Evan Solomon, Canada’s first minister of artificial intelligence, sat down with Imprint to talk about entry-level jobs, AI, and data centres. Solomon He also oversees the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

A tax break aimed at hiring

The Productivity Mega Deduction announced on Sept. 15 expands the range of assets and investments businesses can immediately write off for tax purposes, including software, computers, and certain infrastructure. Solomon said firms could previously write off about 15 per cent of those costs, but under the new rule, that rises to between 65 per cent and 100 per cent.

According to the minister, the measure will cost the federal government about $8.5 billion a year. Ottawa expects it to bring in about $22 billion in new investment annually. He said it puts Canada’s marginal effective tax rate, the tax burden on new investment, at about 6.4 per cent, compared to 16.9 per cent in the United States. “It’s the lowest in the developed world by a mile,” he said.

While the tax change won’t create entry-level jobs directly, Solomon argued the benefits could extend through supply chains. He cited a local startup founded by UW alumni, Upside Robotics, that builds field robots to help farmers fertilize with greater precision. According to Solomon, when the parts makers, robotics company, and the farmer can each write off eligible investments such as equipment, the resulting savings could support business expansion and hiring throughout the supply chain.

For students looking for work now, Solomon points to more direct programs. Solomon cited Ottawa’s initiative to create up to  90,000 AI-related paid job placements for students at tech-related companies by 2031, including 10,000 through Mitacs. The government has also committed to paying for 100,000 placements in the skilled trades.

Keeping Waterloo grads in Canada

For many UW students, particularly those in the tech space, the ultimate goal is a co-op term in California. Solomon said that is starting to change, as Waterloo’s history as a tech recruiting ground has domestic potential. He recalled hosting CBC’s FutureWorld in the 1990s and visiting campus while Bill Gates was there to recruit engineers. “The U.S. knows this is the best place to recruit,” Solomon said. “We have the best talent. Now we’ve got to give them the best opportunities to work.”

Solomon stated that a key factor was about values, not money. “Where do you want to live your life, and what values do you live by?” he asked. Walking through campus at UW is a welcoming experience, according to Solomon, and that is “getting more and more rare around the world.”

He said a common reason founders leave is not being able to raise money domestically. Solomon pointed to a $500-million Canadian Technology Growth Fund that Ottawa is setting up to take equity stakes in small companies. He also cited the AI Compute Access Fund, which he said covers 50 per cent of a company’s computing costs, or 80 per cent if they use a Canadian provider.

He summed up the strategy as “the two Ts and the three Cs”: trust, talent, compute, capital, and customers. On talent, he referenced a $1.7-billion program to attract 1,000 top researchers and their labs to Canada. More than 60 well-known professors have already arrived, 48 of them from the United States.

A free AI agent for every post-secondary student

When asked how the government will ensure AI creates more jobs than it displaces, Solomon said “the best hedge against job disruption is education and skills training.”

He described a free three-hour course, AI for All: Essentials, which launched last month. The course is distributed through participating schools and aimed at students and teachers. Solomon said that the course is meant for people who are “a little embarrassed” to ask basic questions about algorithms, recursive self-improvement, or quantum computing, and that a version for all Canadians is coming.

Another initiative announced is a free AI agent for every post-secondary student in Canada, which Solomon said will launch this year and be free for five years. He said the government will vet the tool so that it won’t collect students’ data or train on their work, and it will run on “some of the best systems in the world.”

New laws on deepfakes and data

According to Solomon, the government has four pieces of AI-related legislation: two are now law, and two are being debated.

The first of the passed bills covers deepfakes, criminalizing the sharing of non-consensual sexualized images, including AI-generated deepfakes. Solomon referred to this issue as “a crime against women.” The second bill prohibits registered political parties from using AI deepfakes during an election period.

Of the two bills still being debated, Bill C-34, the proposed Safe Social Media Act, would restrict social media access for youth under 16 unless platforms are “safe by design.” It would also require AI chatbots to protect children, act responsibly, and be transparent. Bill C-36, the proposed Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, would update privacy laws, giving Canadians a right to have their data deleted and banning the use of personal data for predatory pricing or algorithmic discrimination.

“Build wrong or build right”

UW has Canada’s largest faculty of environment, and many students are worried about how much electricity, water, and land AI data centres use. When asked how the push for more computing capacity fits with Canada’s climate commitments and Indigenous land rights, Solomon called it “a core question.”

His position is that Canada has to build its own digital infrastructure, or it will end up renting someone else’s. “We think you either build wrong or build right,” he said.

When discussing energy, Solomon pointed to the Churchill Falls agreement with Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. He said the $70-billion project will add 14 gigawatts of clean power, more than twice of Toronto’s usage. On data centres, he said Ottawa worked with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on a responsible data centre framework. It sets out several conditions, including no higher electricity bills for local residents, minimal water use through closed-loop cooling, community investment and benefits for Canada, and consultation with local and Indigenous communities.

The municipalities endorsed the framework unanimously, Solomon said, and 41 companies have signed on, including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

The framework is not binding, as provinces, not Ottawa, decide how power is allocated. However, he argued that it still sets a baseline that councils and residents can hold companies to. Solomon also welcomed Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston’s plan to set a tougher provincial standard. “A race to the top instead of a race to the bottom. Isn’t that what we want?”

When told that some students refuse to use generative AI on principle, Solomon pushed back on their stance with examples from health care and agriculture. He described AI tools that can reduce a breast cancer patient’s radiation visits from 45 to 5, or halve a farm’s fertilizer use. “Now if it’s about using your water, I totally get it,” he said. “But when it comes to your doctor, do you think that technology’s pretty good?”

He ended with a story about a recent visit to a Toronto family doctor who uses an AI scribe. Solomon said people like the doctor, who “could not function without [it] anymore.” get far less attention than tech billionaires.

“Nobody hears [the doctor’s] voice,” Solomon said. “They hear Elon Musk. And guess what, they’re not that happy.”