Canada’s AI for All Strategy: 
Building Trust, Innovation and Sovereignty in the Era of AI

On June 4th, 2026, the federal government released Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All (the Strategy). The Strategy aims to ensure that artificial intelligence serves Canadians, strengthens businesses and communities and enhances Canada’s control over its technological future through six key pillars.

Pillar 1: Protecting Canadians and Safeguarding our Democracy

Focused on protecting Canadians, particularly children, vulnerable groups and democratic institutions, from AI-related risks. Trust is positioned as the foundation for confident adoption. The premise is that without privacy protections, online safety measures, transparency obligations and accountable AI systems, economic and social objectives cannot be realized.

Pillar 2: Empowering Canadians

Focused on Canadians being active participants in and beneficiaries of the AI transition, with emphasis on literacy, opportunity and participation.

Pillar 3: Powering Shared Prosperity

Focused on translating Canada’s strength in AI research into tangible productivity gains, increased business adoption and broader economic growth. This pillar emphasizes the shift from AI experimentation to practical implementation.

Pillar 4: Building the Canadian Sovereign AI Foundation

Focused on data sovereignty, protection of sensitive Canadian information and resilience against foreign-controlled infrastructure, sovereign compute capacity, cloud and connectivity infrastructure, secure data platforms subject to Canadian law, talent attraction and retention and robust privacy protections.

Pillar 5: Scaling Canadian Champions

Focused on helping Canadian AI companies scale their technologies, retain talent and intellectual property domestically, commercialize research and compete globally.

Pillar 6: Building Trusted Partnerships and Global Alliances

Focused on collaboration with trusted, like-minded partners to develop and share common standards, invest jointly in innovation and support Canadian AI companies in accessing global markets while upholding democratic values.

The Strategy identifies five priority sectors:

• health and life sciences;
• energy and natural resources; 
• transportation;
• agriculture; and
• manufacturing and robotics.

The Strategy provides a roadmap to Canada's federal AI priorities: identifying legislative changes, new funds, programs and supports and a policy framework designed to ensure that Canada benefits from AI while maintaining its values. With trust positioned as its "north star", the Strategy underscores the importance of ensuring that AI is developed, adopted and governed in a manner consistent with those principles.

For organizations and stakeholders, the Strategy is not merely a policy statement but a forward-looking blueprint that will shape the regulatory landscape, funding environment and strategic opportunities in the future. The sections that follow examine these elements in greater detail, highlighting the specific initiatives and examples that show how these priorities are expected to take shape in practice.

The Six Pillars in Detail:

Pillar 1: Protecting Canadians and Safeguarding our Democracy

Pillar 1 recognizes that AI adoption in Canada will depend on trust, safety and effective safeguards. The pillar focuses on protecting Canadians, particularly children, vulnerable groups and democratic institutions, from AI-related risks. Within the broader AI for All framework, trust is positioned as the foundation for confident adoption; without privacy protections, online safety measures, transparency obligations and accountable AI systems, the Strategy’s economic and social objectives cannot be realized.

Key Actions of the Strategy

• Modernize consumer privacy legislation in order to enshrine a fundamental right to privacy, safeguard children's information from harm and exploitation and strengthen people's control over their personal data, objectives reflected in the introduction of Bill C-36, An Act to enact the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and to make amendments to other Act.
• Introduce online safety laws to protect Canadians, which is now being advanced through recent legislative initiatives, including Bill C-34, An Act to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
• Protect elections and democratic institutions from AI-enabled misinformation and foreign interference.
• Continue reviewing the Privacy Act for government use of personal information, including transparency, privacy and alignment with international standards. 
• Advance AI transparency measures including watermarking of AI-generated content.
• Work with frontier AI companies and international partners on AI safety, cybersecurity and protection of critical systems.
• Create a Canada Trusted AI Certification program.
• Renew funding for the Standards Council of Canada's AI Program to support standardization, standards-based AI testing, certification, interoperability and global market access.
• Accelerate applied AI research, testing and deployment for fraud and extortion prevention, cyber defence, threat detection and data protection.
• Invest $50 million to expand the Canadian AI Safety Institute to track emerging AI risks, advance technical research and conduct transparent evaluations of AI models.

Organizations should also be aware of Bill C-22, An Act respecting lawful access, as it would introduce mandatory metadata retention provisions that may create tensions with the Strategy's objectives. While the Strategy commits to modernizing privacy legislation and enshrining a fundamental right to privacy, Bill C-22's data retention requirements could complicate efforts to minimize data collection and strengthen individuals' control over personal information.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

This pillar signals that responsible AI governance, privacy-by-design and proactive safety measures are likely to become baseline expectations for AI adoption. For organizations, this means AI deployment will increasingly be judged not just on performance, but on transparency, accountability and risk management. Organizations that embed these principles into their processes early will be better positioned to meet regulatory expectations and build user trust.

Pillar 2: Empowering Canadians

This second pillar is grounded in the principle that Canadians should be active participants in and beneficiaries of the AI transition. The Strategy frames empowerment around three dimensions: literacy, opportunity and participation. It focuses on AI literacy, skills development, workforce transition support, Indigenous leadership in AI, cultural expression and accessibility.

Key Actions of the Strategy

• Create a National AI Literacy Initiative offering entry-level AI training accessible to all Canadians.
• Reach 1 million entry-level post-secondary students with AI literacy content and train more than 3,000 educators with AI learning kits.
• Ensure all post-secondary students have access to trusted AI agents.
• Empower public libraries and community organizations as AI literacy partners, especially in rural, remote and northern regions.
• Invest $50 million to modernize the Job Bank with AI-powered job matching and maintain a national online training platform connecting adults to free and low-cost short-duration courses, including sector-specific AI literacy skills.
• Invest $30 million in CanCode for free digital skills training, including coding, AI and emerging technologies for K–12 youth and educators, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups.
• Create up to 90,000 AI-related job opportunities, including 45,000 through the Student Work Placement Program and Canada Summer Jobs, 35,000 through initiatives such as Skills for Success and 10,000 through Mitacs ADOPT and AI+X programs.
• Assess training and upskilling offerings for mid-career workers, including skilled trades.
• Accelerate AI adoption across female-dominated sectors most exposed to disruption through the Women's Program.
• Track societal, labour market and economic impacts of AI through Statistics Canada's Artificial Intelligence and Technology Measurement Program.
• Support and amplify Indigenous-led AI initiatives that reinforce cultural expression and linguistic vitality.
• Develop tools that protect and promote the French language and ensure government AI systems perform equally well in both official languages.
• Establish a $50 million Creative Technology Program that supports Canadian creators in using AI.
• Promote the world's first AI equity-based national standard on accessible AI and apply Gender-Based Analysis Plus across policy design, skills development, innovation and governance.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

Deploying AI tools without corresponding investment in employee training, change management and equitable access may attract increasing scrutiny from regulators, employees and the public. The Strategy's emphasis on empowering Canadians to recognize bias, misinformation, privacy risks and unsafe uses suggests that organizations should expect heightened expectations around internal AI education and the ability to demonstrate that affected individuals can engage with AI systems from an informed position.

Pillar 3: Powering Shared Prosperity

Pillar 3 focuses on translating Canada’s strength in AI research into tangible productivity gains, increased business adoption and broader economic growth. This pillar is intended to help organizations of all sizes, with a particular emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises ("SMEs"), move from AI experimentation to practical implementation through accessible financing and sector-specific support. As a result, organizations will have opportunities not only to benefit from the integration of AI solutions, but also to participate more actively in AI development and innovation.

Key Actions of the Strategy

• Support accelerated AI adoption among SMEs and across the Canadian economy.
• Help Canadian businesses move from experimentation to implementation through hands-on support, practical advice, sector-specific expertise and roadmaps. 
• Use the Business Development Bank of Canada's LIFT program, a $500 million initiative, to help SMEs access financing to incorporate AI tools into operations. 
• Invest $500 million to expand and enhance the Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative through Regional Development Agencies.
• Develop an AI Literacy and Adoption Assessment tool and online resources to help SMEs assess AI readiness, identify practical use cases, understand business impacts in a low-risk environment and connect with programs.
• Provide targeted support through the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development Program.
• Leverage the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program and Productivity Super-Deduction announced in Budget 2025. 
• Launch an AI Missions Program, beginning with a $200 million health mission.
• Launch sector-specific Workforce Alliances across the five priority sectors.
• Transform public service delivery with AI through responsible AI use, transparency, privacy, accountability and human-in-the-loop oversight.
• Accelerate procurement and delivery of AI solutions across the federal government through the Office of Digital Transformation.
• Launch the Prime Minister's Innovation Fellows Program.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

This pillar highlights that the federal government intends to actively accelerate AI adoption across the Canadian economy, particularly among SMEs. The practical implication is twofold: businesses adopting AI will have access to new financing and sector-specific support, but they will face growing expectations to demonstrate responsible and human-centred deployment aligned with transparency, privacy, accountability and human-in-the-loop oversight.

Pillar 4: Building the Canadian Sovereign AI Foundation

Infrastructure, data and talent are essential to Canada's ability to build, govern and use AI on its own terms. This pillar focuses on sovereign compute capacity, cloud and connectivity infrastructure, secure data platforms subject to Canadian law, talent attraction and retention and robust privacy protections. Data sovereignty, protection of sensitive Canadian information and resilience against foreign-controlled infrastructure are central considerations.

Key Actions of the Strategy:

• Build a world-leading public supercomputer giving researchers and SMEs access to secure, sovereign, high-performance compute.
• Leverage government and industrial AI workloads and private capital to expand sovereign compute and cloud infrastructure.
• Support construction of large-scale AI data centres that can scale to at least 100 MW and serve Canadian clients.
• Expand diverse high-capacity fibre lines and satellite connectivity for resilient network infrastructure with sovereign capabilities.
• Enhance and secure chip design and fabrication capabilities, including the announced spin-off of the National Research Council's Photonics Fabrication Centre. 
• Invest in secure digital systems for government operations, including sovereign cloud, AI, cyber and quantum initiatives.
• Invest $100 million to launch the Health Sector Data Space with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). 
• Invest $100 million to expand VITAL in five additional provinces.
• Strengthen national AI institutes and increase the Canada CIFAR AI Chairs program from 130 to nearly 200 researchers.
• Expand the Global Talent Stream and align permanent residency measures to retain AI talent.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

For organizations that process personal, health, financial or other sensitive data through AI systems, this pillar signals that reliance on foreign-controlled infrastructure will face increasing policy, procurement and regulatory pressure. It is prudent that organizations assess their current AI infrastructure dependencies, data flows and vendor arrangements against the direction of Canada's sovereignty objectives.

Pillar 5: Scaling Canadian Champions

As AI technology continues to evolve, Canada's AI capabilities must keep pace. This pillar focuses on helping Canadian AI companies scale their technologies, retain talent and intellectual property domestically, commercialize research and compete globally. Canada’s AI ecosystem, including institutions such as Mila, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and the Vector Institute, as well as companies like Cohere and Law Zero, must translate research strength into domestic business and trusted products with sustained economic capacity.

Key Actions of the Strategy

• Establish a $500 million Canadian Tech Growth Fund to help close the scale-up capital gap for promising AI companies.
• Allow the federal government, where appropriate, to take equity stakes in promising Canadian AI firms and leverage the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
• Explore mechanisms to encourage reinvestment of gains from successful technology companies into new Canadian AI startups. 
• Leverage $1.75 billion of federal investments and commitments to stimulate private sector investment in venture capital and address access to capital gaps. 
• Establish the federal government as a strategic anchor customer and leverage the Buy Canadian policy.
• Provide SMEs with an additional $700 million in affordable sovereign compute through expansion of the Compute Access Fund.
• Invest $130 million in commercialization programs across the National AI Institutes, including Founders-in-Residence.
• Assess innovation programs to shorten and clarify the path from research to market.
• Leverage $159 million through the Elevate IP and IP Assist programs to protect Canadian intellectual property and support SME commercialization of intangible assets.
• Anchor homegrown foundation model capabilities in Canada and support international growth.
• Support research in Canadian foundation models built with safety at their core.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

When making AI procurement and vendor selection decisions, organizations should anticipate a growing emphasis on sourcing trusted Canadian AI solutions, protecting intellectual property within Canada and evaluating vendors against safety, trustworthiness and data governance standards.

Pillar 6: Building Trusted Partnerships and Global Alliances

AI governance, standards, infrastructure and supply chains are increasingly international in scope. This pillar emphasizes collaboration with trusted, like-minded partners to develop and share common standards, invest jointly in innovation and support Canadian AI companies in accessing global markets while upholding democratic values. It also highlights the importance of advancing open-source AI to strengthen resilience.

Key Actions of the Strategy

• Expand the Sovereign Technology Alliance launched by Canada and Germany in February 2026 to enable secure and interoperable AI capabilities and open procurement opportunities for domestic champions.
• Leverage the Trade Commissioner Service and diplomatic networks to attract foreign investment, showcase Canadian champions and enable new markets. 
• Lead a global multi-stakeholder effort to invest in and sustain open-source AI development in the public interest.
• Support responsible adoption of open-source AI by researchers, SMEs, not-for-profits and public-interest innovators, including through an inventory and shared library of transparent, adaptable, secure tools aligned with Canadian needs.
• Expand international partnerships in Europe, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.

Key Takeaway for Organizations

This pillar shows that AI governance standards, safety benchmarks and procurement frameworks are increasingly being shaped through international cooperation. For organizations, this pillar will be particularly relevant when navigating cross-border AI governance, international standards and interoperability requirements, as Canada seeks to both contribute to and benefit from a globally connected AI ecosystem.

Looking to the Future

Canada's AI for All strategy represents a national commitment to shaping the regulatory, governance and commercial frameworks needed for AI to benefit all Canadians. Organizations should begin mapping their AI use cases, data flows and governance structures in anticipation of evolving requirements. Early alignment will position organizations to respond efficiently to new obligations, access potential government program support and demonstrate responsible AI use.

If you have any questions about how the AI for All strategy may affect your organization, the Bennett Jones Privacy & Data Protection group is available to assist.