What is Mark Carney’s new AI strategy?

On June 4, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his long-awaited strategy for AI use in Canada. With governments around the world committing to using AI for a litany of purposes, Carney has joined the fray and announced a plan for nationwide adoption of the controversial technology. While critics express doubt over the environmental and economic impacts of AI, Carney's new plans attempt to quell doubts while investing in Artificial Intelligence. Carney's AI strategy does not just include strategies for adoption, but will also reportedly attempt to protect Canada from the risks associated with the technology.

What is the strategy?

According to the official document released by the government of Canada, Carney's new AI strategy will attempt to accomplish seven major goals. While some of the goals carry specific timelines, some are also general goals that will most likely be difficult to measure their success. Carney's government will aim to invest $2 billion into AI-related services in order to accomplish the goals. Carney's list of goals includes protection measures for Canadians through education services, creating jobs in the AI sector, the adoption of AI-based services in the business sector, and AI infrastructure.

Protecting Canadians from AI

In a confusing, but strangely hopeful turn, Carney's government will reportedly attempt to protect Canadians from the risks of AI. Why Canada would invest $2 billion into a technology it sees as a major risk to its citizens is a vital question; the commitment to protection does bode well for the way the Canadian government views the technology. With dozens of studies outlining the risks of unmitigated and unregulated AI use on humans, Canada's serious investment in the technology raises questions, but according to Carney, a significant chunk of that funding will be dedicated to education.

Mark Carney wants to implement cost-free AI literacy courses available to any post-secondary students who wish to attend them. Unfortunately, none of the documents released to the public has given a clear plan of action for the implementation of these courses. According to Carney, Canada will implement a National Literacy Initiative to educate Canadians about AI. This would include teaching 3,000 educators about the risks of AI in order for them to educate their students. Canada's AI strategy claims it will also ‘Protect Canadians and children against the risks from AI and online harms.' But does not give a single example of how it will complete that task.

Creating job opportunities in AI

With AI adoption causing a rift in multiple job sectors, Canada will reportedly be creating jobs in AI targeted towards young Canadians. According to the document released on June 4, the government aims to create 90,000 jobs in AI, though it did not provide a timeline. Earlier in June, senior government officials were asked how many jobs had been lost due to AI adoption, to which they had no answer. AI minister Evan Solomon pointed to a statement from Bank of Canada deputy governor Michelle Alexopoulos, who recently claimed that there had been ‘no evidence' of job loss due to AI. Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman has claimed that Canada lost 112,000 jobs in 2025, but it's unclear how many of those were related to AI technology. In addition to the 90,00 jobs in AI targeted towards young Canadians, Carney's 50-page plan claims it will create 250,000 jobs in total,

Encouraging businesses to implement AI

The most concerning portion of Carney's AI plan encourages small businesses to adopt AI. AI adoption in daily business has been heavily reported to cause more issues than it solves. Starbucks USA recently killed its multi-million dollar AI program, as it lost the company money, and caused workers headaches, all while directly causing job losses for workers. It's unclear whether businesses will be forced to implement any strategies, but with grants and funding available, small and medium-sized businesses will be strongly encouraged to adopt AI technology, potentially at the cost of employees. Ottawa will also be investing $500 million into its Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative. The initiative is meant to aid AI startups in growing and address common challenges with AI adoption across critical sectors.

The government of Canada is aiming to increase AI adoption by small and medium-sized businesses by 48 per cent by 2034.

Becoming AI-sovereign

Interestingly enough, Carney and the government of Canada do not want to rely on American and Chinese AI models. A large chunk of the funding will be going to homegrown AI companies, in the hopes of using Canadian technology that can be regulated and with companies that the government can form long-term relationships built on trust. Senior officials claim they don't see Canada completely moving away from American LLm's, but the focus of this plan will be to make Canada an AI superpower. Ottawa plans to build a world-leading public supercomputer, as well as a slew of data centres that can house AI models.

With data centres causing serious problems across the globe, it's unfortunate and surprising that it appears as though Carney has not learned from the mistakes of other countries. Mark Carney is following the money in hopes that AI will help Canada, but as the technology causes countries and job sectors to crash and burn, Mark Carney has opened the door and invited in risk, rolling out the red carpet for something that may cost Canadians in every way possible.