Canada’s AI Strategy Just Took Its First Real Step

Canada is finally waking up to the stakes. Here’s why that matters for our economy, and for the next generation.

Author

Mac Foster
July 03, 2025

It was Canada Day on Tuesday.

My daughter just started walking (with a walker still but we’ll give her credit).

Naturally, I’m thinking about what comes next. Not just for her, but for the country and the world she’s growing up in.

The skills she’ll need in 5, 10, 20 years will look nothing like the ones I learned. And the rate of change isn’t slowing down, it’s accelerating.

Which makes this announcement timely, if not a little late:

Canada now has a federal Minister of AI and Digital Innovation.

Evan Solomon - a rookie MP and former journalist - was appointed in May. His mandate is to help Canadian AI companies scale, build sovereign infrastructure, and make the federal government more efficient using AI.

Evan Solomon speaking at a US-Canada Summit in 2023

“Building large AI companies is an urgent issue,” Solomon told The Globe and Mail. We need to really pick the companies that have the potential to scale.”

The plan involves procurement, defense spending, and foreign partnerships to close Canada’s capital and capability gaps. There’s also talk of sovereign data centers — long overdue.

Politics aside, this matters.

Because we’re behind.

The US, China, and even the UK have outpaced us in funding, infrastructure, and adoption. If we don’t move fast, we’ll end up a buyer, not a builder, in the next industrial cycle.

Here’s why this hits close to home for me as a founder and as a parent:

1. Curriculums won’t keep up.

Schools are optimized for a world that’s already gone. By the time AI skills become “standard,” the tools will have changed again. Kids won’t need to memorize facts — they’ll need to master adaptability. That starts at home, not in a syllabus.

2. This isn’t about jobs. It’s about leverage.

AI isn’t a “sector” anymore. It’s a system-level advantage. In our work, we’ve rebuilt entire workflows around it, from creative production to insights to distribution. The cost of iteration has dropped to near zero. Those who move now get to compound.

3. Canada doesn’t need more startups. It needs more scale.

We don’t lack talent or innovation, we lack follow-through. If the new ministry wants real impact, it has to go beyond grants and headlines. Pick winners. Fund infrastructure. Help them win globally. That’s how we stop exporting our best people and importing the results.

Bottom line:

My daughter’s learning to walk.

Canada’s figuring out how to run in the AI race.

Only one of them has a shot at becoming globally competitive in the next decade…and it’s not the toddler 😆 

Let’s hope we don’t fumble this.

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