Science and Research Committee on Nov. 24th, 2025

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

As a member of the task force, do you agree that there should be some guardrails, that guardrails are important and that the Liberal government has to learn from its failures?

[Diane Gutiw]

I can't comment on the past actions of the Liberal government. As I said, that would be a question for the minister.

However, I know that there have been conversations as part of the consultation of the task force about clearly defining what we mean by sovereignty, clearly protecting what needs to be protected and making sure, as we define who we collaborate with, that we understand what the benefit is to Canada in doing that.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Thank you. That is all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to MP Jaczek for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Adam, I would like to understand a bit more about eStruxture Data Centers—for which you are senior vice-president—particularly your business model.

I understand that you're a Canadian-owned data centre provider. You have facilities in many centres across Canada. You serve nearly 1,000 clients, with a focus on enabling enterprise applications and supporting the digital economy.

Can you describe in any way why individuals, these clients, come to you as opposed to going perhaps to a college that might have an applied research focus, or a university? Have these people perhaps exhausted other options, so they come to you?

[Angela Adam]

Let me clarify our business model.

We are a co-location data centre provider, which means we build facilities and rent out space, power and cooling. This means the customers who already have their gear, their network appliances and their servers come and install them in our data centres. We do not touch their infrastructure. We don't own it. We don't have the right to see what is on it.

Generally, our customers own their infrastructure, and they're choosing between hosting it on site on their own premises and bringing it to a co-location data centre, such as ours, where we can guarantee uptime and security 24-7 so they don't have to worry about losing power and then losing the data on their servers or about not having their IT manager in the office when something happens. We take care of all of it, making sure that we give these companies 100% uptime.

Our customers would not generally be tapping into resources from a research institute or university because they own their own compute, and their workload would sit on their own gear.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

You don't vet these clients in any way on what their research focus is. You simply provide the premises. Is that correct?

[Angela Adam]

That is correct.

Obviously we have an established “know your customer” process where we don't really allow everybody and anybody to enter our facilities—we need to understand their business—but at the same time, no, we don't look too far into the type of technology they are working on or researching.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Dr. Gutiw, you've had an opportunity to express your opinion around sovereignty on a number of occasions. If you could give your best advice, what would sovereignty for AI look like from your perspective?

[Diane Gutiw]

What we need is clarity. The lack of definition for or clarity on what we mean by “sovereign” is causing confusion, as we've seen here in the conversations today. It's critical that we define it.

In my mind, there are things we must protect as Canadians—our culture, our data and our IP. If we're investing in research, how does that come to fruition and become a marketable solution that needs to be protected and retained as Canadian IP?

The same goes for talent. There are lots of very high salaries being offered outside Canada; however, people want to stay in Canada for the culture. We need to make sure we set up an ecosystem that allows us to retain our talent and allows people to stay in Canada and not be lured by larger salaries elsewhere. We don't want it to leave Canada.

To answer your question related to sovereignty, I think we need to very clearly define what we need to protect, and that can probably be settled fairly easily. If we are going to collaborate for the things we don't have and that we need assistance with, or if we want to leverage the best outside Canada to advance ourselves, we need to set that up in a way that makes the framework very clear so we understand what the benefit is to ourselves and that there's a benefit for the partner investing in Canada.

We've seen some fantastic investments that have grown Canadian talent within Canada with the assistance of industry from outside of Canada. I believe we need to focus on how we can attract people to do business in Canada and how we can attract our own talent to stay in Canada and move into this high-tech industry. Then it's about understanding how our jobs are going to look in the future. Where do we have gaps, and where can we attract people from elsewhere?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you. The time is up.

With that, I want to thank both of the witnesses for their important testimony on this new study we started today.

If there were any questions you were not able to respond to, you can always send in written answers. We will circulate them to members so we take them into consideration while drafting the report.

With that, this panel has come to an end.

We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes so we can have the witnesses for the second panel join us.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call this meeting to order.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witnesses.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen, you can select the appropriate channel: floor, English or French. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

For the second panel, I would like to welcome our three witnesses.

Today, we are joined by Eric Kolaczyk, professor, Computational and Data Systems Institute, McGill University. He is joining us by video conference.

We are also joined by Mr. Françoys Labonté, chief executive officer of the Computer Research Institute of Montreal. He's here in person.

Our third witness for today is Mr. Hugo Larochelle, scientific director, representing Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. He joins us by video conference.

I would like to welcome all three witnesses. Each of you will have five minutes for your opening remarks, and then we will proceed to the rounds of questioning.

We will start with Professor Eric Kolaczyk.

Please go ahead. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Eric Kolaczyk, Director, Computational and Data Systems Institute, McGill University, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.

My name is Eric Kolaczyk. I'm a professor of mathematics and statistics at McGill University, and I'm the founding director of McGill's Computational and Data Systems Institute, known as CDSI. I was previously the director of a similar institute in the U.S.

In building and maintaining these institutes, I have come to believe strongly in their important role in connecting, complementing and amplifying the investments that universities and governments make in research and education around artificial intelligence. University-based institutes continue to foster and enable an agile ecosystem for Canadian AI by supporting cross-disciplinary research collaboration and a talent pipeline that today is very much in transition.

Conventional academic structures have evolved into disciplinary silos that often unintentionally inhibit interdisciplinary collaboration. Data-driven research, such as AI, has crosscutting implications that ignore these artificial partitions. Institutes like CDSI address the challenge of communicating across disciplines by intentionally and strategically breaking down silos and bridging divides.

Within the university, they create space for developing shared understandings for fundamental questions and applications while providing seed funding to actively develop solutions. Externally, they provide a clear point of contact for industry partners, government bodies and community organizations seeking to engage academic expertise and the robust university talent pipeline. Canada's investments in university-based institutes are vital for them to continue promoting interdisciplinary collaboration within academic institutions and with external partners.

There is a growing need for tools and training that support responsible engagement, necessitating that researchers and subject matter experts from outside conventional AI-related disciplines engage fruitfully with those within. Currently, Canada's ability to develop such socially responsible and context-aware solutions is limited. Institutes bridge this gap by providing training programs and by facilitating partnerships that make data, computing and systems accessible to students and researchers, regardless of discipline. Investing in such programs is essential for democratizing AI research and resources, which will then lead to equitable outcomes in AI adoption in broader society.

Additionally, translating fundamental research into real-world context is an ongoing challenge at the research policy interface. Decision-making requires clear, credible insights from academia to inform everyday questions around AI adoption, yet even when exceptional research occurs, it often remains confined within its academic boundaries.

Institutes serve as translators between multiple sectors by supporting university research alignment with national priorities and industry demands, all while helping policy-makers identify and then navigate complex applications. Institutes establish and maintain channels for regular dialogue that reinforces knowledge exchange between Canada's AI expertise across sectors.

Finally, Canadian researchers make important advancements that are dependent on increased visibility to provide a broader impact. Across Canada, researchers produce exceptional work, but the limited infrastructure available to support knowledge translation and mobilization can impede its adoption into decision-making processes.

Institutes amplify and champion the university's voice by representing Canadian scholarship on local, national and global stages. They make sure that Canada's investments in AI are producing cutting-edge technology while contributing to thoughtful, inclusive dialogue about the role of AI in society. Sustained support for institutes is essential for ensuring that publicly funded research is informed by and contributes to public dialogue and policy development.

Empowering institutes like CDSI that bridge disciplines, that lower barriers to access and that amplify research results for greater impact is fundamental to Canada's position at the cutting edge of AI. It is imperative that Canada's robust AI research community remain a trusted partner to maintain the country's position as a global leader in responsible and open artificial intelligence.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We will now proceed to Mr. Labonté.

Please go ahead. You will have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Françoys Labonté, Chief Executive Officer, Computer Research Institute of Montréal]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Françoys Labonté, and I'm appearing before you today on behalf of the Computer Research Institute of Montréal, or CRIM.

Let me begin my remarks by talking about the recent report from the Council of Canadian Academies, published on November 18, 2025, which notes that Canada's performance in innovation has steadily declined to the point where the maintenance of our quality of life has been called into question. Rapid and accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence by our businesses is seen as a promising avenue for turning things around. We're referring to innovation here as the conversion of scientific and technological advances into socio-economic value. Innovation isn't synonymous with “new” or “unprecedented”. It represents the culmination of a rigorous and systematic industrialization process through which the performance, reliability and viability of a potential new product or process are validated in real-world contexts. This industrialization aspect is poorly understood in Canada, and its critical importance is underestimated. Industrialization is a profession in its own right, and it requires distinct approaches, skills and resources.

CRIM is a non-profit organization that has been making a significant contribution to Quebec's research and innovation ecosystem for 40 years. Since its inception, CRIM has distinguished itself with its expertise in artificial intelligence. CRIM arose from university and industry players identifying the need to create a neutral player to bridge their two worlds, a player dedicated to industrialization.

Industrialization relies primarily on experimental development activities, that is, systematic work that draws on the knowledge acquired through research and practical experience and that produces additional knowledge intended to create new products or processes or improve existing ones. CRIM is a research and technology organization, or RTO. This category of players is very common in Europe and other industrialized countries, where a large part of activities are devoted to industrialization through experimental development.

A recent study by the European Association of RTOs, or EARTO, found that the most innovative countries in the world devote a much higher proportion of their public investments to research, development, innovation and experimental development.

If Canadian businesses are going to adopt artificial intelligence, or AI, in an accelerated and widespread way, they need to significantly enhance their experimental development activities. Our tax system, which aims to support experimental development, and which is one of the most generous in the world, simply isn't meeting that objective, particularly because of its complexity, restrictive criteria and unpredictability.

It's important to better support and enhance the activities of players such as CRIM, artificial intelligence practitioners who are made available to businesses to contribute to their artificial intelligence projects and transfer the knowledge and practical experience that has accumulated over time so that businesses can accelerate their adoption of artificial intelligence. As a player on the ground that works with a large number of businesses, CRIM is well aware of the diverse and evolving needs of businesses, particularly SMEs.

I can give you very concrete examples during the question period.

Industrialization activities are generally well managed by large businesses, but they're much less accessible for the majority of Canadian businesses, most of which are SMEs. The government needs to provide more than just financial support for this phase. It needs to support a critical mass of players in this profession. That has to become a priority for all governments, including Canada's, if we want to ensure that our businesses will succeed. In its report, the Council of Canadian Academies called for action by suggesting radical changes to the strategies that have been implemented in the past.

We propose promoting down-to-earth, pragmatic measures that address the proven needs of businesses and that focus on wealth creation. Canada needs to implement consistent government action that aligns with what the world's best are doing when it comes to innovation. RTO players, such as CRIM, are ideally suited to support businesses in their AI adoption process. To be fully effective, RTOs also need to rely on the support of their government. Canada already has many driving forces in place, and we have all the tools we need to succeed. It's a matter of properly coordinating the various players' activities and giving them the means to carry out the missions that have been entrusted to them. This is an essential pivot.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Mr. Labonté.

Now we will proceed to Mr. Larochelle.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Hugo Larochelle, Scientific Director, Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute]

Thank you.

Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for your invitation to appear before you today as part of this important study.

My name is Hugo Larochelle, and I am the new scientific director of Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, headquartered in Montreal. Mila is the world's largest academic deep learning research centre—a community of over 1,500-strong researchers—bringing together researchers and experts dedicated to scientific excellence and the responsible development of AI.

Before I begin my remarks, I want to mention that I'm appearing virtually today, as I'm in beautiful Banff, Alberta, speaking at a CIFAR workshop. It's part of the program that was set up by Dr. Geoffrey Hinton over 20 years ago and that supported Canada's critical AI research early on. It's fitting for me to make these remarks right here as we continue to discuss how to continue to ensure our ecosystem is thriving.

I want to offer a bit of context about my background and how it aligns with Mila's broader perspective. At my core, I'm a professor and researcher, driven by the pursuit of new frontiers and discoveries in AI. At the same time, I maintain a deep interest in industry and the real-world adoption of AI technologies.

Before joining Mila, my company, Whetlab, was acquired by Twitter, and I later went on to lead Google DeepMind's Montreal lab. These experiences have given me a unique vantage point on the direct path from scientific breakthroughs to industry impact, and on what it takes for research institutes to continually strengthen this pipeline. Thank you for creating this opportunity to contribute.

I want to start by recognizing the leadership that the federal government has shown so far. Mila welcomes the Government of Canada's continued investments within budget 2025 to strengthen Canada's leadership in artificial intelligence, with a strong focus on research excellence, talent development and computing infrastructure, all of which are foundational pillars of Canada's artificial intelligence ecosystem.

We particularly welcome the $1‑billion investment in the accelerated research chairs initiative, which has the potential to attract transformative talent to various fields in Canada. We are pleased that the government recognizes the gaps in funding for start-ups, which continue to be a major issue for artificial intelligence start-ups and innovation in general. Those investments demonstrate that this government understands that artificial intelligence is not an isolated sector but a fast-emerging foundation for our future prosperity and security.

However, I'm here to discuss what is needed to transform those investments into sustainable artificial intelligence sovereignty. The global context has changed dramatically. We're no longer simply developing our capabilities; we're in a global race that's extremely competitive.

To maintain our position and to ensure that Canadian discoveries benefit Canada, we must act quickly on two main fronts. First, we must secure our talent immediately. Canada's early global lead in AI was built on the Canada CIFAR AI chairs program. It allowed us to repatriate top minds and retain rising stars, but that advantage is currently at risk. We are witnessing an unprecedented global war for talent. Tech giants are offering recruitment packages valued in the hundreds of millions. Nations like the U.S., France and the U.A.E. are aggressively deploying sovereign funds to poach our best minds.

The current funding cycle for the specific AI chairs program sunsets in 2026. In the academic world, recruitment and retention decisions are made nine to 12 months in advance. That means our top researchers are deciding right now whether their future is in Montreal, Edmonton, San Francisco or Paris. While the government seems dedicated to renewing these chairs, time is of the essence. We therefore strongly urge the government to commit to the long-term renewal and expansion of the AI chairs program as soon as possible. We need to send a signal to the world that Canada is a permanent home for top AI talent.

Second, we need to evolve how we fund research for increased strategic impact. While the chairs program supports individual brilliance, we must introduce a complementary layer of funding: directed research funding for labs and teams, separate from individual chairs. Currently, our funding models favour individual curiosity-driven research. This is vital, but it's not enough to solve massive, complex problems. We need the agility to mobilize directed teams: groups of researchers focused on specific mission-oriented goals.

Establishing this funding mechanism for directed teams would allow us to achieve two critical objectives simultaneously. First is creating conditions to work on root node breakthroughs. We need to mobilize teams towards foundational challenges whose resolution generates cascading effects across entire domains. An example of that would be DeepMind's AlphaFold, which has led to the unlocking of a lot of opportunities for the pharmaceutical discovery. Second, we need to align research with national priorities. Crucially, such a mechanism would allow the government to direct research power towards Canadian challenges.

Canada has laid the foundation. We built the ecosystem the rest of the world is still trying to copy, but the window to maintain and capitalize on that advantage is quickly closing. By renewing our commitment to talent, introducing directed funding for mission-oriented research teams and fixing the early-stage commercialization gap, we can ensure that we do not just produce breakthrough research but convert it into industry and societal benefits.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thanks to all the witnesses for their opening remarks.

Now we will start our first round of questioning with MP DeRidder.

Please go ahead. You will have six minutes.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for coming today.

My question is for you, Hugo.

Today we've heard over and over that we don't even have a definition in this current government of what Canadian sovereignty means for AI innovation. We have no definition of what to protect and no definition of what we want to retain, with both our innovation and our talent, but the money seems to be flowing. There are already hundreds of millions of dollars being spent. It seems to me that this government is running with their eyes closed.

Do you believe there are guardrails or plans in place to ensure that the almost $1.3 billion in innovation funding goes to tech companies in Kitchener, for example, for us to retain our innovation and talent instead of leaving it to foreign entities that are taking our innovation and talent?

[Hugo Larochelle]

I'm not aware of the exact the plan for how that money will be spent. I think a lot of general ideas would probably be recognized, one of them being compute infrastructure that we more fully control for certain areas.

I mentioned the importance of talent. I think this is where everything starts. It is one way we play a big role in having a strategy for our sovereignty. That's about making sure we are training the future workers of our digital economy here, which will be highly based on AI.

Those two seem like important components, but I'm sure—this ecosystem is rich—there are a number of perspectives that might inform exactly what we mean by this. Those would be two key ones that I would advocate for.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

In your experience, how much infrastructure do we currently control?

[Hugo Larochelle]

I can speak largely to the research being done within the walls of Mila by our professors and students. We have a good amount of infrastructure that is locally based. Some of it is based at Université Laval in Quebec City. Some of it we have in Montreal. Also, sometimes our researchers and students will use some of the cloud providers for their compute. It depends a lot on their needs and what they're trying to achieve.

Generally speaking, this makes sense to me. Depending on the specific needs of what you're trying to achieve and its context, sometimes you want something local, and sometimes something in the cloud will be sufficient. It depends a lot on that.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I've noticed, too, that we have amazing talent coming out of Kitchener Centre. The thing is, we educate very well where I'm from, but everybody seems to be leaving and going to Silicon Valley.

What can the government put in place to ensure we retain our talent, especially in tech centres like Kitchener Centre?

[Hugo Larochelle]

It's a great question. I think about it a lot. I think a lot about it specifically from the point of view of the students we're training. It's about making sure they have opportunities at the level of their talent.

If they're looking for an academic career as a professor, I think this is where the CIFAR chair program is one key element. That is why I emphasized it in my remarks. It's about making sure that as academics, as scientists, we really make sure to provide them the opportunity at the level of their expertise.

For those who might be more interested in applying AI and building tools that are used by people, it means making sure that we're equipping them with the tools to start their own company, for instance. This is something at Mila that we're thinking a lot about these days. We have this idea of a venture scientist program that we're currently building. As the scientific director, my hope is that this program will make sure of this for our students.

Some of them might decide to go to universities and such, but some of them might be interested in potentially building something from scratch and building a company. I just want this program to ensure that for those who decide not to build a start-up, it's not because they didn't feel equipped enough to understand how to do this kind of work and to approach this kind of challenge. I would double down on that as well.

[Kelly DeRidder, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I agree with supporting start-ups. Again, we do a very good job at incubating in Kitchener Centre, but commercialization doesn't happen here in Canada. We don't have an environment where venture capitalists want to invest. We have too high a tax burden and the regulatory burdens are too high.

Although I agree with incubating these start-ups, what can this government do better to make sure that they can also commercialize, stay here in Canada and not leave?