Prime Minister Mark Carney’s election in 2025 reflected a period of heightened uncertainty in Canadian politics. Only a few months before the federal election, at the time of the Inauguration of the second Trump Administration in the US, polls indicated a strong desire for change from Canadian voters. Amid escalating pressures from the cost-of-living and the looming economic stagnation due to the start of a US Trade War, Canadians sought stability under uncertainty. Carney’s clearly neoliberal orientation is a departure from the nominally progressive aesthetic of the preceding decade under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but voters understood a Carney-led government as a hold on the status quo in the face of ongoing political and economic challenges with the US. This shift from surface-level progressive policy under the Trudeau-era, to policies that fully embraces a renewed and unapologetic emphasis on fiscal discipline, economic competitiveness, and private-sector engagement signals a return to open neoliberalism not seen in Canada since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
Alongside this return of national neoliberalism, demonstrated by the Carney government’s emphasis on privatization and free market approaches, a new “techno-solutionism” also plays a significant role in Canada’s economic policy. Specifically, Carney’s economic aspirations depend on the commercialization of artificial intelligence (AI) to stimulate growth through this emerging sector. The federal government’s 2025 Budget described Canada’s economy as stagnant, with noticeably weak productivity (Department of Finance, 2025, p. 50). In response, budget measures position investment in technological innovation as the solution to overcoming stagnation.
By reviewing Prime Minister Carney’s high profile international declarations, and the official recommendations made by the 2025 AI Strategy Taskforce, this analysis argues that the federal government’s strategy of leveraging AI to drive economic growth fundamentally rests on the neoliberal ideology of trickle-down economics. Beyond promoting AI commercialization, the government proposes developing private-sector AI infrastructure and increasing investment in private corporations to accelerate widespread adoption. While committing to significant public spending cuts, these measures risk creating market concentration of private corporate giants in new sectors and entrenching corporate power in existing ones. Based on this approach, the government’s AI strategy for economic growth is unbalanced and skewed towards the powerful and wealthy; unlikely to deliver broad economic benefits to the working class. Despite claims of defending Canada’s “digital sovereignty,” this approach also relies on entrenching the market power of corporate US Big Tech giants, and Canada’s tech and telecom oligopolies, to develop and maintain critical digital infrastructure.
This analysis situates Carney’s neoliberal approach to public policy, examining his international economic agenda with particular attention to his January 2026 World Economic Forum speech, as well as his remarks before the Australian Parliament in the weeks following. Focus on these international declarations reveals the close relationship between Canada’s global economic positioning and the government’s domestic policy framework and priorities. Declarations of the end of the so-called liberal “rules-based international order,” and his government’s path forward, rely on the continuation of free-market capitalism and the inequities it induces. This international positioning is reflected domestically in policy declarations that build towards ‘sovereign’ AI infrastructure to ensure that enormous foreign investments yield national economic growth.
Carney framed middle powers such as Canada as victims, despite the country’s complicity in the concentrated prosperity of the values-based order, unable to check the US superpower when it threatens the RBIO and its imbalanced flows towards middle power elites.
Furthermore, an examination of Carney’s international declarations, and the discourse surrounding them, offers critical insight into how his neoliberal approach may be implemented in domestic public policy. Specifically, the commercialization of AI development in Canada and the recommendations of the federal government’s 2025 AI Strategy Taskforce developed by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) demonstrates these aspirations for AI-driven economic growth. After its announcement, the Taskforce undertook a 30-day “sprint” of national consultations to inform Canada’s AI strategy. An evaluation of the recommendations developed by the Taskforce further demonstrates a return to Carney’s neoliberal roots and what to expect in Canada’s domestic policy approach. The 2026 Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy, developed in the context of the Taskforce’s recommendations, further prioritizes commercialization, rather than public good. As demonstrated by new policy declarations on the world and domestic stages, working-class Canadians are unlikely to see the benefits of economic growth from this neoliberal approach, given several decades of experience under neoliberal economic policy.
Variable Geometry Abroad, Classic Neoliberalism at Home
Continuing the Neoliberal International Order
The domestic AI-driven growth agenda is reflected in Canada’s reinforcement of neoliberalism on the global scale, despite claims of transformation of the international order. Prime Minister Mark Carney faced increased scrutiny from the Official Opposition for the substantial time spent travelling abroad for the purpose of cultivating geopolitical relationships among so-called “middle powers” (Ngai, 2026). As of March 21, 2026, Carney spent 84 days abroad, compared to 64 days during his abbreviated first year in office, and just 34 days during Stephen Harper’s first year (Wherry, 2026). While overseas, he delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2026, drawing global attention by announcing the end of the post-war liberal “rules-based international order” (RBIO) and, more specifically, the threat this poses to international neoliberal institutions such as the World Trade Organization (World Economic Forum, 2026). His remarks highlighted the apparent role that middle powers play in the RBIO, the access to markets it afforded them, the financial benefits reaped under and protected by US global hegemony, and the shared pursuit of values-based foreign policies. He also acknowledged the flaws of the RBIO: “We knew that the story of the [RBIO] was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we know that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim” (World Economic Forum, 2026). He refrained, however, from delving into the root causes of present global crises.
Carney framed middle powers such as Canada as victims, despite the country’s complicity in the concentrated prosperity of the values-based order, unable to check the US superpower when it threatens the RBIO and its imbalanced flows towards middle power elites. Yet, the liberal ideology behind the RBIO assumes only one universally accepted model for political and economic matters, without consideration for regional diversity, local needs, aspirations, and development potential (Nahtigal, 2023, p. 392). To continue the RBIO in the face of the US superpower’s exit and non-compliance from the system, Carney stated: “To help solve global problems, we’re pursuing variable geometry, in other words, different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests.”
This characterization overlooks the extent to which the RBIO has exhibited structural imbalances since its post-Second World War inception as the so-called “Bretton Woods” system. Well-known examples of these structural imbalances include the imposition of debt restructuring programs on developing nations by international institutions like the World Bank and WTO; organizations in which many middle powers have long participated and continue to hold membership. It can be argued that Carney’s framing also absolves corporations of responsibility for severe global inequalities between the Global North and the Global South by overlooking both their profit-driven imperative and their function as economic policy extensions of the countries they are based in. From a postcolonial perspective, the current global economic system has imposed continued colonial exploitation and power dynamics that exclude and abuse nations of the Global South (Benabdallah, 2024, p. 163). This system has entrenched the Global South’s economic dependence on the Global North, making its economies reliant on conditions imposed by the North.
A significant outcome of the RBIO, as these imbalances were reinforced by the neoliberal turn since the 1980s, has been the increase in privatization and the globalization of work. This has meant the offshoring of labour from the North to the South, particularly in manufacturing and services (Hatzichronoglou, 2007, p. 7). The effects of this imbalance include unregulated working conditions and environmental consequences in the Global South, and increasing job precarity, contributing to the rise of populism, in the Global North. Declarations of a “Variable Geometry” in Canada’s foreign policy, a term typically reserved for aviation and engineering where wings or other forms change shape to induce or reduce drag, is in no sense an indication of global, or Canadian, economic revolution. In his speech to Australia’s Parliament in March 2026, Carney stated: “To be clear, Canada’s support for the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the multilateral systems, is, like Australia’s, unwavering” (Carney, 2026). Variable Geometry does not challenge the severe inequalities of the RBIO, but it is a signal to other countries to hold the line and refrain from structural transformation in reaction to the economic aggression from the United States. It is a call to adapt to maintain the status quo, focusing on free-market relationships between like-minded middle powers, in place of the US, while private corporations spearhead this initiative. It does not call for a new relationship between the middle powers and poorer nations.
Shapeshifting neoliberalism that reduces dependence on the US is evident in the renewed effort to grow Canada’s ties with Australia, positioning private corporations as the central driver of that relationship. Further on in his speech at the Australian Parliament, Prime Minister Mark Carney (2026) highlighted the need for Canada and other middle powers to build sovereign capabilities at home and further identified five key pillars of “like-minded” values: critical minerals, defence, artificial intelligence, trade, and capital. Although not explicitly stated, the free market continues to be the driving force behind progress in each pillar. Also, notably absent from these remarks are any measures to defend workers, provide social welfare, or renew relations with poorer countries.
Placing more faith in the leadership of private corporations of the Global North should also be met with great caution. As the Carney government promotes AI as a key pillar of middle power empowerment, it should be remembered that prioritizing profit in the science and tech sector as the primary engine for economic growth overlooks the profound global inequalities this has produced. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, as one of the largest and recent economic crises that lent to greater inequities, private businesses in sectors such as Big Tech (Hossain, et. al., 2023), pharmaceuticals (Lexchin, 2024), and major grocery chains (Stanford, 2023) reported record profits in Canada and around the world. The deregulatory framework of neoliberalism applied globally reflects the framework being applied in Canada for AI-driven growth for the purpose of maximized shareholder returns. Investment in innovation for the public good remains an afterthought through this approach.
Neoliberalism at Home
Before becoming Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney’s private sector career, and public service in Canada and the UK, demonstrate where “variable geometry” comes from, and where it may be headed. In positions held at Brookfield Asset Management, Finance Canada, Goldman Sachs, and the Bank of Canada Carney oversaw massive privatizations of crown corporations and public infrastructure, alongside bank bailouts and corporate handouts (CUPE, 2025). Though market interventions may appear antithetical to neoliberalism, bailouts and monetary policy instituted by Carney and other neoliberals around the world since the 2008 Great Financial Crisis were implemented to sustain the system despite its failures. Mack Penner (2025) situates Carney’s political ideology as the “common-sensification” of the Calgary School. This ideological group draws intellectual inspiration from neoliberal and neoconservative thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss, who shared the belief that the state should be limited in its role and should avoid heightened rulemaking and enforcement to foster a strong market (Penner, 2025).
Returning to the economic policies of Chretien and Mulroney, within his first year in office Carney had already instituted plans to cut over 30,000 public services jobs over several years.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s decade of governance between 1984 and 1993 marked a turn to neoliberal economic policy and decreased the role of the state. Most notably, Mulroney opened Canada to free trade with the United States and oversaw the ‘Nielsen Taskforce on Program Review’ to investigate federal government spending, which included the Public Service 2000 exercise that brought in ‘New Public Management’ reforms from the private sector into government (Clark, 2002). PS2000 ultimately downsized the public service for short term balanced budgets and led to the freezing of wages and reduction of managerial positions (Haque, 2001, p. 72). After the fall of the federal Progressive Conservatives in 1993, these reforms were then accepted by the Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien which also conducted major reductions in public spending and services, and further cuts in intergovernmental transfers for provincial public services such as post-secondary education, healthcare, and other social welfare programs. These reductions, with neoliberalism embedded in both governing federal political parties, paved the way for the introduction of “alternative delivery systems” that essentially outsourced the functions of government to the private sector (Clark, 2002, p. 783). While neoliberal policy in Canada required intervention to remain as a paradigm since the 2008 Crisis, even with its strongest advocate in Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in power, these policies have returned as its decades long-run on life support has run out. Returning to the economic policies of Chretien and Mulroney, within his first year in office Carney had already instituted plans to cut over 30,000 public services jobs over several years (Cimellaro, 2026).
Amid these public service job cuts, the federal government hopes to use AI to fill in the gaps. Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), and Health Canada are among the federal departments most at risk for job cuts with the intention of using AI as a complement or replacement for human services (Cimellaro & Andrews, 2026). It is perhaps ironic that the ‘Future Skills’ program within ESDC, which supports workers affected by labour market shifts, has seen a budget reduction itself of $15 million in 2026, from the 2025 departmental plan (ibid). Additionally, working Canadians entering the skilled trades, who may be less affected by AI in the workplace, are also being hit by funding cuts to education while facing stagnant wages and rising prices. Although short-term funding measures have been proposed, the Carney government is simultaneously planning long-term reductions to Canada’s Apprenticeship Strategy. While Budget 2025 pledged $925.6 million over five years to support large-scale AI infrastructure, concerns about job security in Canada deepen. The federal government’s dreams of AI-led growth begin in the public sector but extend further into Canada’s private sector.
The Federal Government’s Bet on Techno-Solutionism: Neoliberal Roots
A critical component of the Carney government’s AI-led economic growth agenda is the advancement of Canada’s AI capacity, and the development of “digital sovereignty,” to maintain Canada’s control over the country’s digital infrastructure and the data produced by Canadians using digital tools and services. In keeping to its Variable Geometry approach, this strategic orientation is a reaction to concerns of US political and economic influence in the global technology sector. There are well-founded arguments for Canada to build technological infrastructure that is less reliant on US Big Tech firms. For example, the United States can use its CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data), a law passed during the first Trump Administration in 2018, which allows US authorities access to data held by US-based companies, including digital communications such as e-mail, cloud storage, and non-content data (Tiessen, 2026). Microsoft, whose products are based in the US but used around the world, has also confirmed that US law can override foreign privacy protections, even for data stored on servers outside the United States (Ahmad, 2025). There is a clear need for Canada to pursue digital sovereignty, protecting Canadians against foreign actors, and the nation’s technological infrastructure against these vulnerabilities.
By promoting the commercialization of AI, the federal government’s approach works to the benefit of existing corporate Canadian oligarchy or could help to create new ones.
To build Canadian digital sovereignty, the federal government must consider a framework that develops long-term infrastructure and economic sustainability, instead of short-term commercial gains. The various tech financial bubbles of recent decades, such as the dot-com bubble and blockchain bubbles, demonstrate why digital sovereignty must not rely on rapid commercialization without guardrails or direction other than profit maximization. Unfortunately, this is not the course that the federal government is taking. Canada’s AI-led growth strategy does not propose any substantial or effective AI regulation. While the federal government is making significant bets for economic growth from the AI industry, there is no meaningful policy in place to protect against the social and economic harms of AI. Canada’s attempt at the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), first introduced in 2022, died on the legislative table during the Justin Trudeau government’s prorogation of Parliament in early 2025. It still fell short of meaningful AI regulation. As Brandusescu and Sieber (2025) argue, AIDA was tied explicitly to economic development and designed to favour the AI industry, while giving insufficient attention to public consultation and workers’ rights. Despite the failure to pass a legislative framework, these approaches still appear in the Carney government’s ongoing efforts to advance AI and a commercially driven digital sovereignty, providing only surface-level attempts to introduce AI safety regulations.
There is a fundamental contradiction in the approach to AI regulation in Canada which prioritizes commercialization and private corporations, instead of safety frameworks and worker protections. In Australia, while Prime Minister Carney (2026) calls for Variable Geometry to, “work with others who share our values to build sovereign AI capabilities so we are not caught between the hyper-scalers and hegemons,” his approach favours the hyper-scalers and hegemons who seek the privatization of Canada’s public goods to maximize their market shares and profits. By promoting the commercialization of AI, the federal government’s approach works to the benefit of existing corporate Canadian oligarchy or could help to create new ones.
Commercialization as a Main Pillar of Canadian AI Development
The first pillar of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, introduced by the federal government in 2017 and expanded in 2022, focuses on commercializing AI research for business applications (ISED, 2025b). Building on this commercialization framework, the federal government struck the 2025 AI Strategy Taskforce with commercialization again a priority, alongside adoption across industry and governments, and attracting investment, among other priorities such as research, safety, education, and infrastructure, rushed through this 30-day consultation on the government’s direction and approach to the sector. Composed of experts from industry, academia, and civil society, the Taskforce was mandated to produce actionable insights and policy recommendations to guide the government (ISED, 2025a). Taken together, these priorities signal a strong federal commitment to advancing AI adoption and integration across the country. There are also notable omissions; most prominently, there was an absence of expertise on the Taskforce regarding environmental sustainability. While Canadians and citizens around the world express concern over the environmental impact of AI data centres, the federal government’s Taskforce does not leave room for this debate. Instead, the framing of AI governance within these themes reflects a broader policy orientation that emphasizes market expansion and private-sector leadership, raising concerns over the balance between public interest and commercial imperatives.
At the centre of the federal government’s AI agenda is the drive to commercialize AI technologies at scale to support national capabilities and to position Canada competitively within the global digital economy. Although the Taskforce’s consultation reports, delivered in early 2026, are non-binding recommendations, they have the potential to significantly shape government decision-making (ISED, 2026a). From the participants surveyed, the summary of inputs concluded that:
Participants also emphasized that AI adoption should move beyond pilots to real-world applications in health care, agriculture and public services, guided by ethical standards and regulatory clarity to prevent risks such as privacy breaches and job displacement. Further, they indicated that commercialization efforts must protect Canadian intellectual property and data sovereignty through modernized tax incentives, streamlined funding and regulatory frameworks. (ISED, 2026b)
Prioritizing the commercialization of AI in areas such as education and skills development, for example, would significantly alter how AI is perceived in society, shaping the pace of its adoption, as well as its intended purpose and implementation. Sarah Ryan (2026), a CUPE Researcher assigned to the Education and Skills theme of the Taskforce, notes a critical gap in existing research on AI’s impact in the workplace: Statistics Canada currently tracks AI use only in the private sector, and does not track its use in public sectors such as healthcare, education, and public administration. The Commercialization reports for the Taskforce build on and deepen this orientation, explicitly favouring the deployment of private AI technologies in public domains such as healthcare, thereby increasing the threat of private corporations exerting influence over critical public infrastructure.
AI Strategy Taskforce: Commercialization Reports
Three reports were submitted to the AI Strategy Taskforce for the ‘Commercialization of AI’ theme by Louis Têtu, Executive Chairman, Coveo; Michael Serbinis, Founder and CEO, League and Board Chair of the Perimeter Institute; and Adam Keating, Founder and CEO, CoLab. A critical examination of these submissions identifies two prominent themes across this section of the Taskforce’s recommendations. First, there is an emphasis on developing and replicating Silicon Valley-type Big Tech corporations within Canada by using public investments on private enterprise to fund research. Second, they recommend that the technologies produced by private AI companies be integrated into public sectors such as healthcare and internal government systems. Overall, the submissions to the commercialization theme find that AI is only valuable if profitable.
The Silicon Valley-fication of Canadian AI Development
Rather than carving out a national identity for Canadian AI development and digital sovereignty, language in the Taskforce’s reports call for the replication of US Big Tech corporations. The commercialization submission by Keating (2025) suggested:
There are many parts of Canada with cold weather, resources and capable people that would make ideal locations for major data centers. These data centers cannot be built the way mega projects happen in Canada today – they need to be operational in 6 to 9 months following design completion and hit the bar set by Elon Muskʼs teams.
Keating calls for, “harnessing the ambition of Silicon Valley and infusing our Canadian values into everything we do, make entrepreneurship the number one priority for Canada’s AI success, and incentivize universities to commercialize student entrepreneurship hubs and make commercialization outcomes mandatory for receiving funding” (Keating, 2025). In his report, Serbinis (2025) suggests that national AI research objectives should be pivoted toward commercialization, acknowledging that while fundamental research is key, funding should be tied to commercialization metrics, including patents filed, industry-partnered projects, and spinouts created. Additionally, Têtu (2025) suggests that Canada must aim to have a fully coordinated AI ecosystem in which talent, research, innovation, adoption, and IP all fuel the domestic economy, driving growth, transformation, and full industrialization across both the public and private sectors. While these commercialization recommendations for the AI strategy are only some of many approaches to the sector provided by academics, researchers, and industry, the focus on commercialization above other issues such as science and regulation demonstrates the government’s growth-centred priority for the technology.
Alongside proposals to make research funding contingent on the commercialization of outcomes, commercialization submissions to the Taskforce also advocated for increased public investment in private corporations through Canada’s public financing agencies. Keating argues that the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC) should allocate public funds to top-performing private fund managers, enabling them to compete more effectively with US venture capital and scale Canadian companies. Similarly, Serbinis calls for EDC support for the global expansion of Canadian AI firms. Taken together, these proposals align with the priorities of US Big Tech firms, embedding a market-driven logic into the sector. By focusing on innovation for commercialization and profit-generating technologies, this orientation risks missing out on opportunities for scientific innovation and application of new technologies, and lowers the bar for governance and public oversight, which has been the outcome of Silicon Valley’s development and dominance by a handful of Big Tech firms.
Replicating Big Tech adjacent corporations in Canada is not the direction to take for building digital sovereignty or long-term economic sustainability. Rikap and Lundvall (2020) highlight how Big Tech companies cultivate corporate-academic partnerships, in which corporate innovation systems merge with corporate production systems to dominate technological development. Brain drain of research from academia to industry is an essential component of this process. Big Tech corporations can entrench their market power because they have aligned their governance structures with the innovation process to maintain control. Alongside mergers, acquisitions, talent recruitment, and research funding, Big Tech takes ownership of innovation and knowledge, accelerating industrial concentration and promoting a Schumpeterian model of capital accumulation for innovation driven by creative destruction (Damásio, Sandro & Silva, 2023, p. 5). Consequently, promoting the replication of Silicon Valley monopolies by Canadian tech corporations can risk turning public knowledge, developed by public universities, into private capital that risks hollowing out academic independence to serve industry demands.
Research geared towards commercialization, in any science and technology field, but including the developing AI sector, can distort findings, lead to premature implementation of results, encourage hype, and decreases trust in university research (Caulfield & Ogbogu, 2015). It prioritizes technologies designed to maximize financial returns, and thereby reinforces the concentration of wealth. Silicon Valley’s billionaire class, and the political and social problems their inequality has produced, is a demonstrated outcome of commercialization-first policy. While wealth concentration may signal economic growth, this growth does not lead to equitable economic outcomes for most Canadians.
Public Extraction for Private AI Ownership
The Taskforce’s commercialization reports also converge on the belief that governments should quickly and deliberately embed AI into core public infrastructure and services. The commercialization submissions emphasized prioritizing sectors where Canada holds a competitive edge, namely life sciences, healthcare, energy, and financial services. The submission by Serbinis also proposes large-scale initiatives akin to the UK Biobank, a long-term big data study of hundreds of thousands of UK citizens, in a National Health Data Cloud to unlock data-driven innovation. However, this model makes publicly funded data collection accessible, with data produced by its program participants without compensation, for the use and ownership by private companies. This raises critical concerns about the commodification of collectively produced, publicly extracted resources. Funded through taxation and generated through the labour of healthcare workers and researchers, while derived from the bodies and experiences of program participants. The downstream applications, such as medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, and AI tools, would be sold back to the public despite the public’s previous investment. The result is a familiar dynamic where value produced socially is captured privately, enabling capital accumulation while concentrating wealth upward.
While under this proposed framework companies can gatekeep technologies built from publicly funded data, they can also use it in ways that work against the public interest. Lydia.ai is a company that develops personalized health risk scores for use by corporations and was granted access to data from the UK Biobank (Das, 2023). This raised significant concerns that such data could be used for risk profiling in insurance, shaping pricing or eligibility, in ways that harm the public and increase economic disparities.
Furthermore, commercialization proposals make their way further into the public sector. Keating’s submission called for improving the speed and efficiency of government financing programs such as the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) by automating screening and approvals. Têtu’s submission argued to “drive government transformation with AI” and integrate AI tools across government operations. The accelerated deployment of AI in government programs in public services raise concerns about biases in shaping important decisions and declining service quality. In late March 2026, a postdoctoral research fellow and guest lecturer at McMaster University applying for permanent residency, who would otherwise be fast tracked by a human reviewer, was rejected by an AI-review at IRCC “hallucinated” a job description that the applicant did not submit and did not match the Canadian work claimed, prompting an automated rejection (Keung, 2026). The premature implementation of AI technologies in critical public infrastructure, at the speed and scale called for by commercialization advocates that align with the government’s stated agenda, risks errors, reduces accountability, and diminishes trust in public systems. Alongside anticipated public service cuts to human jobs under the Carney government, the rapid integration of private AI systems into government roles and infrastructure risks undermining public goods.
AI Growth Dreams Do Not Match Working-Class Reality
Canadians are feeling the weight of this affordability crisis, yet the policy direction advanced by Mark Carney offers little indication that price inflationary pressures will be meaningfully alleviated by this focus on AI-led economic growth. Alongside cuts to public service jobs and employees, investment bets on AI growth signal a rebirth of neoliberal logic that prioritizes market expansion, private capital, and techno-solutionism over meaningful delivery of public services and sustainable innovation. The implementation of the government’s Pan-Canadian AI Strategy is about the technology’s commercialization, rather than advancing research or serving the public good. Its primary use case among commercialization advocates in line with the government’s agenda is AI implementation across the public service and private sectors, where adoption is often uneven and top-down, where employees are pressured to incorporate AI into daily work. Canadian tech commentator Cory Doctorow (18 January 2026) cautions that this imbalance reflects broader patterns in the tech industry, where profit-driven deployment reshapes labour conditions.
With over 500,000 tech workers laid off globally in the past three years, Canada must give special attention to workforce and social protections in current AI governance initiatives that it currently neglects. The government’s selling narratives on AI are concerning in its framing of adoption as essential to Canada’s economic success through entrepreneurship. Such rhetoric is counterproductive to addressing Canada’s economic problems head-on. Amidst global price shocks, affordability and the cost-of-living were top concerns for Canadians, but there are few initiatives to directly address them from the federal government. A neoliberal approach to AI prioritizes corporate efficiency and market growth over the structural crises facing the working class, including surging rents, food inflation, and job precariousness. Though austerity has bottomed out in a time of polycrisis that demands massive intervention, the made interventions continue a failed logic of trickle-down economics, assuming these tech-driven profits will eventually benefit those at the bottom.
Canada cannot bet on AI for economic reform. The impact of novel technologies is shaped by social and economic conditions, and AI designed around profit-driven commercialization will prioritize corporations over workers. Canada has an opportunity to build digital infrastructure that serves the public interest rather than private monopolies. Without this shift, cost-of-living pressures will persist while corporate concentration deepens and profits remain concentrated among the rich and powerful.
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