Breaking down Canada’s new AI strategy

Canada’s new national AI strategy, AI for All, outlines how to reach best-case scenarios around widespread AI adoption, while also addressing increasing concerns around privacy and safety. As Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon recently told PPF on the WONK podcast, the strategy aims for a pragmatic approach. « We’ve got to be open to the massive opportunities here, but we’ve got to be candid about concerns. » 

The strategy is based around six pillars, all of which have been at the centre of urgent debates about the perils and promise of artificial intelligence. 

1. Safety

This first pillar focuses on « protecting Canadians and safeguarding our democracy. » A key figure in the pillar: a $50-million commitment to expand the Canadian AI Safety Institute. In a new PPF policy memo on the strategy, PPF Fellow and leading AI expert Shingai Manjengwa argues that safety is the one area where governments will need to step up and fill a void left by the private sector. “If we lose control of AI agents with access to our critical infrastructure, nothing else in the strategy will matter,” writes Manjengwa, who leads AI education at Mila, the Montreal-based artificial intelligence research institute.   

2. Education

Education and training is a central part of the strategy’s second pillar, looking at « empowering Canadians. » The strategy’s K to 12 commitment is to double teacher training to more than 3,000 educators. As PPF CEO Inez Jabalpurwala argued in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed, preparing Canadians for an AI future means investing not only in technical skills, but also human skills that technology cannot replace. Manjengwa notes that up-skilling a population will take structured programs across all education levels, as well as government, the private sector and the general public. “Just as society once had to socialize electricity — teaching safety, how it works, and opportunity, from the classroom to the factory — Canada must now socialize artificial intelligence,” writes Manjengwa, who also leads AI Policy Compass, a training program for policymakers offered jointly by Mila and PPF Academy.

3. Adoption 

Pillar three looks at “empowering AI adoption” in Canada, where as of 2025 only 12 percent of businesses reported using AI. The strategy outlines a goal to increase adoption to 60 percent by 2034, along with the creation of 250,000 new jobs by 2031. The strategy has little to say about job losses — a dominant concern around adoption and one of the biggest question marks surrounding the AI revolution. “AI job displacement policy is also immigration policy, housing policy, food security policy, and the protection of our most vulnerable, all at play at once,” writes Manjengwa. “A visibly weak job market, like the one AI could create, pulls on all of them.”

4. Sovereignty

Pillar four looks at “building the Canadian sovereign AI foundation” in a world where AI infrastructure largely exists outside our borders. There are real fears that in the AI race, Canada could become a digital colony. To avoid this, Canada will adopt a « build-partner-buy » approach to its AI infrastructure, states the strategy. That means building domestic capability where possible, and partnering with allies or “buying existing market solutions when appropriate.” As Solomon told PPF’s WONK, “no country can build the full stack of AI.” 

5. Canadian champions

 The fifth pillar looks at the long-standing question of how to retain entrepreneurs, companies and IP that all too often flow to friendlier investment climates outside of Canada. It calls for the creation of a $500-million Canadian Tech Growth Fund, buy Canadian policies and more investments to “stimulate private sector investment in venture capital”. Manjengwa argues that in trying to pick and promote winners, a culture shift is also required: “Canada must move to a real performance culture, with measurement, consequences and reallocation when needed. That may mean taking funding away from friends. AI will expose us either way.”  

6. Global alliances 

Pillar six focuses on « partnerships and global alliances. » It declares that « a coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape. » Manjengwa notes that the EU is well ahead of the game here  with its AI Act, which is fast becoming a working standard. “Should we build a new regulatory dialect from scratch when the most like-minded democracies have built one the market already respects?”  

Read Shingai Manjengwa’s full report on the national AI strategy. 

And watch Solomon’s interview with host Amanda Lang on PPF’s WONK podcast.