Canada's AI Strategy Is Only as Strong as Its Weakest Link
In June, Ottawa launched AI for All — five years, a promised $200 billion in economic growth, 250,000 jobs, and a target of taking business AI adoption from 12% to 60% by 2034. I spent many weeks reading it closely, partly for this series and partly because some local political leaders asked what I thought of it.
My honest answer: the strategy gets the diagnosis right. Canada's problem isn't invention, it's adoption, and there's real money behind fixing it. Whether it works depends on something the document can't control — what happens in the last mile, in places like Whitehorse. This review goes pillar by pillar and lands on six places where it falls short: education isn't a priority sector, the literacy money reaches students rather than the business owners the adoption target actually depends on, the classroom risks go unmentioned, the compute numbers don't hold up, the infrastructure can't reach small centres, and regional delivery is named but not resourced. None of it is fatal. It does mean that if you run a business, a non-profit or a First Nation government up here, the strategy's success runs through you.