Historically, Canada has been a true leader in funding basic research, including through CIFAR, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. This has enabled Canadian research laboratories to play a leading international role, particularly in the field of deep learning, which has generated recent interest in artificial intelligence.
In addition, the federal government has funded initiatives such as the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, which is a competition, and has funded things like the Data Serving Canadians initiative. This initiative has transformed fundamental knowledge used in four specific sectors: health, logistics, e-commerce and the financial sector. There are concrete examples of funding useful activities. In addition, supporting such research activities has the effect of attracting a critical mass of industries that will invest in the field.