour and training partners to develop solutions to train, attract and retain the talent needed to build and maintain the grid of the future.

1. Make more of the technologies and components powering our grid here at home.

As Canada builds the clean economy of the future, the government is ensuring Canadian industries can bridge to seize its opportunities. These consultations will explore how to grow domestic manufacturing capacity so that more of the components powering our grid are made in Canada.

As part of the government’s comprehensive focus on affordability, it is also expanding support for energy-saving retrofits for up to one million households through financing, grants, and complementary measures.

This includes making it easier for Canadians to transition from expensive propane, oil and electric baseboard heating to more affordable electric heat pumps.

The work of doubling Canada’s grid is already underway.

Through the Major Projects Office (MPO), the government is advancing clean electricity generation projects – including hydroelectric projects like the Taltson Hydro Expansion in the Northwest Territories and the Iqaluit Nukkiksautiit Hydro Project in Nunavut, nuclear generation projects such as Darlington New Nuclear in Ontario, clean electricity transmission lines like the North Coast Transmission Line in British Columbia, and major wind developments like Wind West in Nova Scotia.

To build more transmission intertie projects specifically, the government will refer the development of a new comprehensive Transmission InterConnect Investment Strategy to the MPO.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the new strategy.

“As electricity demand continues to rise across sectors, from manufacturing and critical minerals to AI data centres and transportation, Canada must expand our electricity supply by making major investments in electricity generation,” Bryan Detchou, senior director, natural resources, environment and sustainability at the Chamber, said in a statement.

“We also believe this is the right time to explore upgrading our existing grid by leveraging new technologies that will make the electricity we produce go further for longer,” Detchou said.

Dale Beugin, executive vice-president of the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) said in a statement that the strategy “is pointing in the right direction, but sidesteps critical issues about the future of the country’s electricity system.”

The strategy offers little clarity on the role of natural gas-fired power in the future, he said. “It focuses on supporting electrification across the economy, which will be essential for achieving net zero emissions, but raises more questions about the role of the Clean Electricity Regulations.”

Beugin said important issues that remain ambiguous or missing in the strategy include:

• Connections to the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding on energy are unclear. How the federal Clean Electricity Regulations will apply in Alberta will have implications for the policy across the country. 
• Changes to the Clean Electricity Regulations could allow additional emissions-intensive gas-powered generation that delivers reliability via peaking power, but also opens the door to long-lived, high-emissions baseload power, undermining Canada’s climate objectives. 
• The strategy emphasizes the role of natural gas in affordability but underplays the growing opportunity from cleaner sources of system flexibility (such as storage, demand response, and interties) to help deliver affordable electricity rates.
• The strategy overemphasizes nuclear power, which risks higher costs and delays in scaling up urgently-needed new power, compared to falling costs of renewables and storage. 
• It’s unclear how the federal government will create incentives for provinces and territories to create the market conditions to scale up electricity systems. Many important electricity policy levers are squarely in provincial jurisdiction.  
• The strategy is silent on Saskatchewan’s efforts to bring back coal power, in opposition to federal law and despite the emissions implications and negative impacts on affordability 
• Indigenous leadership and partnerships are critical to successful development of cleaner, bigger grids. While the strategy recognizes the importance of Indigenous rights and participation in the North, it’s imperative for governments to support and work with Indigenous partners across the country to advance reconciliation and realize the ambitions outlined in this strategy. 

Evan Pivnick, associate director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, said the strategy  includes “a worrying focus on natural gas, including proposing major changes to the Clean Electricity Regulations. Natural gas has a specific short-term role, but only after we’ve maximized clean power solutions.”

Renewables offer greater security and lower cost and, when paired with batteries and transmission lines, can address many of our energy system needs, Pivnick said in a statement.

But industry association Electricity Canada said adjusting the Clean Energy Regulations and using natural gas is important.

As the government moves to adjust the Clean Electricity Regulations, it will be critical to ensure they support the rapid, large-scale buildout required to double Canada’s grid. Clear, flexible and investment-friendly regulations will give utilities the confidence to move forward with the generation, transmission, and distribution projects Canadians need,” Electricity Canada said. Prime Minister of Canada

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Federal and Alberta governments agree to a carbon price and a new oilsands pipeline to the West Coast – if a $20-billion carbon capture and storge project proceeds

The Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta agreed to an industrial carbon price and to Alberta submitting a proposal for a new oilsands bitumen pipeline to the West Coast by July 1.

The effective carbon price will be $130 per tonne by 2040, a reduction from Ottawa’s original plan of $170 per tonne by 2030.

Alberta will introduce new regulations to set a minimum floor price for carbon credits at $60 per tonne, starting in 2030.

The federal and Alberta governments will jointly issue 75 million tonnes of carbon contracts for difference – essentially guaranteeing the carbon price for future emissions reductions – to support emissions-reduction projects, with costs shared equally between Canada and Alberta. The deal would make both governments liable for up to $600 million each.

The federal government also added new incentives, extending the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Investment Tax Credit to 2035, and extending investment tax credits for carbon capture to systems that use CCUS for enhanced oil recovery. 
The new pipeline will depend on the Oilsands Alliance’s Pathways Alliance carbon capture, utilization and storage project proceeding, the two governments agreed. The project is expected to cost up to $20 billion.

The federal government will pursue the pipeline’s designation as a project of national interest, for approval under the Building Canada Act by October 1, 2026, while ensuring all steps and decisions are fully consistent with the government’s duty to consult Indigenous Peoples and informed by the outcomes of that consultation.

Both governments also agreed to work towards doubling the electricity grid by 2050, including by expanding nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and lower-carbon forms of generation – while maintaining the overall stability of Alberta’s grid.

The governments will launch a joint Electricity Working Group to identify the projects, technologies and investments needed to achieve net-zero emissions in Alberta by 2050. This includes measures to support grid stability, modernization, and services for baseload and intermittent power sources, including renewables, storage, interties, intra-provincial transmission, nuclear and geothermal.

The governments also agreed to better enable investment for renewables and expand supply of electricity for AI and data centre projects.

B.C. Premier David Eby said in a statement: “As a country, it's time to stop rewarding bad behaviour. “It cannot be the case that the projects that get prioritized in Canada are those where a premier threatens to leave the country.”

The B.C. government’s opposition to any repeal of the North Coast tanker ban has not changed, Eby said.

Kendall Dilling, president of the Oilsands Alliance, said the alliance is committed to advancing the Pathways CCUS project “provided the necessary regulatory and fiscal terms are in place, to support the project and new oilsands growth in Canada. An industrial carbon tax only adds uncompetitive costs to industry on top of the costs of a carbon capture project." 

Coastal First Nations president and Heiltsuk Nation elected chief Marilyn Slett said the agreement “does nothing to increase the chances of a pipeline and oil tankers route to the North Coast ever becoming a reality." 

“Pushing the $130 price by 15 years means there will be no effective action to reduce oilsands emissions for a generation. This decision guarantees that oilsands emissions – which reached an all-time high in 2025 – will continue to rise year over year for at least another 15 years,” said Chris Severeson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute clean energy think tank.

"The only thing happening faster than the federal rollback of climate policies is the global renewable energy revolution that will turn all of these concessions to Big Oil into a massive lost opportunity to build a better, safer Canada,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada.

But Michael Bernstein, CEO of Clean Prosperity, said the agreement “has the potential to deliver meaningful investment in decarbonization as carbon prices escalate through the 2030s. It replaces an old policy regime that wasn’t working with a new approach that can deliver both emissions reductions and economic growth." Prime Minister of Canada

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The Government of Canada, the Government of British Columbia and LNG Canada reached agreement on enhanced investment cooperation and actions to progress closure of final items to support a potential 2026 Final Investment Decision (FID) of LNG Canada’s proposed Phase 2 expansion, which was referred to the federal Major Projects Office in September 2025. This agreement follows a decision on May 1, 2026, by LNG Canada’s joint venture participants to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in incremental funding to help finalize critical work to achieve a potential FID by the end of the year. Subject to appropriate progress, the funds would be deployed in further engineering, potential long lead item placement, progressing agreements with First Nations, finalization of commercial items across pipeline and supply chain as well as progressing construction work at LNG Canada’s marine offloading terminal. The $40-billion terminal in Kitimat, B.C., exported its first shipload of gas last June. Fed by the Coastal GasLink pipeline across northern B.C., an expansion is anticipated to double its capacity. A Phase 2 investment could position Canada as a top-five global LNG exporting nation, supporting Canada’s energy superpower ambitions. Leveraging Canada’s sustainable advantage and price competitiveness, emissions for Phase 2 are projected to be 35 percent lower than those for the world’s best-performing LNG facilities and 60 percent lower than the global average. Natural Resources Canada

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak criticized the Government of Canada’s plan to allow only 30 days for feedback on sweeping changes to major project approval rules. She argued that the reforms risk trampling on First Nations rights and reflect a “pattern of exclusion,” urging full parliamentary committee hearings with direct input from chiefs. Woodhouse Nepinak warned that without a process grounded in rights-holder engagement, the Crown will not meet its duty to consult, and “nothing’s off the table” in terms of First Nations’ response. The proposed reforms are central to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to fast-track infrastructure, including a new Alberta-to-B.C. pipeline to the West Coast. Former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna, who helped create the Impact Assessment Agency, cautioned that rushing changes could replicate the divisive outcomes seen under Stephen Harper’s government. She predicted the reforms would erode trust, spark protests and lead to lawsuits, ultimately slowing project development. The reforms would alter the current review framework by moving certain project assessments from the Impact Assessment Agency to the Canada Energy Regulator and consolidating federal decision-making. Ottawa also proposes a Crown Consultation Hub to streamline Indigenous engagement and address “consultation fatigue,” aiming for a one-year decision timelines. The Canadian Press

The federal Defense Investment Agency signed two amendments to an existing contract with Maryland-headquartered Lockheed Martin Corporation for maintenance and upgrades on the CC‑130J Hercules fleet. The first amendment, valued at US$462.5 million, will prolong in-service support for the fleet until June 2029. The second amendment, valued at an estimated US$684.3 million, will integrate the RCAF 105 upgrades to the entire fleet. The contract amendments are critical to ensuring that the Royal Canadian Air Force can continue to maintain its wide range of missions, including troop transportation, tactical airlift and aircraft maintainer training, safeguarding its capability to maintain global airlift capabilities, the Agency said. The in-service support amendment will be primarily completed by Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors at various facilities in Canada and the U.S., including Trenton, Ontario. In‑service support work is also expected to continue at the Cascade Aerospace facility in Abbotsford, B.C., and the Standard Aero facility in Winnipeg, Man. Since 2009, this contract has positioned Canadian industry well for export opportunities. This project elevates existing strengths and enables Canada to further leverage domestic expertise for national benefit, while simultaneously enhancing visibility and credibility abroad, the Agency said. Defense Investment Agency

Federal Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced a $55.7-million investment through the Strategic Response Fund in MDS Coating Technologies Corporation’s $212.9-million project. MDS is a Prince Edward Island-based aerospace coating technology company specializing in the design, development and application of nanocoatings for aircraft engines. These investments will enable the company to expand its facility and enhance its manufacturing capabilities for next-generation aerospace coating technologies. MDS’s coating technologies are engineered to improve engine durability and retain engine performance, resulting in lower maintenance costs and reduced fuel consumption. This project will strengthen MDS’s ability to meet the growing global demand for sustainable aviation products, while reinforcing Canada’s position within the global aerospace engine supply chain. The company will provide 70 student co-op opportunities over the course of the project. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced a federal investment of more than $9.3 million, through the Regional Defence Investment Initiative, to generate economic activity for Alberta businesses while strengthening Canada’s national defence and security supply chain. Funding will help six Alberta-based small and medium-sized businesses bring cutting-edge defence technologies to market, accelerate dual-use innovations, and reinforce Canada’s position as a leader in producing defence solutions. PrairiesCan

The Government of Ontario said it will issue a minimum $500-million “Resilience Bond” to fund defence projects, which would be the first of its kind in Canada. This would include the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) if it were to be located in Ontario, through an Ontario Sustainable Bond Framework. The government has identified potential interim headquarters for the DSRB through the province’s existing property portfolio at 200 Front Street West in Toronto. The government also said it would deploy its $4-billion Protect Ontario Account Investment Fund to attract capital to Canada and Ontario’s defence sector  Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver are also vying to host the DSRB. The federal government has yet to outline how the selection process will work. Govt. of Ontario

Natural Resources Canada announced over $100 million for five projects based in British Columbia that will accelerate critical mineral development in the province’s planning, development and processing capacity across the country. Through the First and Last Mile Fund, Indigenous Natural Resource Partnerships Program and the Energy Innovation Program, the federal government is supporting projects that will unlock economic opportunities and strengthen critical minerals development across British Columbia. The projects include:

• Up to $50 million in approved funding to the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority to upgrade BC Hydro’s regional transmission system in support of Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper Mine Life Extension Project near Kamloops, British Columbia.
• Up to $44.2 million in conditionally approved funding to the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority to support expanded electricity transmission capacity for major mining developments in northwest British Columbia, including Newmont’s Red Chris copper mine expansion project and Seabridge’s KSM gold mining project.
• Up to $3 million to Nano One Materials for research, development and optimization of lithium iron phosphate production, a critical input for electric vehicles, defence, aerospace and electronics. NRCan

The Government of Canada agreed to contribute $70 million toward Volta Energy Solutions’ copper foil plant in Granby, Que., after nearly three years of negotiations, The Logic reported. The company, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Solus Advanced Materials, plans to finish the construction later this year and begin producing copper foil, a crucial component of lithium batteries for electric vehicles, by March 2027. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) would not say whether Volta Energy Solutions will have to pay the contribution back. The details of the negotiations and the structure of the government’s financial contribution are confidential, ISED spokesperson Hans Parmar said. Volta previously said it expects to produce up to 57,000 tonnes of copper foil per year once it’s running at full capacity, enough for about 2.5 million electric vehicle batteries, and to support 260 jobs. The Logic

Federal Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced a $35-million federal investment, through the Strategic Response Fund, in Montreal-based Kruger Inc.’s nonwovens project at its Wayagamack Mill in Trois‑Rivières, Quebec. This will support the company’s plans to diversify its production line to include innovative, sustainable products. The project involves updating and adapting the Wayagamack Mill to manufacture plastic‑free, chemical‑free, biodegradable paper material to be used in the production of finished wipe products. This production line, the first of its kind in North America, will use Canadian natural pulp fibres and mechanical bonding instead of synthetic polymers and chemical binders. The new facility will also significantly reduce product-related greenhouse gas emissions while producing a fully biodegradable, plastic-free wipe substrate, with onsite pulp production lowering transport emissions and upgraded processes expected to reduce GHG emissions by 65 percent per tonne of product. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Labour leaders are calling on the federal government to enact legislation that would mandate employers to consult with employees and unions before they introduce artificial intelligence systems in the workplace. A number of representatives from major unions – including Unifor, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees – met with Evan Solomon, met with federal Minister of AI Evan Solomon to express concerns over the lack of worker input in Ottawa’s national AI strategy. A day later, Solomon announced that the government would create an AI and Labour Advisory Council to give workers and unions a say in shaping AI policy. Among the recommendations unions are making is to introduce new clauses in the Canada Labour Code that would compel employers to consult and be transparent with employees about what kinds of AI tools might be introduced in their workplaces so that they have a clearer understanding of if and how the technology will impact their jobs. A recent study by economists at the Brookings Institution found that AI will have an outsized impact on white-collar workers who don’t have four-year university or college degrees (usually in clerical and customer service jobs) because their career pathways to higher-wage work being disrupted by AI. The Globe and Mail

The Government of Canada is considering extending its planned social media ban for children to AI chatbots, but restricting access to artificial intelligence is proving more complicated than putting minimum age requirements on social media platforms. Culture Minister Marc Miller has previously said he was “very seriously” mulling a social media ban for kids. Three sources with knowledge of the government’s plans confirmed to The Logic that Ottawa will proceed with that restriction, and is now debating extending it to AI chatbots. At their policy convention last month, members of the Liberal party voted to set the minimum age at 16. The restrictions would be included in new legislation to regulate online harms that Miller is expected to table this year. If the proposal goes ahead, it would make Canada a pioneer in aggressively trying to restrict children’s access to artificial intelligence tools. But Michael Geist, law professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, argues that a social media ban is bad policy because it does not address the underlying problems with the platforms, evidence to date suggests it doesn’t work, and it creates its own harms. Regulation of AI chatbots is needed, but a ban leaves the genuine concerns associated with AI chatbots largely untouched, he said in a post on his website. “If governments really have no choice but to act, they should know that AI transparency, privacy protection and an enforceable duty to act responsibly would address many of the concerns associated with AI chatbots,” he said. The Logic, Michael Geist post

See also: “Banning teenagers from social media platforms won’t fix social media harms in Canada” in the April 22, 2026 Short Report.

The Government of Alberta is investing $384 million over three years to create 5,500 new apprenticeship training spaces at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) and to strengthen Alberta's skilled workforce. One of the largest investments in skilled trades training infrastructure in Alberta, the $560-million Advanced Skills Centre will add approximately 625,000 square feet to the NAIT main campus. Scheduled to open in fall 2030, it will house 29 programs in workplace-inspired training spaces and support an additional 5,500 apprentices annually in high-demand sectors, including construction, transportation, manufacturing and energy. The Advanced Skills Centre is designed to provide students with hands-on experience and direct pathways to the job market. Govt. of Alberta

The Government of British Columbia is investing $241 million over three years to train British Columbians for in-demand skilled trades jobs. The investment will immediately expand training where capacity exists and modernize programs to keep pace with industry needs. The investment will:

• double annual funding to SkilledTradesBC from $107 million to $214 million by 2028-29.
• create as many as 5,000 new trades training seats in 2026 at public postsecondary institutions and non-profit union trainers, helping more people enter training and move onto job sites sooner.
• reduce wait lists for high-demand trades by expanding program capacity.
• increase per-seat funding across apprenticeship programs that lead to SkilledTradesBC credentials, helping trainers manage rising costs for equipment, curriculum and instruction.
• establish the Look West: Workforce Readiness Initiative, a strategy designed to improve access to training in rural and remote communities, which responds directly to employer needs.
• expand skilled trades certification, starting with tower and mobile crane operators. Govt. of B.C.

B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix said four new wind farms will strengthen the province's energy sovereignty at a time of rising costs and uncertainty. Dix said three projects in the province's northern region and one near West Kelowna will not only generate enough electricity to power 350,000 homes but also keep energy affordable, while also drawing $4.3 billion in private investment. Two of the new wind farms in northern B.C. are in Dawson Creek, while the third is in Taylor. The project near West Kelowna is in the Nicola Valley. Dix said all four are majority-owned by First Nations, whose ownership stakes total $2 billion. They are scheduled to be operational in 2032 and 2033. The Canadian Press

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced a combined investment of over $20 million for 14 businesses across Windsor-Essex to help these companies to adopt advanced technologies, enhance competitiveness and seize new growth opportunities. For example, Service Mold + Aerospace Inc. will receive just over $6 million to scale production capabilities through the adoption of new equipment. Ennova Facades will receive a $4.5-million investment to support equipment and manufacturing modernization as part of a facility expansion to advance its high-performance building solutions, launch three new innovative products, expand into new markets and strengthen competitiveness. FedDev Ontario

Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan) announced an investment of over $17.3 million in eight businesses across British Columbia’s tech sector. These investments will accelerate the adoption and commercialization of AI and quantum technologies and help B.C. businesses grow. The businesses include Human in Motion Robotics, which is receiving a $3- million investment to help commercialize a personal mobility exoskeleton by integrating AI into its core technology, filing for intellectual property protection, and scaling manufacturing for use beyond clinical settings into home and community environments. This investment will improve health outcomes for people with spinal cord injuries and other neurological conditions. Dream Photonics, a semiconductor company that makes advanced optics to power next-generation communications, computing and sensors, will receive over $1.1 million to purchase cutting-edge manufacturing equipment and hire skilled workers to establish domestic pilot manufacturing of the optical interconnects that enable AI and quantum chips to communicate. PacifiCan

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announced a $12.4-million federal investment in 14 projects that will strengthen the forest sector in British Columbia. These projects will advance new low-carbon wood technologies; expand the use of mass timber in construction; support Indigenous groups and forest sector businesses; increase the capacity of manufacturers to add more value to wood products; and diversify Canada’s export markets for forest products. NRCan’s forest sector transformation programs – including the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation program, the Green Construction through Wood Program, the Indigenous Forestry Initiative and the Global Forest Leadership Program – provided support for these projects. NRCan

Prairies Economic Development Canada (PrairiesCan) announced $6.8 million in federal funding through the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative (RAII) for five projects in Alberta. The funding includes a non-repayable $3 million to the University of Alberta for its Canadian AI Compute Vault initiative to strengthen Canada’s sovereignty in artificial intelligence by delivering secure, high performance compute infrastructure and expertise that accelerates the commercialization of AI technologies. The project will provide businesses and innovation ecosystem partners with trusted access to advanced cloud environments, enabling the development and deployment of AI solutions in priority areas including defence, security, dual-use, deep tech and other strategically significant sectors. The RAII provides $200 million to help businesses bring new AI technologies to market and speed up adoption in critical sectors such as agriculture, clean technology, healthcare, and manufacturing. PrairiesCan

The Government of British Columbia is providing nearly $6 million for six clean-technology projects under its second targeted call for clean energy innovation. The six projects are making technological advancements in key areas of electricity management, heat pump technology and fleet electrification. These projects will support emissions reduction and increase the availability and affordability of upgrading to cleaner energy solutions for people throughout the province. One of these projects is being led by Blueforce Electrification Technologies, whose new technology aims to electrify medium and heavy-duty fleets where no viable commercial electric vehicle alternatives exist. Government is providing nearly $1.3 million to support the project and its goal is to transform internal combustion engine vehicles into zero-emission and grid interactive vehicles. The fleets can include those operating in public services, such emergency response, health and transport. Govt. of B.C.

The Government of British Columbia is providing more than $5.3 million to support testing of innovative health and life sciences products that have the potential to revolutionize health care and achieve better health outcomes for patients. The funding is provided Through the Integrated Marketplace’s Health Testbed, the provincial government, and Pacific Economic Development Canada. The funding includes:

• Vancouver-based 3C Therapeutics and Variational AI will receive more than $823,000 to apply generative AI to accelerate the discovery of degrader-antibody conjugates for the treatment of cancer. If successful, the project will help 3C move its treatments closer to clinical trials.
• Providence Health Care Ventures and NZ Technologies will receive $350,000 to test HoverCore, an AI-powered human-machine interface platform that allows clinicians, patients and staff to control digital screens and shared systems throughout the hospital using simple hand motions, without touching shared surfaces. 
• C.-based companies Quartech, Daric Clouding Solutions, CGI and Provincial Laboratory Medicine Services will receive $912,000 to continue developing a digital pathology system, building on a pilot launched in July 2024. Govt. of B.C.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announced an investment of more than $4.5 million through the Clean Energy for Rural and Remote Communities program to deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy solutions in British Columbia. This investment will advance projects that:

• Generate clean electricity, fuel and heat from water, biomass, solar and other renewable sources, reducing diesel use, creating revenue and strengthening energy reliability and affordability in rural, remote and Indigenous communities.
• Provide training for communities to plan, build and operate their own clean energy systems, creating local jobs, building skills and supporting long-term energy independence.
• Lower financial and market risks, accelerating project readiness and private sector investment. NRCan

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) announced nearly $2.4 million in research funding to help deepen the understanding of the social, cultural, and economic impacts of plastic pollution on Indigenous communities. This initiative, launched in partnership with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, will support six Indigenous-led and co-led projects over two years. In addition to examining the effects of plastic pollution on wildlife, the environment and human health, these six projects will provide training and mentorship opportunities for students and emerging scholars, helping to build capacity at the intersection of Indigenous Knowledge systems, social sciences and environmental research. The project results will support Canada’s comprehensive plan to reduce plastic waste and pollution, help inform decision-making and guide future science. ECCC

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) announced an investment of more than $2.2 million to help five North Bay and area businesses respond to global trade pressures and build for the future. Provided through FedNor and the Government of Canada’s Regional Tariff Response Initiative, these investments will help bring several important projects to life. For example, the funding will help Premier Mining Products Inc. (receiving $1 million) and Pilot Diamond Ltd. (receiving 969,500) boost productivity, diversify, expand into new markets, strengthen supply chains and grow domestic trade so they can stay competitive and resilient in a shifting global landscape. FedNor

The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) announced federal investments totaling $2.15 million, through the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, to support four businesses on Nova Scotia’s South Shore. These investments will support lobster processors as they modernize operations, adopt new technologies, expand capacity and improve processes, helping strengthen productivity, supply chains and market reach. ACOA

The Government of British Columbia is providing a $2-million grant to FPInnovations to lay the groundwork to help support the development of economic hubs intended to support and grow the forestry sector. The “Make More in B.C.” project will support B.C.’s wood products, from mass timber to the pulp and paper products most sought after in the market, globally and domestically. Economic hubs are at the heart of the Make More in B.C initiative, fostering regional collaboration, connecting local manufacturers with local contractors and First Nations partners, unlocking fibre and forging new opportunities. The government will advance and champion the Make More in B.C. project by providing data and co-ordination support to help industry collaborators reduce barriers, find new partners and leverage federal or provincial supports where possible. Govt. of B.C.

The Federal Economic Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor) announced an investment of over $1.78 million aimed at supporting paid youth internships across Northern Ontario. The investment includes more than $1.72 million in Nord-Aski Regional Economic Development Corporation (REDC) to support the continued delivery of the youth internship program for small and medium-sized enterprises across Northern Ontario. Administered by Nord-Aski REDC in partnership with 19 Community Futures Development Corporations, the four-year program will generate 60 internship positions in priority sectors. FedNor

Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan) announced an investment of over $1.4 million for the Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium of Canada (EMC) to help B.C. manufacturers adapt, expand and reach new domestic and international markets. The investment, made through PacifiCan’s Regional Innovation Ecosystems program, will support EMC’s three year B.C. Manufacturing Resilience and Support Program. EMC’s B.C. program will offer workshops, hands-on assessments and tailored export support to help manufacturers improve productivity, prepare for new markets and strengthen supply chains. Activities include in-plant productivity and trade readiness assessments, a B.C. supply chain and export forum, and the launch of a provincial supply chain mapping platform. The program is expected to support more than 100 manufacturers across British Columbia. PacifiCan

The Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario are investing nearly $1 million through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership to support local projects that turn innovative research into market-ready solutions for farmers and food processors. This initiative delivers on the government's plan to protect Ontario's agri-food workers and businesses by making strategic investments in cutting-edge solutions that will ensure farmers have access to the tools and technologies to support modern farming and help the sector stay resilient and competitive in the global market. Part of the Ontario Agri-food Research Initiative (OAFRI) and led by Bioenterprise Canada Corporation, the OAFRI Commercialization stream aims to bridge the gap between research and the marketplace for Ontario-based organizations. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

The Government of British Columbia is inviting the life sciences sector  to provide technical input about a potential new patent box tax incentive that could grow jobs in the sector and boost intellectual property creation in the province. A patent box is a tax incentive that reduces the amount of tax paid on income derived from eligible IP. It can include income earned through licensing fees or royalties associated with patented innovations and other qualifying intellectual property. The government is seeking feedback through an online survey hosted on GovTogetherBC until June 24, 2026. B.C. is home to the fastest-growing life sciences sector, with more than 2,000 companies employing 26,000 people. Govt. of B.C.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) announced a renewed partnership with Carleton University so it can continue operating the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. Since launching in 2022, the Knowledge Hub has solidified itself as a centre for research, data and insights on Black entrepreneurship ecosystems in Canada. Carleton University has appointed John Nelson as the new executive director of the Knowledge Hub. He has worked in a variety of roles at Carleton over 15 years. In addition, he is an ambassador with the Ottawa Board of Trade and a coach with the Black Coaches Collective. The Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub is a key pillar of the Government of Canada’s Black Entrepreneurship Program (BEP). The BEP also offers financing through the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, and advice, business training and networking opportunities by organizations funded under the Black Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Fund. ISED

RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

The Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat announced over $168 million in research funding. Nearly $140 million will support 165 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs. This funding will allow researchers and their research teams in the strategic sectors of health, natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities disciplines to advance their expertise in areas such as sustainability management, educational psychology, neurodegeneration and environmental geography, among others. As a Canada Research Chairs Program partner, the Canada Foundation for Innovation is also committing over $5.8 million to support 25 research infrastructure projects at 16 institutions, through its John R. Evans Leaders Fund. Nearly $23 million will be distributed through the New Frontiers in Research Fund’s Exploration stream, which supports high-risk, high-reward and interdisciplinary research. Some of the 92 funded projects include developing the next generation of wearable health sensors, decolonizing artificial intelligence for health equity in Indigenous and Black communities, and transforming Arctic security. Tri-Agency Institutional Program Secretariat

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) announced a federal investment of $29.2 million (proposed in the 2024 Fall Economic Statement) in Talent Innovation Canada (TICAN), a new, industry-led, national not-for-profit organization that will connect top research and development talent from Canadian universities with innovative companies. This initiative will support high-growth companies by placing top students in high-impact R&D roles, strengthening Canada’s innovation workforce and supporting long-term economic growth. TICAN will work with Canadian firms to identify R&D challenges to address industry needs in four strategic sectoral areas:

• mobility
• clean growth
• biomanufacturing and life sciences.
• microelectronics and information and communications technology.

TICAN will then match firms with graduate, PhD and post-doctoral talent from leading Canadian institutions to solve challenges in these areas. Embedding highly skilled talent within firms will support the development of new technologies, speed up the transition from research to market and help increase the amount of Canadian intellectual property, ISED said. ISED

Canadian entrepreneur, philanthropist and astronaut Mark Pathy donated $15 million to Concordia University to launch the Mark Pathy Space Institute at the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science. The Institute will advance research, innovation and student training in space engineering, positioning Concordia at the forefront of Canada’s rapidly evolving space sector. “Canada has the technology, expertise and industrial base to play a much larger role in the global space sector,” Pathy said. The Mark Pathy Space Institute will serve as a hub for research, student training and industry partnerships, supported by Pathy’s donation of an off-campus testing facility for engine testing, hardware verification and other essential technical experimentation. The Institute will also provide staffing, technical operations and research initiatives across space systems, navigation and human spaceflight. This integrated hub will be the only university environment in Canada where all four domains – robotics, propulsion, human space health and sustainability – co-exist within a single research ecosystem. It will integrate launch capability, advanced space technology development and specialized training under one academic roof. Pathy, CEO and chairman of Montreal-based Mavrik Corp., flew as a mission specialist on Axiom Mission 1, the first fully private mission to the International Space Station, in collaboration with NASA and SpaceX. Concordia University

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Environment and Climate Change Canada announced $8.6 million in funding for 17 projects that will advance scientific knowledge and inform the development of evidence-based policies and regulations on plastics. These projects will generate new scientific evidence on how plastic pollution moves through ecosystems, accumulates in wildlife and humans, and can be detected, mitigated or prevented across diverse environments. Together, the projects will lead to innovative monitoring technologies, community-led research frameworks, exposure and toxicity data and models that clarify the fate, transport and health impacts of plastics – from soils and farms to cities, wetlands, wastewater systems and Indigenous communities. NSERC

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced $5.4 million to renew support for patient- and community-driven health research in Northwest Territories and Yukon through March 2028, while highlighting an ongoing investment of $4.8 million that was provided to support a similar research effort in Nunavut from 2024 to 2029. These investments are provided through the CIHR under Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research as part of an extension of funding for community-oriented research hubs known as SUPPORT Units from coast to coast to coast, with provinces and territories matching CIHR contributions. This funding enables the SUPPORT Units to offer research and training programs as well as facilitate community engagement in their regions. CIHR

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council announced announce the first recipients of the Dimensions Canada grants, a funding initiative that helps postsecondary institutions strengthen their equity, diversity and inclusion practices. In this inaugural competition, $1.1 million has been awarded to 11 projects developed collaboratively across 28 institutions to help build a more inclusive and equitable research environment nationwide. These grants support the creation and sharing of evidence‑based tools and resources to address systemic barriers across the research community and drive meaningful cultural change across Canada’s research ecosystem. NSERC

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) announced the newest addition to its suite of prizes – the Geoffrey Hinton Prizes. These awards will recognize Discovery Grants applicants whose creative application of artificial intelligence has generated, or is poised to generate, significant impact. The prizes also celebrate and honour Hinton’s pioneering work in artificial intelligence, which has revolutionized science, engineering and daily life, and ultimately led to his recognition as a Nobel Prize laureate in Physics. The Geoffrey Hinton prizes are intended to accelerate discovery and innovation in the natural sciences and engineering (NSE) by recognizing and supporting early-stage researchers from any NSE field who are leveraging AI in novel, innovative, and impactful ways. Each year, up to three prizes, valued at $100,000 each, will be awarded. Information about eligibility, application instructions  and the review process will be posted by August 2026. NSERC

The Government of Ontario is investing $5 million through the fourth round of the province’s Life Sciences Innovation Fund (LSIF) to help 10 companies, each receiving $500,000, develop and launch made-in-Ontario medical technologies. Advancing the goals of Ontario’s Life Sciences Strategy, the LSIF helps companies across the province turn breakthrough discoveries and prototypes into real-world health solutions and unlock new commercial opportunities to bring innovative Ontario-made medical technologies to market. To date, the LSIF has generated nearly $63 million in private-sector co-investments while creating and retaining almost 1,400 good-paying jobs, the government said. Govt. of Ontario

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced an investment of nearly $4.8 million from the Government of Canada and partner organizations to support the Health System Impact Program – an initiative of the CIHR that’s being delivered in partnership with Michael Smith Health Research BC, Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation, and health system partners across the country. The Health System Impact Program places the next generation of health researchers directly inside health system organizations – such as government agencies, hospitals and community organizations – so they can help solve real-world challenges while gaining hands-on experience. Fellows receive mentorship and leadership training that prepares them to drive meaningful improvements in health policy, services and outcomes for Canadians. The funding will support 42 new Health System Impact Fellows. These researchers are working on practical solutions to issues that matter to Canadians, including:

• Using technology to help older adults manage their medication safely at home.
• Improving mental health supports for youth in schools.
• Finding the best ways for people to manage their heart failure medication.
• Evaluating ways to reduce administrative burden for family physicians. CIHR

The Ocean Startup Project launched the second round of Amplify, a national commercialization initiative making up to $25,000 available per startup to help Canadian ocean founders move from product validation to market traction. Designed for pilot-ready startups, Amplify supports companies at one of the most important stages of growth: when promising ocean technologies need to be tested, demonstrated and adopted in real-world conditions. The initiative helps startups run commercial testing and pilot projects, deploy technologies with qualified customers or strategic investors, and turn validation into sales and scaling opportunities. Amplify is delivered through a national network of partner organizations that connect startups to challenge, accelerator and early adopter programs across Canada. A total of $100,000 is available through this round of Amplify. Funding can support essential commercialization costs such as technology deployment, materials, equipment and travel for field trials. Applications and funding will be awarded on an ongoing basis from May to December 2026, or until funding runs out. Amplify is open to Canadian-incorporated ocean startups that are seven years old or less, have 50 employees or fewer, and are participating in a challenge, accelerator or early adopter program with an Amplify Partner. Learn more here. Ocean Startup Project

CMC Microsystems, which manages FABrIC, a Government of Canada Strategic Response Fund initiative to advance domestic capabilities in advanced semiconductor design and manufacturing, announced an over $10.7-million investment for 11 industry-led projects across Canada that tackle those demands. Six of the projects are in Quebec, four in Ontario and one in British Columbia. Launched in October 2025, this Challenge call focused on Edge-AI, including edge computing, edge sensors, and AI connectivity as well as Ocean Marine Internet of Things devices. It generated 64 expressions of interest from across the country. This second funding round reinforces Canada’s leadership position in the growing market for optical connections to reduce power demand in data centres, CMC Microsystems said. CMC Microsystems

Saskatoon-based Vendasta announced a partnership with Italiaonline, Italy’s largest internet company, to deploy Vendasta’s AI-driven employee platform, MARiO, to over 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Italy. Vendasta’s MARiO platform, which provides AI workforce solutions such as answering phones, booking appointments and managing customer relations, is designed to remove the barriers small businesses face in adopting AI tools due to cost and complexity. Vendasta recently received $1.4 million from the federal government’s Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative to support its mission of democratizing AI for small businesses. Vendasta plans to enhance MARiO’s capabilities with additional features like automated WhatsApp and email campaigns. Startup Ecosystem Canada

Former Salesforce AI and sustainability manager Boris Gamazaychikov and Hugging Face climate scientist Sasha Luccioni founded a research and advisory firm focused on demystifying and managing the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence. The new Montreal-based organization, Sustainable AI Group, will support sustainability professionals at companies that are using AI for day-to-day processes but struggling to measure the potential impact on their emissions and water consumption, among other concerns. Luccioni, the startup’s chief scientific officer, was one of the first to call attention to AI’s outsized energy consumption in her role as AI and climate lead at Hugging Face, an open source software community that hosts code for machine learning and other AI applications. Their first focus will be on sectors where AI is reaching mainstream maturity and employees and investors are asking for more information about the ethics and sustainability policies in place to manage the technology. Trellis

Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) will soon get access to OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence model for cybersecurity testing after senior federal government officials and company staff met in Ottawa, according to two sources familiar with the matter. San Francisco-based OpenAI released its latest model, called GPT-5.5, in April with strict guardrails for the public. The company also has a more permissive version called GPT-5.5-Cyber that can be used to hunt for and fix vulnerabilities in software. OpenAI is rolling it out to companies and other institutions through what it calls its “trusted access” program. Experts at the CSE, the country’s main cryptological and cybersecurity agency, will be able to use the model to identify flaws in software related to critical infrastructure. OpenAI will expand access to Canadian industry over time, according to the sources. The ability for bad actors to use powerful AI models to assist with hacking is a growing concern for governments, regulators and financial institutions. Anthropic, an OpenAI rival, ignited these worries in April when it released details of its latest model, Claude Mythos Preview, which it said was far more adept at finding software vulnerabilities than previous versions. Anthropic did not release the model publicly, but is granting access to companies to test their own systems and shore up defences. The Globe and Mail

Ontario’s new small modular reactors and planned large nuclear power plants merit a careful, transparent and independent public review, says environmental lawyer Mark Mattson, president of Swim Drink Fish Canada and founder of Ontario Waterkeeper. “This is not an argument for or against nuclear power in principle. It is a case for due diligence: a clear‑eyed assessment of costs, risks, alternatives and governance before committing the province to infrastructure that will shape Ontario’s energy system for generations,” he wrote on his substack. Ontarians are still servicing the significant public debt associated with existing nuclear facilities, while also planning for the long‑term management of radioactive waste, Mattson said. Under federal nuclear liability legislation, industry liability in the event of a serious accident is capped, he noted. While such events are unlikely, their potential consequences – particularly for drinking‑water sources – are severe, he said. “It is reasonable for the public to ask how risks are distributed between private operators and the public, and whether current arrangements reflect societal expectations.” Ontario’s nuclear plants require large water withdrawals and discharge heated effluent back into receiving waters, such as Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Even when permitted, thermal and chemical discharges can affect local aquatic ecosystems. Ongoing monitoring and enforcement are essential, and a broader review could assess cumulative impacts over time, Mattson said. Mark Mattson on substack

ArcelorMittal Exploitation Minière Canada (AMEM) was sentenced by the Court of Québec to pay a fine of $100 million, after pleading guilty to 100 counts of violating the Fisheries Act. The total fine is the highest ever imposed in Canada under the Fisheries Act. The amount of $99,999,900 will be directed to the Government of Canada’s Environmental Damages Fund and will support projects that have a positive impact on Canada’s natural environments. In addition to the fine, the court ordered AMEM to reimburse the cost of the investigation, an amount of nearly $250,000. The court also ordered AMEM to produce a detailed action plan specifying, among other things, effluent management measures for the Mont-Wright and Fire Lake mining complexes, as well as measures connected to mine drainage at the Mont-Wright complex. The charges stem from several investigations launched by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) enforcement officers. These charges relate to the deposits of deleterious substances by the Mont-Wright mining complex and the Fire Lake mine into several streams and lakes frequented by fish in the Fermont region of Quebec. The investigations, which began in 2018, revealed that AMEM illegally deposited or permitted the deposit of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish or in any place where there was a risk of these substances entering such water, in violation of subsection 36(3) of the Fisheries Act. The incidents took place between May 2014 and May 2022. ECCC

Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.'s nuclear business drove a 34-percent year-over-year jump in profits last quarter, as the engineering company banks on the technology to seize on soaring demand for energy-hungry AI data centres. The firm's nuclear division now accounts for a quarter of total revenue versus 15 percent two years ago, said CEO Ian Edwards. Preliminary work is now underway at Ontario's Pickering nuclear power station after AtkinsRéalis and Aecon Group Inc. signed a $2.1-billion contract for a life extension on four reactors last year. Money is also rolling in from Romania, where AtkinsRéalis  secured a deal in 2025 to extend the life of a reactor at the Cernavoda nuclear plant – after winning a contract the year before to build two new multibillion-dollar reactors there. In March, the company announced it was teaming up with Nvidia to ramp up deployment of nuclear-powered artificial intelligence factories, specialized data centres built for massive AI workloads. The Canadian Press

Montreal-based nuclear company AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. announced it signed a strategic alliance agreement with Indiana-headquartered First American Nuclear whereby AtkinsRéalis will act as the exclusive engineering, procurement and construction management provider for EAGL‑1 small modular reactor projects in North America. Work has already begun on the task orders, and the agreement contemplates services worth up to $250 million over the first five years. Under the first task orders, AtkinsRéalis will prepare procedures and policies required to do design work, such as a quality program and engineering procedures. It will also undertake the conceptual design for the plant and review the design of the nuclear steam supply system. EAGL-1 is the only U.S. nuclear reactor design cooled by lead-bismuth, a liquid metal alloy that has been used in successful nuclear systems abroad for decades. The unique properties of lead-bismuth enable a simpler, more compact reactor design with fewer components and reduced complexity. AtkinsRéalis served as the architect-engineer on Ontario's Darlington New Nuclear Project alliance team since 2023. AtkinsRéalis

Vancouver-based General Fusion’s CEO Greg Twinney is taking the company public on NASDAQ, potentially as soon as next month. Speaking with Axios national energy correspondent, Amy Harder, at Web Summit Vancouver, Twinney said that despite the long-running joke that “nuclear fusion is always 30 years away, and will remain that way,” he believes an operational nuclear fusion powerplant could be up and running by 2035. Twinney said the company’s choice to go public via de-SPAC – a process where a privately held company merges with a shell company that is already public – has enabled General Fusion to secure $100 million of pipe capital upon de-SPACing with partner Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. BetaKit

An emissions report LNG Canada filed to the BC Energy Regulator details operational issues at the plant in March as it continued to surpass the amount of natural gas it is allowed to burn off through flaring. The document, obtained by University of Victoria air quality researcher Laura Minet under freedom of information proceedings, said a crack developed on the plant's warm/wet flare tip on February 18, followed by another five days later. Work to replace that component is set to begin in mid-June. In the meantime, gas that would have gone through that flare tip is being diverted to a spare one, which the report said was the largest source of flaring by volume during March, at 16.7 million cubic metres. LNG Canada, based in Kitimat, B.C., also wrote in the report that during March 2026, the acid gas incinerator on one of two production trains was off-line for the whole month for an extended maintenance outage. That piece of equipment is part of the pre-treatment process, where gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide are minimized. Meanwhile, the average volume of cold/dry flares throughout March was three times the amount allowed under LNG Canada's permit. And for the storage/loading flare, it was almost seven times higher. "The regulator should be holding LNG Canada accountable to its permits and if LNG Canada is not able to meet those permits then it should issue a stop-work order until it fixes the problem with the flare tip and can operate within the conditions of its permit," said Tracey Saxby, executive director at My Sea to Sky in Squamish, B.C., the site of the under-construction Woodfibre LNG project. The Canadian Press

Vancouver-based Moment Energy announced it is building the world's largest battery repurposing facility in Vancouver over the next six weeks, which the company said marks a major step forward in scaling domestic energy storage infrastructure and the fastest in the world to scale battery manufacturing. The new facility, expected to be complete and fully operational by the end of June 2026, will significantly expand Moment Energy's manufacturing footprint in North America, enabling the company to meet rapidly increasing demand from data centres, industrial customers and utilities facing mounting pressure on power availability. As power demand accelerates, energy storage adoption has become critical to grow. Moment Energy is addressing this challenge by repurposing EV batteries already on North American roads, transforming them into cost-effective, rapidly deployable energy storage systems. Moment Energy

Calgary-based data centre platform eStruxture Data Centers, announced that New Jersey-headquartered CoreWeave Inc. signed as anchor tenant for Phase 1 of CAL-3, eStruxture's new flagship facility in the Calgary region. CAL-3 is a 90-megawatt facility in Rocky View County northwest of Calgary, engineered for the high-density power and cooling demands of modern AI workloads. CoreWeave signed on for a portion of the capacity as anchor tenant for Phase 1. CoreWeave selected the site for its operational capabilities and Alberta's growing position as a destination for global digital infrastructure investment. Scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, CAL-3 represents eStruxture’s more than $1 billion in investment in Alberta’s digital future. The facility pairs eStruxture's carrier-neutral, high-density infrastructure with the power and reliability that is required to deploy GPU (graphics processing units) clusters at scale, which the company said makes it ideal for the training, inference, and generative AI workloads defining the next era of computing. eStruxture Data Centers

California-based secure messaging service Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption, is warning it would withdraw from Canada if asked to compromise its users’ privacy under Bill C-22, Ottawa’s proposed lawful access legislation. The bill would require electronic service providers to develop and maintain the technical capabilities necessary to enable police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to effectively obtain communications and information for investigations. Udbhav Tiwari, Signal’s vice-president of strategy and global affairs, told The Globe and Mail that the company has deep concerns about measures in the bill, including its potential to introduce security vulnerabilities. Tiwari said that Signal “would rather pull out of the country than be compelled to compromise on the privacy promises we have made to our users.” He expressed fears that Bill C-22, which is currently being scrutinized by a House of Commons committee, could threaten encryption. Tiwari also warned changes to systems required under the bill could make private messaging services a potential target for cyberattacks. Signal has millions of Canadian users and is used for secure communication by journalists, dissidents, government agencies, private citizens and politicians. Meanwhile, virtual private network service NordVPN and Toronto-VPN provider Windscribe also warned they could pull out of Canada over Bill C-22 if the bill requires a company to compromise its privacy protections. The Globe and Mail

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in collaboration with Defense Research and Development Canada, is looking to send autonomous drones and vehicles along the U.S.-Canada border this fall, testing which products can stream surveillance video and sensor data between the two countries using commercial 5G networks. A new DHS call for participants frames the experiment, known as ACE-CASPER, as a multiday exercise “simulating a national emergency response scenario,” with drones and ground vehicles relaying live feeds to a bi-national command-and-control center as they cross the border. Vehicle autonomy, the document notes, is secondary to its primary aim: demonstrating “resilient, persistent 5G communications.” Scheduled for November, the tests would be the first joint U.S.-Canada cross-border technology experiment along their shared border in nearly a decade. While couched in public safety, search and rescue, and emergency response, DHS describes many of the capabilities the experiment will exercise in martial terms, asking vendors to demonstrate, for instance, the ability of autonomous vehicles to gather “real-time battlefield intelligence.” Wired

Brampton, Ont.-headquartered MDA Space Ltd. inaugurated its new high-volume satellite manufacturing facility in Montreal, marking a defining milestone in the company’s growth as a satellite prime contractor. The 185,000-square-foot expansion was completed in under two years. One of the world’s largest and most advanced satellite manufacturing facilities in its class, the new facility doubles the company’s manufacturing floor space, providing MDA Space the capacity and capability to meet the growing global demand for advanced satellite constellations. The facility is specially designed to simultaneously and continuously assemble, integrate and test multiple MDA AURORATM satellites, the company’s flagship line of digital satellite products. The new facility builds the operational foundation required to take on and deliver constellation programs and up to 400 satellites per year, MDA Space said. MDA Space

VC, PRIVATE INVESTMENT & ACQUISITIONS

Canada’s venture capital flows overwhelmingly into housing rather than productivity-enhancing ventures, says economist and policy professional Charles Lammam, senior fellow at the Montreal Economic Institute. In 2000, investment in machinery, equipment and intellectual property – key drivers of productivity – stood at 8.3 percent of GDP, while residential structures were at 4.3 percent, he said in a LinkedIn post. By 2024, those positions reversed. Over the same period, machinery and equipment investment almost halved relative to GDP, while housing nearly doubled. Between 2018 and 2023, Canada dedicated an average of 8.3 percent of GDP to housing investment – the highest among 35 advanced nations – and nearly double the U.S. rate. Almost one-fifth of our residential investment isn’t actually investment, but rather “transactional churn” (money for realtor commissions, legal fees and transfer taxes) that creates zero new productive capital, Lammam noted. Since 2001, labour productivity in residential construction fell cumulatively by 37.3 percent. “The sector is becoming less efficient at producing output even as it consumes a growing share of Canada’s capital and credit,” he said. Federal banking regulations make mortgage lending significantly more profitable than commercial lending, he pointed out. “Combined with the unlimited principal residence capital gains exemption, we’ve structured our financial and tax systems to ensure that capital flows toward bedrooms rather than the investments that drive long-term prosperity,” Lammam said. Charles Lammam LinkedIn post

InBC Investment Corp. and Simon Fraser University are partnering to create an SFU Innovates Venture Fund, aimed at creating new high-quality jobs by accelerating the growth of innovative B.C. companies built on SFU research and discoveries. The new fund is supported by $7.5 million from InBC and $7.5 million from SFU, with the university seeking investments and philanthropic gifts to raise an additional $5 million to grow the fund to $20 million. The new fund’s resources will be invested in early-stage innovative B.C. companies based on technologies developed by SFU researchers, students and alumni. It will prioritize life sciences, deep tech, cleantech and other sectors in which it sees significant economic potential. It’s the second such fund partnership from InBC, which in March announced  a partnership with the University of British Columbia for a fund with a $40-million target. Govt. of B.C.

British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is closing two global stock-picking strategies that oversee about $4.3 billion, as it contends with a contracting pool of publicly listed firms. The pension fund manager is retiring two internally managed global strategies focused on thematic and fundamental equities, BCI said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. The strategies, Global Active Thematic Equities and Global Active Fundamental Equities, make up about 7.2 percent of BCI’s public equities portfolio. “The opportunity set for active fundamental stock selection in global developed equities has reduced materially – fewer listed companies, growth companies staying private for much longer, higher index concentration and a narrower path to alpha,” Daniel Garant, BCI’s global head of capital markets and credit investments, said in the statement. Financial Post

Brookfield Corporation is combining its insurance and wealth businesses, expanding its offerings to the growing population of retirees, and giving its insurers more access to capital, the company said in an earnings report. The move builds on Brookfield’s conversion of its listed private business entity earlier this year and the progress made exploring similar initiatives with the company’s listed infrastructure and energy vehicles, said Nick Goodman, president of Brookfield. Brookfield’s asset management businesses bought $2 billion in SpaceX shares ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering, about $1 billion of which is owned by the Brookfield parent company, the report said. Brookfield Corporation

Montreal-based Inovia teamed up with Toronto-headquartered Northleaf Capital Partners to launch the Discovery fund by Inovia x Northleaf, a platform designed to accelerate the next generation of Canadian venture firms and founders. The size of the fund wasn’t disclosed. Since 2016, Inovia and Northleaf have co-invested across 13 primary, direct and secondary transactions totaling approximately $177 million, reflecting a shared focus on investing in Canadian tech that underpins the launch of Discovery. The partnership combines 40 years of venture experience built on Inovia’s direct investing and early-stage venture expertise with Northleaf’s disciplined approach to fund investing. With more than 350 professionals across both organizations, the platform will support high-conviction pre-seed and seed opportunities, primarily in Canada, through capital, firm-building guidance, portfolio construction expertise and access to a global network of founders, operators and co-investors. Inovia

Venture firm Thrive Capital invested US$100 million in Shopify to bolster Shopify’s push into AI-driven commerce tools for merchants. Thrive, which has also invested in OpenAI, Stripe and SpaceX, is one of a handful of VC firms that are investing in public companies as well as private ones amid an initial public offering slowdown. Thrive’s investment comes after Shopify rolled out access to AI-powered shopping to millions of merchants. Yahoo!Finance

Québec City-based telecom software startup Gaiia raised US$40 million in a Series B funding round. The all-equity, all-primary minority investment was led by U.S. private equity firm JMI Equity – which has backed Canadian tech companies such as Clio and PointClickCare – with participation from Montréal’s Inovia Capital. JMI Equity will also take a board seat as part of the deal, which closed in April. Gaiia is a spinout of Oxio, a Montreal-based internet service provider that sold its telecommunications operations to Cogeco Connexion in 2023. Following the transaction, Oxio became Gaiia’s first customer (but Oxio is not a Gaiia shareholder). Gaiia offers a wide range of services, such as workflow automation, customer relationship management, and a field service app. BetaKit

Quantum computing startup Nord Quantique Inc. raised US$30-million in March from U.S. fund-management giant Fidelity in a deal valuing the Sherbrooke, Que.-based technology developer at US$1.4-billion, three sources familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail. Nord Quantique was spun out of the Institut quantique at Université de Sherbrooke in 2020. The company, led by physicist Julien Camirand Lemyre, follows D-Wave Quantum Inc., founded in B.C. but now based in Florida; Toronto-based Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc.; and Vancouver’s Photonic Inc. in achieving billion-dollar-plus valuations. Canada is an early leader in a global race to develop quantum computers, which derive their power by tapping into the peculiar properties of subatomic particles. The machines are expected to someday solve tasks out of reach for the world’s most advanced computers, opening new applications in financial forecasting, machine learning and drug and material discovery. The Globe and Mail

Vancouver-based Top Down Ventures,  a venture capital firm focused on early-stage software and AI companies serving the managed service provider market (MSP), announced the final close of its Founders Fund I at US$28 million. The fund held its first close in October 2024 and completed its final close in April 2026. Founders Fund I is the first institutional venture fund dedicated exclusively to early-stage MSP software and AI companies. The fund has attracted over 100 limited partners, the majority of whom are founders, operators and executives from across the MSP ecosystem. The fund also includes participation from Pax8 founder and chairman John Street, Upward Trajectory Fund, and a number of private family offices across Canada and the United States. Top Down Ventures

Montreal-based Developer Capital closed a $5-million seed funding round to expand its investments in early-stage artificial intelligence startups. This new capital injection will fuel DevCap’s strategy of operating more like a startup than a traditional venture capital firm. Founded in 2023 as an offshoot of software consultancy Monadical, DevCap is led by CEO Jordan Steiner and chief technology officer Max McCrea. The firm focuses on startups with strong founders and more reasonable valuations, typically around the $10-million mark. A key advantage for DevCap is its ability to leverage Monadical's in-house technical team for sourcing, vetting, and supporting portfolio companies. StartupResearcher (Source: BetaKit)

Toronto-based AI developer Cohere is acquiring Montreal-based Reliant AI, a biopharma AI company with operations in Montreal and Berlin. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Reliant’s 30-plus team, at offices in Montreal and Berlin, will join Cohere’s workforce of over 550. Reliant co-founder Moriz Hermann will become Cohere’s vice-president of AI verticalizations, and chief scientific officer Mark Bellemare will become vice-president of modelling. This acquisition brings Reliant AI’s world-class research team, proprietary biomedical datasets, and domain-optimized technology into Cohere’s enterprise-grade sovereign AI platform. Cohere said this significantly expands its footprint in the global health care and life sciences sectors – where security, data privacy and regulatory compliance are paramount. Reliant AI’s flagship product is an intelligent research workbench used by global biopharma organizations to automate systemic literature reviews, competitive landscaping, and extraction of unstructured scientific and regulatory data. The platform also enables rapid identification of therapeutic precedents and modelling of market viability, dramatically accelerating decision-making and time to market. Cohere

Dubai-headquartered AHOY announced at Web Summit Vancouver an agreement to acquire Montreal-based Wrk Technologies and establish Montreal as its North American headquarters. AHOY said the acquisition involves a “landmark nine-figure,” but the specific amount wasn’t disclosed. AHOY said it is partnering with MILA-Quebec AI Institute and making an investment to launch Canada’s first physical AI Lab, focused on physical, sovereign and edge AI systems that operate in the physical environment – via robots and self-driving cars, for example – rather than only inside cloud data centres. The company also announced two senior leadership appointments, Dr. Hood Khizer as chief scientific officer and Dr. Benoit Julien as chief technologist, to lead research, development and tooling across its expanding North American footprint. AHOY said it selected Montreal for its exceptional research ecosystem, world‑class talent base and growing importance as a global hub for frontier technology. AHOY also unveiled its Perception Suite, a release that brings together the company's vision, audio and data intelligence capabilities into a single toolkit. TechRevolt

Golman Sachs Alternatives, the infrastructure unit of the U.S. bank’s alternative asset management arm, acquired Lévis, Que.-based QScale, a leading Canadian developer and operator of next-generation, AI-ready data centres. QScale's founders and management team are reinvesting alongside Goldman Sachs Alternatives and will continue to lead the business. QScale designs, builds and operates purpose-built data centres engineered for the densities and thermal profiles of high-performance computing and AI workloads. Its flagship Q01 campus in Lévis benefits from Quebec's low-carbon, hydro-dominated electrical grid and the province's natural cold-climate cooling, enabling industry-leading power usage effectiveness and a meaningfully lower environmental footprint than conventional facilities. Building on the foundation established at Q01, QScale is actively developing additional campuses across Canada to support accelerating customer demand. The company also welcomed Tom Ray, founder and CEO of CoreSite and EdgeCore, as an independent board member. QScale

Richmond, B.C.-based last-mile delivery company UniUni and Cayman Islands-based MAK Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced a definitive purchase agreement expected to result in UniUni becoming a publicly listed company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, through a reverse take-over of MAK Acquisition. The transaction values UniUni at approximately $1.37 billion on an enterprise value basis and represents one of the largest go-public transactions in the Canadian technology industry in recent years. MAK Acquisition Corp.

San Francisco-based OpenAI agreed to acquire Scotland-based applied AI consulting and engineering firm Tomoro.ai and is launching the OpenAI Deployment Company, a new company designed to help organizations build and deploy AI systems they can rely on every day across their most important work. The OpenAI Deployment Company will work with 19 investment firms to deploy engineers within client companies. This will extend OpenAI’s ability to embed engineers specialized in frontier AI deployment, known as Forward Deployed Engineers, or FDEs, into organizations working on complex problems in demanding environments. These FDEs will work closely with business leaders, operators and frontline teams to identify where AI can make the biggest impact, redesign organizational infrastructure and critical workflows around it, and turn those gains into durable systems. OpenAI

San Francisco-based Reducto is acquiring Canadian-founded Opennote, the AI notebook that helps students understand, organize and practice what they learn. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Reducto is bringing in Opennote’s entire team. Opennote is an edtech startup founded by three students in Guelph, Ont. and Irvine, Calif. The company launched last year as an education personalization platform targeting undergraduate students. The platform allows users to consolidate their course materials and generate videos, diagrams and workflows. Reducto

Canada is the most attractive destination for infrastructure investors’ money, according to a survey by the Global Infrastructure Investor Association (GIIA). Canada surpassed the United States for the first time due to the U.S.’s “ongoing domestic uncertainty and political gridlock.” The big question is whether the markets hold their positions moving into the second half of 2026, GIIA said, and specifically the extent to which the growth of Canada, Germany and other European markets stems from the current U.S. climate as opposed to investors’ response to strong policies. These include measures such as the Mark Carney government’s “Nation Building” program, or Germany’s €500bn Infrastructure Special Fund and advanced public-private partnership engagement. Electricity grids, battery storage, and data centres all emerged as the trending subsectors to watch. Traditional renewables, regulated gas and electricity, and surface transportation were also all subsectors which largely held firm. Infrastructure continues to evolve as an asset class overall, and its fundamentals remain strong, GIIA said. Global Infrastructure Investor Association

Canadian venture capital saw the lowest deal count of any quarter since 2017 in Q1 of this year, according to the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s (CVCA) quarterly market overview report. The CVCA said the first quarter of 2026 closed with $936 million in venture capital invested across 104 deals, which is 41 percent fewer deals than the previous quarter. Still, capital deployment remained above pre-pandemic levels, and average deal size increased six percent compared to this time last year. The figures show that more Canadian VC money is going toward fewer, larger players, David Kornacki, CVCA’s director of data and product, told BetaKit. The biggest beneficiaries of Canada’s Q1 concentration were earlier-stage deals, which Kornacki said “hasn’t really happened before,” as capital is typically concentrated in the later and growth stages. Instead, pre-seed through Series B rounds accounted for $651 million, or nearly 70 percent, of total investment last quarter. The average seed-stage deal size also rose to nearly $4.5 million, a 37-percent increase compared to the five-year average and the highest the CVCA has ever seen. On the flip side, later-stage rounds brought in just over $248 million across nine transactions, at an average size of $27.6 million. That is well below the five-year Q1 average of almost $55 million. Kornacki said the data supports the CVCA’s proposal for the federal government’s $750-million envelope for “early growth-stage funding gaps” to be pointed at providing more domestic capital to growth-stage firms at the Series B level and beyond. BetaKit

REPORTS & POLICIES

Canadian businesses had highest numbers for reporting a new or improved product or business process, and highest employment in innovation-active enterprises among OECD countries

Nearly three-quarters of businesses in Canada reported having introduced a new or improved product or business process in the years 2020 to 2022, the highest among Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation countries, according to a report by OECD.

That was significantly higher than the OECD median of close to 50 percent.

In comparison, only 35.6 percent of enterprises in the U.S. reported having introduced a new or improved product or business process in those years.

Canada also had the highest employment (88.7 percent) in innovation-active enterprises as a percentage of all enterprises among OECD countries in 2022. In comparison, in the U.S. it was 67.6 percent.

Canada was second-highest among OECD countries for enterprises receiving government funding or tax relief for innovation activities during the same period, with 43.6 percent. The top OECD country was Korea, with 56 percent.

In contrast, only 24.5 percent of enterprises in the U.S. received government funding or tax relief for innovation activities.

[Editor’s note: Given Canada’s high numbers in having introduced a new or improved business product, and in employment in innovation-active enterprises, the obvious question is why Canada’s innovation performance is so dismal. The high number of Canadian enterprises receiving government funding or tax relief for innovation activities points to business’s reliance on the public sector for innovation activity support].

Canada also was second-highest in turnover in innovation-active enterprises (10 or more employees), with 89.4 percent. Germany was highest, with 91.4 percent.

Canada was only average when it came to R&D active enterprises, with 38.6 percent. In comparison, the U.S. had 41.1 percent of R&D active enterprises.

The top OECD country was Korea, with 94 percent, followed by Finland and Costa Rica tied at 69.2 percent.

Canada was fourth-last among OECD countries when it came to innovation-active enterprises with a cooperation partner in 2020-2022, with 28.1 percent. The top OECD country in this category was Sweden, with 70.7 percent.

When it comes to innovative enterprises that introduced innovations with significant environmental benefits, Canada was average among OECD countries, with 44.1 percent of enterprises with benefits obtained within the enterprise, and 30.6 percent of enterprises with benefits generated during the consumption/use  the end user.

For the top OECD country, Türkiye, the corresponding numbers were 64.5 percent and 61.3 percent.

Among all OECD countries, in addition to the R&D services sector (with an innovation intensity of 83 percent), which provides R&D services to other industries, other R&D-intensive manufacturing industries, such as pharmaceuticals, computer and electronic and optical products, as well as information and communications technology services exhibit the highest innovation intensity.

Several other service industries, including publishing and content activities, advertising and market research, and financial and insurance services, also exhibit above average innovation rates, highlighting that innovation is widespread across types of economic activity.

Differences in industrial structure contribute to country-level differences, according to the OECD report. OECD

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

Canada has the health-tech talent – it needs the infrastructure

This article first appeared here on the University of Waterloo’s Velocity website. It has been edited slightly for length.

Canada does not have a shortage of health innovation. It has a shortage of systems designed to scale it.

That distinction drove the agenda at the third edition of the National Health-Tech Innovation Conference 2026, held in Kitchener-Waterloo and co-led by Velocity and the CHEO Research Institute. Over two days, the region became the meeting point for a national conversation: why does Canada consistently produce world-class health technology only to watch it scale somewhere else?

The answer, as speaker after speaker made clear, is structural. And fixing it will require the kinds of partnerships that can only be built when the right people are in the same room.

In recent years, the Waterloo Region health innovation ecosystem, powered largely by Velocity and the Medical Innovation Xchange, has supported more than 165 companies.

These companies have improved care for over 350,000 patients, generated roughly $200 million in revenue, created more than 1,300 jobs, raised over $350 million in follow-on capital, and filed 650 patents.
Getting those companies to scale requires more than capital: it requires procurement reform, hospital incentives, and clinical champions willing to bet on unproven tools.

One of the conference's sessions examined what Jayiesh Singh, drawing on the commercialization journey of Able Innovations Inc., called Canada's structural paradox: the country generates breakthrough health technologies, but the very system those technologies are designed to serve often makes it hardest for them to deploy here first.

Hospital funding models, procurement timelines and limited incentives for operational innovation create a gauntlet that Canadian founders know well.

The question was whether hospitals, policymakers and industry leaders are willing to realign incentives, purchasing and policy before the next generation of companies takes their technology south.

Frank Baylis, executive chairman of Baylis Medical Technologies, addressed the same tension from a different angle. His keynote on scaling digital health argued that the path forward is not complicated in theory: build trust, set clear goals, keep the tools simple. What makes it hard is the absence of the cross-sector alignment that turns good intentions into adopted technology.

Several sessions zeroed in on the mechanics of why promising technologies stall. Procurement processes built for a different era. Funding structures that reward pilots but not scale. A capital gap that makes early-stage health-tech investment riskier than it needs to be, not because the technology is weak, but because the conditions for proving it are poorly designed.

A session on building a national hospital innovation network explored how shared pilots, applied research and responsible commercialization could change that calculus: retaining IP and economic value in Canada while giving clinician-led solutions a real path to patients.

The capital conversation was equally direct. Closing the gap for Canadian health-tech founders is not only a question of more funding. It is a question of making early-stage investment a stronger bet in the first place, which means building the conditions that reduce uncertainty: better pilot infrastructure, clearer procurement pathways, and connections between founders and decision-makers that do not take months of cold outreach to form.

"Canada has no shortage of great ideas," said Vivek Goel, president and vice chancellor at the University of Waterloo. "What we need is the trust and cross-sector alignment to scale what works."

Velocity and the CHEO Research Institute are launching Advancing MedTech Together: From Idea to Impact, a webinar series for innovators shaping the future of health care. It is designed to sustain the conversations started in Kitchener-Waterloo and bring them to a national audience, with the same focus on practical outcomes over polished panels. University of Waterloo-Velocity

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AI “scribes” used by Ontario doctors hallucinate, mis-record prescriptions and miss key mental health details: Auditor General of Ontario

AI “scribe” systems used by Ontario doctors hallucinate, mis‑record prescriptions and miss key mental health details, according to a report by the Auditor General of Ontario that raises governance, training and bias questions.

In a special report released May 12, Auditor General Shelley Spence concludes that Ontario’s Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement “did not have consistently effective processes and procedures in place” to manage AI across the Ontario Public Service.

The performance audit of AI use in government found gaps ranging from unsecured use of public generative AI tools, to low take‑up of approved systems, to limited attention to bias and environmental impacts.

As part of an AI Scribe vendor‑of‑record process for health‑care providers, Supply Ontario and partners evaluated 20 transcription systems that generate clinical notes from recorded patient visits.

Nine of 20 systems produced hallucinations, fabricating clinical information such as referrals and test orders that had not occurred. In one example, notes stated there were “no masses found” or that a patient had anxiety, even though these issues were not mentioned in the recording.

Twelve of 20 systems captured “a different drug than what was prescribed by the doctor,” while 17 of 20 missed key mental‑health details in at least one test, and six missed mental‑health issues across both tests.

OntarioMD has issued guidance directing doctors to manually review all AI‑generated notes, but AI Scribe products are not required to include a sign‑off feature to confirm that review.

Spence warned that inaccuracies in AI‑generated medical notes “could potentially result in inadequate or harmful treatment plans that may potentially impact patient health outcomes.”

With AI scribe technology, doctors and nurse practitioners spend 70 percent to 90 percent less time doing paperwork, OntarioMD, a subsidiary of the Ontario Medical Association, previously reported.

Within the Ontario Public Service (OPS) more broadly, the only approved GenAI tool is Microsoft Copilot Chat, deployed in a secure environment under an agreement that data will remain in Canada and not be used to train external models.

However, usage data examined by the auditor show that from April 22 to Aug. 18, 2025, “other popular GenAI websites made up 94 per cent of OPS staff’s usage and Microsoft Copilot Chat made up approximately 6 per cent.”

At the same time, Microsoft Defender logs show that between April and August 2025, 12,000 staff accessed about 400 AI‑related websites from government devices. Of those, “244, or about 60 percent, were deemed unsafe or unsecured” based on their security score. Some 15 percent of those high‑risk sites hosted inappropriate, non‑work content.

The Ministry “had not implemented security controls to prevent OPS staff from inadvertently uploading Ontarians’ personal information” or sensitive business data onto those public AI sites, Spence’s report said.

The OPS introduced a Responsible Use of AI course in January 2024, but by August 2025 only 1,800 of 55,000 staff – about three percent – had completed it. The course covers GenAI basics, safe use of AI sites and “the risks of misinformation, bias and security issues,” yet it is not mandatory.

The audit also finds that protections built into Copilot Chat can be bypassed when staff use non‑default browsers.

The report flags bias‑risk gaps in the Document Verification Service, a facial‑recognition system that will let Ontarians validate identity online to access services. Vendor testing was based on small, non‑representative samples, prompting concern that some demographic groups could face “higher rejection rates or delays” when using the system.

More broadly, the OPS AI Strategy, launched in November 2024, lacks detailed initiatives, timelines, measurable outcomes, explicit bans on high‑risk AI uses and environmental considerations, according to Spence’s report.

Spence’s report made 10 recommendations, including the Ministry of Public Service Delivery and Procurement:

• Review and block OPS staff’s access to unsafe and unsecured AI websites.
• Block access to using Microsoft Copilot Chat on other browsers.
• Validate test results provided by AI system vendors to ensure the testing was performed using a sufficient sample of Ontario’s demographics and that the testing meets all of the AI Directive requirements.
• Review industry standards and guidelines for other jurisdictions related to AI Scribe systems and implement best practices in Ontario.
• Research industry standards and AI strategic documents in other jurisdictions to review the key foundational elements supporting the achievement of AI strategic priorities, and incorporate similar elements to enhance the robustness of its AI Strategy.

Ontario’s Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement has agreed to all five recommendations directed to it, including making AI training more robust; validating vendor testing for bias; and strengthening the AI Strategy. Supply Ontario has agreed or partly agreed to all five recommendations related to AI procurement. Canadian HRR Reporter

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Canadian youth need greater involvement and a bigger say in AI policy discussions and decision-making

Greater youth involvement in AI policy discussions and decision-making is needed, ensuring that the voices of youth are not only heard but valued, according to a report by the Youth Council of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada.

Severa critical issues need urgent attention, the report said, including: bridging the digital divide; ensuring equitable access to AI technologies; and embedding principles of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) into AI policy.

The report also emphasized the need for stronger privacy protections, ethical guidelines for the use of open-source data, and prioritizing AI safety on the global stage.

“These calls aim to ensure that the development of AI is transparent, inclusive and aligned with the values of a diverse society, with youth leading the way in advocating for a fair and ethical AI ecosystem,” the report said.

Unlike past technological advancements, which acted primarily as tools to enhance human productivity, AI represents a paradigm shift with the potential to exceed human capabilities in ways that demand urgent and thoughtful consideration, according to the report.

AI’s rapid evolution and unpredictable trajectory necessitate a distinct and proactive approach, one that acknowledges both its transformative potential and its risks, the report said.

“We recognize that AI’s influence will extend far beyond automation, altering the very nature of scientific inquiry, decision-making, and ethical responsibility.”

The 16-member Youth Council, all of whom are college or university students, report’s recommendations include:

1. Address the digital divide and integrate EDI:

• Prioritize initiatives that ensure equitable access to AI technologies for all, particularly in rural and underserved regions, where access to telecommunications and AI tools may be limited.
• Ensure EDI principles are embedded in AI policy-making processes to represent diverse perspectives and needs, including those of youth.
• Enhance accessibility to improve access for individuals with disabilities (e.g. speech recognition, assistive technologies, etc.).

2. Involve youth in decision-making:

• Establish formal mechanisms for the explicit and systematic involvement of youth in AI policy discussions and decisions.
• Ensure AI literacy is integrated into the education of the next generation of young Canadian students and scientists.

3. Establish ethical regulations for open source and public datasets in AI training:

• Develop and implement clear regulations for the ethical use of open source and publicly available data in training AI models (LLMs), ensuring transparency and accountability. For example, by creating a “not for use in datasets” licensing scheme for software text.

4. Enhance privacy protections:

• Advocate for better-defined privacy laws that protect individuals’ data in the development of AI and machine-learning technologies.

5. Establish an ethical framework to guide the short- and long-term development and deployment of AI:

• Create a comprehensive ethical framework to guide the development and deployment of AI, ensuring it aligns with societal values. This framework should grapple with the tricky question of how to live in a world where AI capabilities approach and perhaps exceed those of humans.

“Young Canadians are deeply concerned about the implications of military AI,” the report noted.

“The potential for autonomous weapons, reduced human oversight and accidental escalations in conflict runs counter to our values of peace and human dignity. As global citizens, we want Canada to champion international agreements that govern the ethical use of AI in defence, ensuring transparency, accountability, and human oversight.”

Members of the Chief Science Advisor’s Youth Council have submitted a policy brief to Think7, the official engagement group of the G7, advocating for a structured framework on Autonomous Weapon Systems.

Their proposal, A Coordinated Tier System for Autonomous Weapon Systems, outlines a five-level system distinguishing human oversight from machine-driven decision-making, ensuring responsible AI use in military contexts.

6. Improve public education on AI:

• Implement educational programs to properly inform society about AI technologies, their benefits, how to better protect your data/privacy and their implications for the future.

7. Ensure consent for data collection:

• Enforce regulations preventing companies from collecting personal data without informed consent from individuals.

8. Prioritize AI safety in international leadership:

• Position AI safety as a key focus area in Canada’s G7 leadership discussions, promoting global standards for safe AI development.

9. Develop university guidelines for the use of AI:

• Encourage universities to develop and disseminate clear directives and guidelines regarding the ethical use of AI by students.

“Young Canadians are deeply concerned about the implications of military AI,” the report noted.

“The potential for autonomous weapons, reduced human oversight and accidental escalations in conflict runs counter to our values of peace and human dignity. As global citizens, we want Canada to champion international agreements that govern the ethical use of AI in defence, ensuring transparency, accountability, and human oversight.”

Members of the Chief Science Advisor’s Youth Council have submitted a policy brief to Think7, the official engagement group of the G7, advocating for a structured framework on Autonomous Weapon Systems.

Their proposal, A Coordinated Tier System for Autonomous Weapon Systems, outlines a five-level system distinguishing human oversight from machine-driven decision-making, ensuring responsible AI use in military contexts.

The Youth Council’s report also said that “For young Canadians, the environmental impacts of AI are deeply tied to our future quality of life.”

Large-scale AI models require vast amounts of computational power, resulting in significant energy consumption and carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, as well as the demand for physical space and fresh water to maintain data systems.

AI’s environmental impact raises critical questions about global accountability in the fight against climate change, according to the report. “AI’s rapid expansion risks outpacing regulatory frameworks, making transparency and sustainability crucial.”

Integrating AI innovations that reduce environmental impacts is crucial for sustainable development, the report said.

By adopting and further developing such AI innovations, Canada can enhance its commitment to environmental stewardship, ensuring that AI serves as a tool for sustainability rather than a contributor to ecological degradation.

“As young Canadians, we see this as an opportunity to build a green AI sector that aligns with our generation’s commitment to environmental stewardship,” the report said.

AI is not just another technological revolution, the report said. It is an innovation that demands new frameworks, new ways of thinking, and new forms of scientific leadership.

“Through this report, we call on the scientific community, policymakers and industry leaders to consider the perspectives of youth as the future of AI is navigated.” Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada

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What exactly is the Canada Strong Fund for?

OPINION

By Lawrence Zhang

Lawrence Zhang is head of policy at the Ottawa-based Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness, which is affiliated with the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) in Washington, D.C. This opinion first appeared here on the ITIF website.

The federal government’s recent announcement of the Canada Strong Fund poses one fundamental question: Why does it need to exist?

If the Fund is meant to invest in projects that earn commercial rates of return, then Ottawa should explain why Canada's banks, pension funds and private investors are systematically failing to find them.

That is a strong claim, and one Ottawa has not bothered to make. The reason may be that the Fund's design and political incentives push it toward exactly the deals existing institutions and private capital would do anyway – where no such claim is needed.

The government plans to borrow $25 billion to allow the Crown corporation to invest in “strategic” Canadian projects and companies, primarily through equity, alongside private capital.

Further down the line, a retail product will let ordinary Canadians put their savings directly into the Fund, on the theory that they should share in the returns from nation-building. In both cases, the government expects returns to exceed borrowing costs.

But calling this a “sovereign wealth fund” is something of a misnomer. It is better understood as a government investment bank. Drawing that line is important because most sovereign wealth funds are capitalized not through borrowing, but through dedicated sources of national savings: commodity revenues, as in Norway, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Alaska, and Chile, or, in China’s case, current-account surpluses generated through mercantilist industrial policy.

Given Canada’s large resource revenues, the federal government could have asked whether a genuine sovereign wealth fund should be capitalized through dedicated resource royalties or excise taxes rather than borrowing. The logic would be to convert part of Canada’s resource wealth into assets that outlast the extraction cycle: stronger manufacturing capacity, more competitive tradable services, and technology-intensive firms that can grow beyond domestic demand.

[This] would also have avoided launching the Fund as another debt-financed vehicle, reducing the risk that it crowds out private capital or contributes to upward pressure on interest rates.

When it comes to the actual use of the capital, things are also fuzzy. Canada does not have empty pockets. It has banks, pension funds, private capital, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, BDC, Export Development Canada, the Strategic Innovation Fund, regional development agencies, and various other departmental programs.

Canadian pension funds collectively hold over $2.6 trillion in assets, and the chartered banks have roughly $1 trillion in lending headroom above regulatory minimums.

To be fair, pools of capital are not the same as a willingness to take strategic risk. Pension funds protect retirees. Banks lend against cash flow and collateral. Private investors may avoid projects with long timelines, uncertain permitting, first-of-kind technologies, or weak early demand.

But that is precisely why Canada already has public finance tools. Existing federal institutions are carved up by mandate: infrastructure here, exports there, business lending somewhere else. They are not generally designed to replicate private-market returns. They exist to fill gaps, accept lower returns, absorb risk, or correct market failures.

So if the Canada Strong Fund must earn market rates of return, why would private financing not already invest in these deals?

The Fund’s implicit answer is that some projects fall between existing boxes: commercially plausible, nationally useful, but too long-horizon, risky, or awkward for normal investors, while still capable of producing market-based returns.

That is possible, but it is a narrow category, and Ottawa has not shown that it is wide enough to justify a $25-billion, debt-financed Crown corporation.

The announced projects do not obviously fit that narrow category. The announcement refers to 15 projects and six transformative strategies across nuclear, LNG, critical minerals, and transportation infrastructure, representing over $126 billion in investment.

Some of these, such as high-speed rail and nuclear plants, are unlikely to generate market rates of return. Ottawa has not explained how a fund committed to strong returns squares that circle.

The retail investment proposal only adds to the confusion. The Fund says it wants to give Canadians a stake in “Canada Strong” projects and allow them to participate in Canada’s growth and benefit from its financial returns.

But in market-based economies, citizens benefit from growth primarily through higher productivity, higher wages, better public services and the tax revenues that growth generates. They do not need the state to become an equity vehicle on their behalf.

If the logic is that public ownership is the best way for Canadians to share in national prosperity, then the argument does not necessarily stop at strategic projects. It points toward public ownership of oil companies, rail companies, banks, housing and more. Ottawa is not making that argument openly, but the rhetoric of shared ownership gestures in that direction.

To be sure, this is not a free-market screed against government investment. If anything, it is a critique of government trying to act like a private-sector investor while claiming the same return goals.

There are many projects in Canada that deserve public support precisely because markets underprovide them: infrastructure with broad spillovers, first-of-kind technologies, strategic supply chains held back by permitting or anchor-demand problems. But the right response to those gaps is concessional finance, offtake agreements, loan guarantees, or direct subsidies. Those are defensible choices, and they are not the same as borrowing money to chase commercial returns.

The Canada Strong Fund is trying to be a sovereign wealth fund, a development bank, a commercial investor, an industrial policy vehicle, and a retail savings product at the same time.

No single institution can run on five mandates. Until Ottawa picks one, it has not really made a decision at all. Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness

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Eighty percent of Canadians report seeing news or information on the Internet they suspect was misleading, false or inaccurate: StatsCan

In 2025, 80 percent of Canadians reported seeing news or information on the Internet that they suspected was misleading, false or inaccurate at least once a month, according to a report by Statistics Canada (StatsCan).

These experiences are top of mind for Canadians, with the majority (61 percent) reporting being "very concerned" or "extremely concerned" about online misinformation in 2025.

A new Insights on Canadian Society study, entitled Shifting perceptions of misinformation in Canada: Trends in exposure, detection and trust, examines the sources and platforms through which Canadians access news or information, how often they report encountering misleading information, and whether they find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between true and false information.

The study also examines the relationship between misinformation, confidence in the Canadian media and trust in others.

In 2025, Canadians most typically obtained news or information from news organizations (66 percent), close contacts (62 percent), social media platforms (54 percent) and television programming (52 percent).

In contrast, some traditional information sources such as radio (38 percent) and print media (21 percent) were less frequently reported.

News organizations were the most common source among older Canadians. In 2025, more than three-quarters of those 75 years and older (78 percent) relied on news organizations, compared with close to half (49 percent) of Canadians aged 15 to 24.

Among Canadians under 35, social media was the most common source for news or information, at 78 percent. Its use declined steadily with age, dropping to 19 percent among those 75 and older.

When it comes to news or information, many Canadians are also finding it difficult to tell what is real from what is fabricated. In 2025, nearly half of Canadians (47 percent) reported that they were finding it harder to distinguish between true and false news or information compared to three years prior.

Despite reporting that they rely on different news sources, a similar proportion of Canadians of all ages reported difficulties in telling truth from falsehood.

“As Canadians navigate an increasingly complex information environment, trust plays an important role in shaping how people experience misinformation,” StatsCan said.

In 2025, people who reported a strong confidence in the Canadian media were less likely to report that it has become harder to tell true from false news or information (44 percent) compared with those with lower confidence in the Canadian media (49 percent).

In contrast, lower confidence in the Canadian media was associated with greater self-reported difficulty in identifying misleading content. Statistics Canada

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Canada’s food system is missing the value-building middle step of processing

By Tyler Groeneveld

Tyler Groeneveld is CEO of Prairies-based Protein Industries Canada, a federally supported global innovation cluster. This op-ed first appeared here in the Toronto Star.

Around the world, countries are competing to capture more value from food production. They’re investing in processing facilities, ingredient manufacturing plants, and the infrastructure needed to turn raw crops into high-value products. The goal is simple: keep more of the economic value, jobs and innovation at home.

Canada should be well-positioned to lead. The country produces crops that are of the highest quality in the world and have a strong agriculture sector. But despite those advantages, Canada is not keeping pace with competitors who are moving faster to capture what comes next.

The country has the ingredients. What’s missing is how they are put together.

Food production is a continuum, from farm to ingredients to the products we buy. Canada excels at the beginning and participates at the end. But too often, the middle step – transforming crops into ingredients – is happening somewhere else.

The step where value is built, and too often lost

Canada’s agricultural legacy is rooted in abundant resources and steady exports. However, exporting raw crops means also exporting the value added by ingredient manufacturing – turning crops into protein, starch, fibre and oil for food production. When this processing happens abroad, Canada misses higher-value opportunities, fewer facilities are built locally, supply chains aren’t anchored here, and Canadian companies struggle to scale.

From Canadian fields to global factories and back again

You can see the effects in everyday life.

Crops grown in Canada – peas, oats, canola – are often shipped abroad for processing. There, they’re transformed into food ingredients, then sold into global supply chains. Many of those same ingredients eventually make their way back into Canada, embedded in the foods we buy every day.

From pasta and cereals to plant-based staples, the value created in that middle step is often captured elsewhere.

In effect, we export raw potential and import it back as finished value.

That’s not a broken system but it is an incomplete one. And in a more competitive global environment, it leaves Canada at a disadvantage.

More than one product, more than one opportunity

The difference that middle step makes is significant.

When a raw crop is exported, it is sold once. But when that same crop is processed into ingredients, it can generate multiple products and multiple revenue streams.

Take a tonne of peas. Sold as a commodity, it earns a single market price. But when processed, it can be separated into protein, starch, and fibre – each with its own market, each adding incremental value. The result can be up to ten times the economic return from the same harvest.

Same crop. Same starting point. A completely different outcome.

Processing more of our crops here at home could add $25 billion to Canada’s GDP and create 17,000 jobs. But without that middle step, much of that growth will continue to happen elsewhere.

This gap is becoming more important, not less.

Global demand for high-quality food ingredients is rising, and countries are moving quickly to secure their position in the value chain. The infrastructure that enables processing capacity – processing plants, manufacturing facilities and supply networks – is being built now.

Canada has the advantage of strong primary agriculture and an established food sector. But without closing the gap in between – and addressing the barriers that slow investment, from infrastructure to regulation – we risk falling further behind countries that are treating this as a strategic priority.

Addressing the missing middle isn’t about replacing what Canada already does well; it’s about connecting it.

Farmers will always be the foundation of Canada’s agricultural success. Food manufacturers will always play a critical role in delivering products to consumers. The opportunity is to link those strengths more effectively by building out the step that sits between them.

That means creating the conditions for ingredient manufacturing to scale in Canada – through better access to capital, stronger infrastructure, and a regulatory environment that enables, rather than slows, growth. 

Canada has everything it needs to succeed in a changing global food system: high-quality crops, a strong innovation base, and a reputation as a reliable partner.

But having the inputs is no longer enough.

The countries that capture the most value will be the ones that build complete systems, where production, processing and manufacturing all work together.

Canada has the beginning and the end of that system.

Now it needs to fill in the middle, and move from potential to performance.

Because if Canada doesn’t, the country won’t continue exporting crops – will continue exporting the opportunity that comes with them. Toronto Star

 THE GRAPEVINE – News about people, institutions and communities

Sarah Paquet, director and CEO of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FinTRAC), is leaving the anti-money-laundering agency after completing her five-year term. Stéphane Sirard, FinTRAC’s deputy director of intelligence, will serve as director until a replacement is named. The financial intelligence unit was recently granted greater powers, including the ability to levy penalties up to 40 times higher than before, as Ottawa moves to clamp down on financial crime. It recently announced plans to ban cryptocurrency ATMs and allocate funding to a new Financial Crimes Agency. The federal government has also completed consultations on a national anti-fraud strategy. FinTRAC directors are appointed for a five-year term. Paquet’s term expired on Nov. 15, 2025, but was extended for six months. The Globe and Mail

The Government of Alberta appointed William Sembo as the 19^th chair of the University of Calgary’s board of governors for a three-year term, effective May 14, 2026. A UCalgary alum with a degree in economics, Sembo has remained deeply connected to the institution and its mission. He has long contributed to the university, including through his service as chair of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases' Strategic Advisory Board for more than a decade, and as a member and later vice-chair of the Cumming School of Medicine Dean’s Advisory Board for more than 25 years. Sembo has a distinguished career at the intersection of Canada’s energy and financial sectors. Prior to his retirement, he served nearly 30 years as a senior leader at RBC Capital Markets and is now a senior advisor with Lazard. He has guided major transactions that have helped shape Canada’s energy industry, including the creation of Cenovus Energy and Nexen. University of Calgary

Montreal-headquartered IT and business consulting services firm CGI announced the appointment of Tim Hurlebaus as president and CEO and a member of the board of directors, effective immediately. For the past two years, Hurlebaus served as president and chief operating officer (with responsibility for CGI’s operations across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia which collectively represent nearly half of the company’s annual revenue. Hurlebaus succeeds François Boulan who will be retiring after nearly 40 successful years in the IT services industry, including 30 years at CGI. CGI

The University of Ottawa announced the appointment of Julie Cafley, PhD, as vice-president, Francophonie and External and Community Relations for a five-year term beginning on July 6, 2026. Cafley earned four degrees at uOttawa and worked within the university for 15 years. The new vice-president will be tasked with bolstering uOttawa’s leadership in the Francophonie and strengthening its partnerships with governments, the private sector, community organizations and academia to enhance the university’s reputation and maximize its impact. As executive director at Catalyst Canada, Cafley advised top Canadian CEOs on the challenges of inclusive leadership, gender equity and organizational transformation. uOttawa

BMO’s North American head of payments and treasury, Derek Vernon, said in a LinkedIn post that Imran Ibrahim, CIBC’s head of fintech and cross-border payments, will join his leadership team in the newly created position of head of digital assets and tokenization. Ibrahim brings more than 15 years of experience across payments modernization, digital transformation and emerging technologies, with a strong track record of building and scaling regulated, enterprise‑grade payments capabilities that help clients make real financial progress. He will lead
BMO’s enterprise digital assets and tokenization strategy. The hire follows BMO’s announcement in March that it will use Google Cloud Universal Ledger, a private blockchain for the financial sector, to issue tokenized versions of cash and bank deposits that will let clients settle trades, margin calls and collateral 24 hours a day. Derek Vernon on LinkedIn

Queen’s University announced the appointment of Kevin Kee as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, effective July 1, 2026. A Queen’s alumni, Kee, a Queen’s alumni, will be a tenured professor jointly in the Department of History and School of Computing. His appointment follows a comprehensive search process. He joins Queen’s from the University of Ottawa, where he served as dean of the Faculty of Arts from 2015 to 2025 and as senior advisor to the president on digital strategy and learning innovation. During his tenure at UOttawa, the faculty increased research funding and awards, expanded lifelong learning and online programming while returning to balanced budgets. Queen’s University

Brett Buchanan was appointed dean of Western University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, effective August 15, 2026, for a five-year terms. A philosopher with broad interdisciplinary interests, Buchanan comes to Western from Concordia University of Edmonton, where he has served as dean of arts since 2022 and, for the past year, also as interim dean of science. Along with his decanal experience, he brings teaching and research expertise in contemporary continental philosophy, ethics, environmental humanities and animal studies. Buchanan succeeds Ileana Paul, who has served as acting dean since July 2024. Western University

The Montreal Port Authority named a manager who left the organization barely two months ago as its new chief executive officer. Paul Bird is the new president and CEO effective June 8, the federal agency said in a news release. The executive is well-known to Port Authority stakeholders and previously served as its chief commercial officer until leaving for another job at high-speed rail developer Alto in mid-March. The port is going through a leadership shakeup, both on the board level and in its C-suite. The most alarming development was the sudden and still-unexplained exit of former CEO Julie Gascon, announced in a brief news release in April. Another senior executive, finance chief Alban Fournier, also left in April to take a job at 5N Plus Inc., a maker of semiconductors and performance materials. The Globe and Mail

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University of British Columbia researchers develop a natural, biodegradable wash to remove pesticide residue from fruit

University of British Columbia researchers have developed a natural, biodegradable wash that removed over 86 percent of surface pesticide residue from tested fruit and slowed browning and moisture loss.

This could mean safer apples, grapes and other fruit that also stay crisp and fresh for days longer. With rising food prices and nearly half of all fresh produce wasted worldwide each year, finding a way to cut pesticide exposure and reduce spoilage could have a big impact. The findings were published in ACS Nano.

“Our goal was to create a simple, safe and affordable wash that improves both food safety and food quality,” said senior author Dr. Tianxi Yang, an assistant professor in UBC’s faculty of land and food systems. “People shouldn’t have to choose between eating fresh produce and worrying about what’s on it.”

While pesticide levels on fruits and vegetables are tightly regulated, trace residues often remain. For people who eat a lot of the same fruit or vegetables the amount of residue can go over recommended limits.

The new wash uses tiny particles made from starch – the same carbohydrate found in corn and potatoes – capped in iron and tannic acid. Tannic acid is a plant compound that gives tea and wine their dry taste. When iron and tannic acid join together, they form sticky, sponge‑like clusters that can grab onto pesticides and lift them off the fruit’s surface.

The team tested the wash by applying three commonly used pesticides to apples at typical, real-world concentrations of about 10 milligrams per litre.

In tests on apples, the wash removed between 86 percent and 94 percent of these pesticides. Rinsing with tap water, baking soda or plain starch typically removes less than half.

After washing, the fruit is dipped in the solution once again to form a light edible, biodegradable layer. Fresh‑cut apples treated with the coating browned much more slowly and lost less water over two days in the fridge. Whole grapes stayed plump for 15 days at room temperature, compared with noticeable shrivelling in untreated grapes.

“The coating acts like a breathable second skin. Measures of food quality like acidity and soluble sugars also remained higher in coated fruit,” Yang said.

The coating also showed antimicrobial effects, meaning it can inhibit harmful bacteria.

The study estimated that washing a medium apple in the solution would introduce a safe amount of iron, well below the daily upper limit for adults set by North American food authorities.

Because the ingredients are inexpensive and are mixed using water, the researchers say the wash could be scaled easily for industry use. The team is now working on refining, scaling and testing the formula for use in commercial processing facilities, where fruit is cleaned before shipping.

This research was supported by the Faculty of Land and Food Systems Start Up Fund, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund. University of British Columbia

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