Why there is suddenly so much of it
On 4 June 2026 the federal government launched AI for All, a five-year national AI strategy carrying more than $3.5 billion in committed and new money. The stated goals are a fivefold increase in business adoption, 250,000 jobs, and $200 billion in GDP.
The reason for the urgency is a productivity gap Canada has been losing on for a decade. Statistics Canada put business AI use at 19.2% in the second quarter of 2026 — tripled from 6.1% in 2024, and still far short of what the strategy assumes. Among the smallest firms, more than four in ten say AI simply is not relevant to what they do.
That gap is the whole reason the money is there. You are not asking for a favour when you apply. You are the outcome the programme was funded to produce.
One correction worth making
If somebody points you at the Canada Digital Adoption Program, stop. CDAP's technology stream closed in February 2024 and its online stream in September 2024. It is still the first result a lot of people find, and chasing it costs weeks. LIFT and the Regional AI Initiative are what replaced it.
Ai training/coaching grants
Start here — the bucket nearly everyone qualifies for
Training staff is the single most heavily subsidised thing a Canadian employer can buy. These are non-repayable, they do not require you to be a technology company, and the employer picks the trainer and the trainees — not the government.
This is also the bucket that fits AI coaching most cleanly. If your people are trained on a system while it is being built — which is how I run the work anyway — a large share of that cost can sit inside a training claim.
Ontario Job Grant (OJG)
Ontario Ministry of Labour
Relaunched 1 May 2026 as the successor to the Canada–Ontario Job Grant, and now open on a rolling basis rather than in windows. Up to $15,000 where the trainee is a new hire who was previously unemployed. You must have been operating at least a year, the training has to be delivered by an approved third-party provider, and it has to finish within twelve months.
BC Employer Training Grant
WorkBC / Province of British Columbia
The most generous cost-share in the country: the province covers 80 cents of every eligible dollar. Annual budget is finite and historically drains through the back half of the fiscal year, so the calendar matters more here than the eligibility rules do.
Canada–Alberta Productivity Grant (CAPG)
Government of Alberta
Replaced the Canada–Alberta Job Grant in October 2025 and narrowed the framing from employment to productivity — which, for AI tooling, is the easier story to tell anyway.
Canada Job Grant — other provinces
MB, SK, NS, NB, PEI, NL and the territories
The Canada Job Grant is a federal transfer that each province spends under its own name and its own rules. The federal share is two thirds, the employer puts up one third, and the employer — not the government — chooses the trainer and the trainees.
Scale AI — Customized AI Training
Global Innovation Cluster (federal)
The largest pure AI-training cheque in the country, for training staff on AI and machine learning built for your own operations. Supply-chain oriented, and not accepting new applications as of early 2026 — worth watching rather than counting on.
Federal programmes
Bigger numbers, more paperwork for building all the things
Read the kind line on each card before the dollar figure. Two of the largest programmes here are interest-free loans, not grants. They are good money. They are still money you pay back.
NRC IRAP — AI Assist
National Research Council
A dedicated AI stream launched in 2026 with $100M over five years, covering up to 80% of salary costs and 50% of subcontractors. Non-repayable, and the closest thing in Canada to genuinely free money for building something. It starts with a conversation with an Industrial Technology Advisor, not a form — which is exactly why it stays underused.
BDC LIFT
Business Development Bank of Canada
A $500M envelope launched in April 2026 pairing financing with AI advisory. Read the word loan carefully — this is capital at a rate, not a grant. The AI and digital transformation track needs roughly $1M in revenue, demonstrated profitability, and a completed BDC advisory digital plan before the money moves.
Regional AI Initiative (RAII)
FedDev Ontario, FedNor, PacifiCan, PrairiesCan, ACOA, CED-Q
$500M nationally across two pillars — commercialising AI products, and adopting AI in established businesses. Interest-free and fully repayable, so it is cheap capital rather than a gift. Intake is closed at the moment with no announced reopening; if this one fits you, get on your regional agency's list now instead of checking the site in six months.
AI Compute Access Fund
ISED — Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy
Covers two thirds of Canadian cloud AI compute and half of foreign compute, for companies under 500 employees. Expanded to $700M under AI for All. Intake has been closed since mid-2026 with further windows signalled. Relevant if you are training or fine-tuning models — not if you are wiring up an assistant over your own documents.
Mitacs Accelerate
Mitacs (federal, with provincial partners)
You pay roughly half an intern's cost and a graduate researcher works on your problem with a university supervisor attached. Named a delivery partner under AI for All. The most reliably approvable money on this page, and the most consistently ignored by non-technical firms.
Student Work Placement Program & Canada Summer Jobs
Employment and Social Development Canada
AI for All commits to 90,000 AI-related placements through these and Mitacs. If part of your plan is a person inside the building who owns the tooling after the consultant leaves, this is how that person gets paid for.
Tax credits
Money back after the fact
These do not need an application window. They need records kept while the work happens, which is the part people miss.
SR&ED
Canada Revenue Agency
Budget 2025 doubled the expenditure limit from $3M to $6M, brought capital expenditures back into eligibility, and opened the program to public companies — the largest expansion in decades. Pre-approved claims now get a 90-day review rather than 180. It pays for genuine technical uncertainty, not for buying software: integrating a model against a system nobody has integrated it against may qualify, a ChatGPT subscription does not.
Productivity Super-Deduction
Department of Finance (Budget 2025)
Pulls the deduction on qualifying productivity investment forward instead of spreading it over years. It does not put cash in your hand this quarter, but it changes the after-tax arithmetic on a build — worth ten minutes of your accountant's time before you sign anything.
So is it free money?
Partly. Enough that ignoring it is expensive, not enough that anyone should promise you a free build. Here is the honest split.
Actually free
- Training grants — non-repayable, and you keep the trained staff
- IRAP AI Assist — non-repayable contribution against salary
- Wage subsidies — Mitacs, SWPP, Canada Summer Jobs
- SR&ED refundable credits, where the work is genuinely novel
Not free, whatever the headline said
- BDC LIFT — a loan, with a rate and an amortisation
- Regional AI Initiative — interest-free, but fully repayable
- Your one-third employer share on a Job Grant claim
- The hours somebody in your office spends on the application
The reason it goes unclaimed
It is almost never eligibility. Most owners who assume they do not qualify, do. The money sits unclaimed for four duller reasons:
- Approval has to come first. Sign the invoice before the claim is filed and the claim is usually dead. This single sequencing rule kills more funding than every eligibility test combined.
- You need a scope on paper. Every application asks what is being built, who is being trained, over what period, for what cost. Vague plans fail, not because they are bad, but because the form has nowhere to put them.
- Nobody owns it. It is not the bookkeeper's job, not the owner's, not the consultant's. So it is nobody's.
- Budgets are annual and finite. BC's training grant reliably runs dry in the back half of the year. Closed intakes on this page reopen without a press release.
All four are calendar problems, not qualification problems. Which means they are fixable, and cheaply — but only before you start.
Where I fit, and where I do not
I am not a grant consultant. I do not file your application, I do not take a percentage of what you receive, and I will never tell you that you are approved — that is the programme's call and nobody else's.
What I do is produce the thing every one of these applications asks for and almost no business has ready: a written scope. The Discovery & Audit lists the manual workflows in your business, the hours attached to each, what is worth automating, what the build costs and how long it takes, and who gets trained on it. That document is the body of a funding application. It is also useful to you even if you never file one.
Then we sequence it properly: audit, application, approval, build. In that order. That order is the entire trick.
Find out before you spend, not after
Tell me what your business does and roughly how many people you would want trained. I will tell you which of these programmes actually fit, which do not, and who to call — in plain language, at no cost, with nothing to sign.
Prefer to talk it through? 905-981-2582 or sempleventures@gmail.com