Against a backdrop of rising global public anxiety over artificial intelligence’s risks to privacy, personal safety and employment stability, the Canadian government has launched a long-awaited 10-year national AI strategy that charts a clear path for the country’s adoption and governance of the transformative technology. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the comprehensive C$2 billion ($1.4 billion) plan on Thursday, framing AI’s proliferation as an irreversible shift that is already reshaping core parts of daily life from work and education to social connection.
One of the strategy’s central pillars is safeguarding Canadian digital and economic sovereignty, a longstanding policy priority that has gained renewed urgency amid shifting cross-border dynamics with the United States. The plan explicitly identifies reducing reliance on foreign AI infrastructure and service providers as a key goal, highlighting that Canadian companies currently store large volumes of sensitive data in overseas jurisdictions, and the federal government already depends on some critical digital infrastructure owned by foreign entities. Carney warned that bad actors could weaponize AI against Canadian interests, prompting two major infrastructure commitments: the development of a secure, world-class public supercomputer accessible to domestic researchers and businesses, and targeted support for building large-scale domestic AI data centers, with a target of drastically expanding national computing capacity by 2030.
Addressing a long-standing structural challenge for the Canadian AI ecosystem, the strategy prioritizes retaining homegrown AI talent and attracting global skilled workers to the country. For decades, Canada’s close proximity to the massive U.S. tech market has led to a steady brain drain of top Canadian AI innovators, a reality the strategy openly acknowledges as an “uncomfortable truth.” High-profile examples of this trend include Geoffrey Hinton, the Canadian Nobel Prize-winning researcher known as the “Godfather of AI,” who sold his startup to Google and spent years working for the U.S. tech giant, and Ilya Sutskever, another Canadian AI pioneer who co-founded industry leader OpenAI. To reverse this outflow, the plan will fund new AI research fellowships and expand the number of specialized AI research chairs at Canadian universities. It also offers accelerated immigration pathways and permanent residency for top AI talent from around the world seeking to relocate to Canada. Additionally, the government is committing C$500 million in targeted investment to domestic AI firms, which will allow the federal government to take equity stakes in emerging Canadian AI companies to support their growth.
The strategy also aims to dramatically scale AI adoption across all Canadian economic sectors over the next decade. Government data shows only 12% of Canadian businesses integrated AI tools into their operations between mid-2024 and mid-2025, and the new plan sets an ambitious target of lifting that adoption rate to 60% by 2034. To reach this goal, the government is offering C$500 million in financing to help small and medium-sized businesses integrate AI into their workflows, alongside C$50 million in targeted support for content creators to adopt AI tools on their own terms.
A major focus of the adoption push is upgrading Canada’s struggling public healthcare system, which has long grappled with prolonged emergency room wait times and widespread shortages of primary care providers. Carney was joined by healthcare workers from a Toronto hospital for the strategy’s announcement, and the plan earmarks C$200 million to improve health outcomes using AI, with a core goal of reducing the heavy administrative burden that pulls clinicians away from direct patient care. Carney noted that nearly three-quarters of European Union member states already use AI-assisted diagnostics to analyze medical imaging and detect disease, positioning Canada as lagging behind on this front.
To address widespread public mistrust of AI, the strategy prioritizes expanding national AI literacy. Recent government polling shows deep division among Canadians over AI’s impact: just 34% view the technology as beneficial to society, while 36% see it as harmful, and half of all respondents regard AI as an existential threat to humanity. A global study from KPMG and the University of Melbourne also ranked Canada low among developed nations in AI literacy, training and public trust. In response, the government is launching a national AI literacy initiative that will provide free entry-level AI training to all Canadians, delivered in part through partnerships with the country’s network of public libraries.
On the regulatory front, the government has pledged to introduce new AI legislation to protect consumer privacy and child safety, as well as updates to modernize Canada’s existing online safety rules to account for AI-specific risks. However, the strategy provides no specific details on the content or timeline of these proposed regulatory changes. Calls for new AI safety rules have intensified in Canada this year, after it was revealed that the suspect in a February mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, used ChatGPT to discuss gun violence months before the attack. OpenAI acknowledged it was aware of the concerning activity but failed to alert law enforcement, prompting a public apology from CEO Sam Altman and a meeting between OpenAI executives and Canadian officials, who threatened new regulation if the company did not update its safety protocols. Carney emphasized that Canada must be transparent about AI’s risks, including the spread of deepfakes, unregulated unsafe chatbots, and AI-generated disinformation.
The lack of specific details on safety regulation has drawn criticism from Canada’s Conservative opposition. Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman told reporters that the safety and security safeguards promised by the government are nowhere to be found in the strategy document, with no concrete details on how new rules will work or when they will take effect. While the strategy projects that scaling AI across sectors will create 250,000 new jobs over the next decade, it notably does not include any estimate of how many existing roles could be displaced by rapid AI adoption, leaving a key question about the technology’s labor market impact unaddressed.