Canada unveils $2.3B AI strategy targeting 250,000 jobs but safety details remain unclear

Canada unveils $2.3bn AI strategy with papal nudge on safety

Canada launched "AI for All," a $2.3 billion national AI strategy organised around six pillars including sovereign infrastructure, job creation, and AI literacy. PM Carney framed the announcement alongside a phone call with Pope Leo XIV about responsible AI, but critics note the strategy lacks concrete safety timelines. Days after a phone call with Pope Leo XIV about the moral stakes of artificial intelligence, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in Toronto on Thursday and announced precisely the kind of national framework the pontiff had demanded. The strategy, branded "AI for All," commits more than $2.3 billion in spending over five years. It is Canada's most ambitious attempt yet to position itself as a serious player in the global AI race. But the document has a conspicuous gap. For all its talk of protecting Canadians, it offers few concrete safety mechanisms, no hard timelines for new regulation, and no clear enforcement architecture. The Pope warned governments that AI "demands" to be disarmed. Carney's strategy reads more like an invitation to invest. The six pillars The plan is organised around six pillars, first outlined in April's spring economic update: protecting Canadians and safeguarding democracy, empowering Canadians, powering shared prosperity, building a sovereign AI foundation, scaling Canadian champions, and building trusted partnerships and global alliances. Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon, Canada's first cabinet minister with the title, said the strategy reflects what citizens want. "Canadians want safe, reliable, and sovereign AI," Solomon said in a statement. "They want the best tools to build a prosperous future guided by our values." The jobs numbers are the headline grabbers. Ottawa is targeting up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and work opportunities for young Canadians by 2031, plus a further 250,000 positions created through AI adoption across the broader economy. The strategy also aims to lift business AI adoption from its current rate of roughly 12 per cent to 60 per cent by 2034. Sovereignty over safety The document's strongest language is reserved for sovereignty, not safety. Canada currently relies heavily on foreign cloud infrastructure, and the strategy frames this as a vulnerability. It proposes a "build-partner-buy" approach: build key capabilities domestically where possible, partner with trusted allies, buy from the market when appropriate. Concrete measures include plans for a "world-leading" supercomputer and the expansion of sovereign data centres capable of 100 megawatts to serve Canadian clients. Up to $1 billion will go towards public supercomputing infrastructure alone. The sovereignty push builds on an alliance Carney's government has already begun constructing. In February, Solomon and his German counterpart signed a joint AI declaration at the Munich Security Conference, launching a Sovereign Technology Alliance designed to reduce dependence on concentrated technology providers. The strategy says Canada will expand that alliance further. The parallel with Europe's own tech sovereignty push is hard to miss. The papal factor Carney and Pope Leo spoke by telephone on 29 May, days after the pontiff released Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical. The document, signed on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, names AI as this generation's industrial revolution and argues that without enforceable limits it will deepen inequality, erode human agency, and concentrate power among a handful of firms. According to both the Vatican and the Prime Minister's Office, the two leaders discussed the imperative that AI must serve humanity, beginning with the protection of the individual. Carney reportedly expressed Canada's desire to lead internationally on responsible AI development. The timing was deliberate. The Vatican had enlisted Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah to speak alongside cardinals at the encyclical's launch, signalling that the Church sees AI governance as a conversation requiring technologists at the table. Carney's subsequent strategy announcement positions Canada as the first G7 nation to respond directly to the Pope's call. Where the safety details aren't The strategy promises new consumer privacy legislation enshrining a right to privacy and safeguarding children's information online. It also pledges to modernise safety laws. But it provides no timeline for either. Earlier this year, Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller said the government was considering banning AI chatbots for children under 16. That restriction does not appear in the strategy. Officials say it is under review and may be folded into separate online harms legislation expected later this year. The omission is notable given the global context. The EU is building its own sovereign AI infrastructure while simultaneously enforcing the AI Act, the world's most comprehensive regulatory framework. Canada's previous attempt at AI legislation, the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act within Bill C-27, is widely regarded as inadequate and has not been revived. Literacy and training On the workforce side, the strategy introduces a national AI literacy initiative offering free entry-level training to all Canadians. Ottawa plans to reach one million post-secondary students and train more than 3,000 educators with AI learning kits. An additional $30 million will go to CanCode, a federal programme funding non-profits that provide digital skills training to young people. The strategy also promises to expand the Global Talent Stream permit programme to accelerate entry for highly skilled AI workers, though specific visa targets are not disclosed. The question of which jobs AI will create, rather than destroy, remains contested. The strategy's 250,000-job figure lacks a detailed methodology, and independent economists have not yet validated it. What comes next Cross-party pressure is already mounting. A group of parliamentarians from multiple parties has called on the government to block the development of superintelligent AI entirely, arguing that safety guardrails should precede industrial policy. That position finds an unlikely ally in the Vatican, where Pope Leo called for AI to be "disarmed" and rejected just-war theory as "outdated" in the context of autonomous weapons. Carney has staked his government's credibility on the claim that sovereignty and safety can advance together. The $2.3 billion bet suggests Ottawa is serious about the first half of that equation. Whether the safety architecture arrives before the supercomputer does will determine whether the strategy earns the moral weight the Pope asked for, or simply the compute capacity investors wanted.

PM Carney government's AI strategy pledges thousands of jobs, lacks safety details

After months of delay, the federal government is unveiling its AI strategy that outlines a vision focused on job creation, sovereignty and increased AI adoption. But the plan lacks details on how Canadians will be protected from the technology's potentially adverse effects. Prime Minister Mark Carney is making the announcement alongside Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon in Toronto on Thursday. "Canadians want safe, reliable, and sovereign AI. They want the best tools to build a prosperous future guided by our values," Solomon said in a statement in the strategy. The strategy sets several specific goals such as: * Create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and work opportunities for young Canadians by 2031 * Help create up to 250,000 new jobs through AI adoption by 2031 * Boost AI among businesses from 12 per cent today to 60 per cent by 2034 * Build a "world-leading" supercomputer to boost sovereign infrastructure by 2031 * Provide all Canadians with access to free AI literacy training The plan is also organized around six pillars that were first outlined in the spring economic update in April: protecting Canadians and safeguarding democracy, empowering Canadians, powering shared prosperity, building a sovereign AI foundation, scaling Canadian champions and building trusted partnerships and global alliances. Will there be new safety measures? The strategy says it aims to protect Canadians, particularly children, against AI risks and online harms. While it proposes new consumer privacy legislation to enshrine a right to privacy and safeguard children's information - along with a modernization of safety laws - the plan is vague on a timeline and what specific measures will be put forward to do so. Earlier this year, Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller said the federal government is considering banning AI chatbots for kids under the age of 16. Those restrictions are not included here as there is a current review to determine whether they should be integrated into online harms legislation set for later this year.

Canadian Government Plans $360 Million Tech Growth Fund in Effort to Drive Sovereign AI Industry

OTTAWA--Canada's government will set up a technology growth fund to help fund promising artificial-intelligence companies, part of the hundreds of millions of dollars it plans to pump into building a home-grown AI industry and encourage adoption of the technology. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government unveiled Thursday a new national AI strategy dubbed "AI for All" that includes plans for a 500 million Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of about US$360 million, fund aimed at closing what it says as the scale-up capital gap facing the country's most promising AI companies. The Canadian Tech Growth Fund will offer flexible capital and investment support, while also providing a platform for Ottawa to at times take equity stakes in the most promising AI firms. The aim is to help these companies attract price capital, compete globally, retain talent and intellectual property and remain anchored in Canada, the government said. Carney has described AI as the defining technology of the era, one that already is changing how people work, learn and connect. "AI is here. The question is whether it will improve the lives of all Canadians or benefit only a few," he said. The government strategy, introduced by Carney and AI and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon at an event in Toronto, seeks to build safe, reliable and sovereign AI in what the prime minister said must be a pragmatic and prudent way. The plans center on pillars that include protecting Canadians from the risks and harms of AI, empowering Canadians to use and benefit from the technology, and building Canadian AI foundations in compute, data, talent and infrastructure. There are more than 3,500 Canadian companies developing advanced AI models, tools and applications that have collectively raised more than C$37 billion in venture-capital funding, the government said. It points to estimates that generative AI alone could add C$187 billion annually to the Canadian economy by 2030 and create hundreds of new Canadian firms. Use of AI in the country remains low. About 12% of Canadian companies were using AI to produce goods and services using AI as of mid-2025, a figure the government wants to increase to 60% by 2034. Carney said Canada also ranks near the bottom of countries in AI training, literacy and trust. And the country is highly dependent on foreign suppliers for the infrastructure that powers AI, from compute to cloud to data storage, he said. Carney said this creates risks that foreign entities could access Canadian data, deploy AI products that shape Canadian lives and "tilt the playing field against Canadian firms." The government's goals include helping create 250,000 new jobs through the adoption of AI by 2031, and supporting unlocking a 3% increase in gross domestic product from labor productivity that includes the commercialization and use of AI in key sectors. It plans to provide all Canadians with access to free AI literacy training, and ensuring all post-secondary students have access to trusted AI agents. It also is looking to create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and work placement opportunities for young Canadians to start their careers and support small and medium-sized businesses and nonprofits by 2031. Planned government spending on the strategy includes providing C$500 million through a regional AI initiative to expand AI adoption, commercialization and readiness across the country. It will expand sovereign compute for Canadian small and medium businesses with an additional C$700 million added to the government's existing C$300 million Compute Access Fund, which last month said it had to date provided support for 44 projects. The government additionally intends to launch an AI Missions Program to advance targeted projects that promise significant public good and meaningful improvements in Canadians' lives. The first mission will commit C$200 million to improving health care, the government said. Ottawa has plans to update the laws and standards regarding privacy rights, ensure safeguards for children's online activities and protect vulnerable groups from online violence and algorithmic biases. This would include providing Canadians with legal tools to combat deep fakes, ensuring that interactions with chatbots are safe. It would also strengthen privacy laws to ensure that Canadians' personal information isn't used inappropriately, such as for surveillance pricing. The government said it would invest C$50 million to expand the capabilities of the Canadian AI Safety Institute to track emerging AI risks, advance technical research and to conduct transparent evaluations of AI models.

Canada says AI strategy will help create 250,000 jobs, boost GDP by 3%

TORONTO, June 4 (Reuters) - Canada unveiled a new artificial intelligence strategy on Thursday that it says will help create 250,000 jobs by 2031 and includes a new C$500 million ($360.05 million) tech fund to help homegrown AI firms. The strategy, called "AI for all", was announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney as the country's biggest companies invest heavily to build new tools they hope will rapidly process information and increase Canada's historically low productivity. Here are some takeaways from the strategy unveiled by Carney in Toronto: o The government expects the strategy to increase the country's gross domestic product by 3%, unlocking nearly C$200 billion as commercialization and use of AI in key sectors increases labor productivity. Canada's digital sector currently employs about 800,000 workers and contributes more than C$140 billion to GDP, with 150,000 jobs directly associated with AI. o Canada will establish a C$500 million Canadian Tech Growth Fund to help close the capital gap at Canadian AI companies versus U.S. tech giants. The fund will also enable the federal government to take equity stakes in Canadian AI firms. o The government will use a C$500 million initiative from the Business Development Bank of Canada to finance access to AI tools for Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises. o Canada reiterated plans to introduce new consumer privacy legislation to safeguard children's information and online activities, combat deep fakes and strengthen consumers' control over personal data. The government will also invest C$50 million to track emerging AI risks and conduct transparent evaluations of AI models. However, no timeline on the implementation of these regulations was disclosed. ($1 = 1.3887 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Paul Simao)