Ottawa puts up to $162M into 10,000 Mitacs AI work placements

Ottawa is writing another cheque for AI talent theatre. On Sept. 25, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon announced up to $162 million over five years, starting in 2026–27, for Mitacs to co-fund 10,000 work placements that put post-secondary students, recent graduates and post-doctoral fellows inside Canadian firms to push AI adoption and innovation.

The money lands in Mitacs AI Advantage under two streams: ADOPT for shops that need help testing and deploying AI, and AI+X for research-heavy placements that apply AI across fields from agriculture to health care. It is framed as an early brick in the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy — AI for All — launched June 4, which pledges up to 90,000 AI-related jobs and placements for young Canadians by 2031.

Co-funding means businesses still put skin in the game, and placements are not automatic hires. Ottawa has not spelled out how it will score permanent employment, productivity lift or whether SMEs actually keep the tools after the intern leaves — the usual soft underbelly of industrial-policy internships.

Canada’s productivity problem is not a shortage of press releases about AI. Subsidized placements can grease adoption at the margin; they do not fix capital deepening, regulation or the living-standards gap that keeps showing up in output-per-hour data. Taxpayers are buying 10,000 resumes of experience — useful if firms convert it, expensive if it stays a photo op.