Science and Research Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2026

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

—maybe the member can tell me. I'm happy to look into where I can get a regulatory diploma. I don't know what that is.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

By “diploma”, I mean, do you have any formal technical degree or a course giving you the required education to hold the position you are supposed to have?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Again, let me just answer the honourable member.

I'm not sure what litmus test people need to get into politics. I've been an entrepreneur. I know your leader has never been in private business before, but he's the leader. That's fantastic. I welcome anybody to join the public service and serve—

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

I love the way the honourable member—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting.

MP Mahal, your time is up.

Please be respectful of the witnesses and allow them to answer the questions.

We will now proceed to MP Deschênes-Thériault for five minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Minister, for being with us today.

As you know, in Canada, we have world-class expertise in artificial intelligence. Over the past decade, various local skills have been developed at our large and smaller universities alike.

As part of our national artificial intelligence strategy, how are we going to provide targeted support for the expertise, innovation and capacity building in artificial intelligence at these small and medium-sized post-secondary institutions?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Thank you, that's a good question.

I agree that small and medium-sized post-secondary institutions are critically important. Institutions such as the University of New Brunswick and Acadia University play an outsized role in their communities and in their regional economy.

Not only that, we have the CIFAR chairs, and I think they play a really important role. They are critical to our AI strategy, which I'm glad to talk about. Almost $443 million in federal funding is committed to chairs who support higher education and drive that higher education. They're going to continue to feature prominently in our national AI strategy, and I look forward to sharing that very soon with this committee and with the members.

Our AI leadership is rooted, as you talked about, in our universities and our post-secondary institutions. We have world-class education institutions, and I've named some. Many of our universities across this great country, from Waterloo and Sherbrooke to UBC and the University of Alberta.... There are some fantastic institutes—and colleges, by the way, play a huge role.

I've talked about the national AI institutes—Mila, Amii and Vector—and the Canadian CIFAR AI chairs, which are core assets. All of those are contributing to our research strength, and they are attracting the top talent that comes to Canada. That's really important to create the environments.

I do want to say one thing, because I know there is concern about jobs and making sure that we have the education to give the skills and the training to Canadians, not just when they're in post-secondary, but from K to 12, which is a provincial responsibility. We believe it's very important as well to make sure that people have the skills and training in colleges and in post-secondary, universities, and even beyond that to benefit from this. We're ensuring that our education system is core to building this economy of the future.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you.

As you mentioned, artificial intelligence has the potential to have a significant impact on our economy. Our government was elected with a mandate to strengthen the Canadian economy. We're also investing—

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

I have a point of order.

My translation is not working. Could we just get a sound check on the translation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay, I will stop the clock and check that.

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

I appreciate that. Thank you.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Can you hear me now?

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

You have a minute and 17 seconds.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you.

We are investing in artificial intelligence research. How are we going to make sure that the advances in research translate, on the ground, into innovations within companies to really strengthen the Canadian economy?

In other words, how are we going to foster synergies between the private sector, investors, research centres and public institutions?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

It's a great question.

Again, thank you for the question.

One of the ways we are supporting the commercialization of our research is to make sure we're driving the ability of our great researchers to keep their ideas and their innovation here in Canada.

How are we supporting that? One way is through clusters like Scale AI. We help these companies scale their technologies and their ideas here and form companies and gain access to capital. That's really important. Our institutes also help create innovation hubs.

I'll point to a really great development just last week that I'm very happy to talk about. I know we've been asked about what we've been doing recently in a concrete fashion; just a couple of weeks ago, Inovia, one of Canada's best venture capital funds, partnered with Mila, our AI institute in Montreal, alongside Amii and Vector, to make sure that scientists who may not know how to translate their great ideas into business have the capacity and the seed funding and even the mentorship to do that. That makes sure those ideas stay here in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Time is up for MP Deschênes-Thériault.

We will end this panel at 4:35 p.m. We will have two minutes for each party before we end this panel. Then the minister will leave, and we will have a round of questioning with the officials.

MP Baldinellli has two minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, on December 15, you announced a major new quantum initiative. As part of phase one, the government has signed agreements with four “Canadian-headquartered firms...for up to $23 million each to accelerate the development of fault-tolerant quantum computers that demonstrate industrial application.”

What are the guardrails that exist in terms of those agreements with each company? It says “Canadian-headquartered” companies. What's to stop or preclude one of those companies from hiring U.S. firms?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

First of all, again, I really appreciate your raising this point, because it's important that we keep our quantum companies here. There is a program, as I'm sure the honourable member knows, in the U.S. Some companies qualify for a U.S. program, and we're concerned, of course, that these companies might leave and take that IP elsewhere. We want to keep it here.

We are very happy that the Canadian quantum champions program is doing just that. Within the agreements, there are standard agreements on taking any money that would preclude a change of ownership or change of location. These are very standard kinds of contract agreements to make sure that if we're supporting companies, they stay here in Canada, they keep their IP here and they keep us secure.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Minister, what we're finding in our discussions and conversations with stakeholders who have come forward is that energy is going to play a huge role in moving forward with any AI strategy. Currently, we don't have the grid capacity. We don't have the number of workers required. We don't have the power that is needed.

How are we going to move forward when that increased demand is going to put such a demand on prices that prices will increase? What's going to be the impact on the average consumer at home if we run into a situation in which these huge AI data centres are demanding power at the expense of consumers?

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry. The time is up.

Could you give a quick 10-second answer, please?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

It's a great question.

As a 10-second answer, again, it is the provinces and territories that have the regulators, and it is provincial regulators that decide to whom to allocate the power. They are in charge of those rates, as you know, but we are providing support all across the energy spectrum, whether it's building power, investing in things like Darlington, or even, as part of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, investing in great companies that are building the transformers that are crucial to that power ecosystem, such as Northern Transformer. It's a really important question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

We'll now proceed to MP McKelvie for two minutes.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You did mention FedDev Ontario. I know that's also an important role that you are covering.

Besides the regional artificial intelligence initiative—and maybe you could tell us a bit about that—can you also highlight some of the different things that are happening through southern Ontario to support the adoption of AI?

[Evan Solomon, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Southern Ontario is being hit hard by the trade war. We all appreciate that this region is being very powerfully affected because of the auto sector and the steel sector. FedDev, alongside Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Industry, is making sure that we invest in our auto workers, in our tier one and tier two suppliers to those auto plants, and in our steel industry.

As FedDev Ontario, we are supporting those advanced manufacturers. We've done that directly to invest in them, not only with our regional tariff relief, but also with a new program to help them pivot toward national defence, so it's a dual-use fund. Many of those investments are high-tech. We are investing in companies.

Let me give you an example of a company called Ecopia AI. That company maps all buildings around the world. It is an advanced AI-based tech model that employs people. It has remarkable technological achievements, but it is dual-use for military as well. It helps the men and women serving us in places like Latvia right now.

We're investing in companies not only to make sure that the current industries are here for the future—auto and steel—but also to make sure that these advanced manufacturers have the tools to manufacture in the future and to build in this new economy.

FedDev has also invested in companies. Another example is Ada. There are many great examples in this ecosystem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting. Your time is up.