Government of Canada invests in B.C. tech sector as Canada welcomes the world to Vancouver
May 26, 2025 - Vancouver, British Columbia - PacifiCan
British Columbia is driving Canada's innovation economy as one of the nation's fastest-growing tech powerhouses. With over 12,000 companies employing more than 182,000 highly skilled workers, B.C.'s tech sector punches well above its weight.
PacifiCan is fueling B.C.'s dynamic tech ecosystem by championing homegrown innovation and advancing solutions that tackle real-world challenges. In 2023, PacifiCan announced a $9.9 million investment through Innovate BC to launch the Integrated Marketplace, which helps local companies test technologies in real-world environments. Over the past two years, this investment - alongside support provided by the Province of B.C. - has powered over 30 projects that drive innovation, AI adoption, and economic growth across British Columbia.
Today, the Honourable Gregor Robertson, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure and Minister responsible for Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan), announced a new investment in the Integrated Marketplace of over $1.8 million to integrate AI innovation into two projects at local testbeds:
At Vancouver International Airport, the investment will support the next phase of a project testing self-driving robotic pods designed to help travelers with mobility challenges move around the airport more easily.
At the Provincial Health Services Authority, the funding will advance a project that uses AI to analyze digital images of tissue, facilitating the detection and identification of diseases through the digitization of pathology and other cancer diagnosis processes.
This is the first investment announced through PacifiCan's Regional Artificial Intelligence Initiative. PacifiCan funding for the Integrated Marketplace is helping innovative businesses bring new technologies to market. It is also reducing the risk of adopting made-in-B.C. technologies while keeping intellectual property, talent, and economic benefits in Canada.
This announcement comes as B.C. gets ready to host Web Summit Vancouver - the leading global technology conference that is putting a spotlight on Canada's vibrant innovation scene. PacifiCan is investing $6.6 million for Destination Vancouver to host Web Summit in Vancouver for the next three years. This event will provide a launch pad for local innovators, attract international investors and talent, and further strengthen B.C.'s reputation as a leading hub for technology and entrepreneurship.
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What the U.S. dairy industry really wants from Canada
U.S. dairy producers insist they're not looking for Canada to dismantle its supply management system, but they do want Canada to follow the letter and spirit of the existing deal that governs the dairy trade between the two countries. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly blasted Canada as unfair and ripping us off with massive dairy tariffs, in a way that isn't fully accurate. However, senior figures in the U.S. dairy industry are concerned there's also some misrepresentation happening north of the border, creating a false perception of what U.S. producers are actually seeking in terms of access to the Canadian market. Shawna Morris, executive vice-president for trade policy and global affairs with the National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council, says it's not true that her industry wants Canada to abandon its system for protecting the dairy sector. 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But at the same time, I think we feel pretty ignored by Canada in terms of our legitimate trade concerns. Two main trade irritants According to Morris and Rasdall Vargas, the U.S. industry has two main irritants with Canada: how the Canadian government allocates the existing quotas for tariff-free imports of dairy products, and how Canadian milk producers dump cheap milk protein into the international market. The import quotas negotiated under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA, which Americans call USMCA) are designed to give U.S. producers tariff-free access worth roughly 3.5 per cent of Canada's domestic demand for dairy products. Three per cent is pretty limited, said Morris. It's certainly not a situation where our industry is gonna come in and take over the Canadian dairy market. How much U.S. milk comes into Canada? See interactive chart here (new window) CUSMA sets import quotas for 14 categories of dairy products. That allows an annual volume of each category (new window) to enter Canada tariff-free, and any imports exceeding the quota would get hit with sky-high tariffs of 200 per cent or more. Canada's rationale for this is ensuring the domestic dairy industry thrives by effectively capping how much the U.S. can export each year, preventing cheaper American products from dominating the market. The U.S. government supports its dairy sector with hefty direct subsidies (new window) . The U.S. dairy industry says it's not asking for Canada's quotas to be increased or the tariff rates to be decreased. Rather, it wants changes to how Ottawa allocates the quotas: more specifically, who gets them. Big Canadian dairies dominate import quotas Much of the quota volume is allocated to major Canadian-owned dairy processing companies such as Saputo (new window) and Agropur (new window) . 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The Americans argue that because Canada's supply management system keeps domestic prices artificially high, Canada can sell its excess production of milk proteins internationally at artificially low prices, undercutting the competition. It frankly makes no sense that you could have one of the highest milk prices in the world and yet be exporting dairy protein at some of the lowest prices globally, said Morris. That's just an inherent mismatch. Canada's pricing of milk solids for the export market is currently the subject of a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation, ordered by (new window) the Trump administration, with a hearing scheduled for Monday (new window) . Dairy Farmers of Canada declined a request for comment on the case. During the recent election, all major parties expressed support for supply management and stated that it would be off the table in upcoming trade negotiations, the organization said in a news release (new window) in June. The Trump administration is not the first to accuse Canada of breaching CUSMA terms on dairy. Enlarge image (new window) Cows wait to be milked at a dairy farm in Granby, Que., on Feb. 5. Photo: The Canadian Press / Christinne Muschi Joe Biden's administration twice took legal action over Canada's handling of the dairy quotas, claiming it was unfairly undermining (new window) U.S. access to the Canadian market. The U.S. won the first dispute (new window) , which it launched in 2021, but failed (new window) to win the second, in 2023. Now in 2025, Rasdall Vargas says her industry wants Canada to be willing to hear its true concerns and do something about them. Ultimately, when we have a trading partner who isn't taking our concerns seriously until they're threatened to do so, it's also not a good feeling from our side, she said. Whatever anyone thinks about Trump's bluster on Canadian dairy, Rasdall Vargas believes it's having an impact. I think that's the president's way of having our back, probably more abrasively than Canada would like, she said. I will say I've never seen Canadian dairy interests take U.S. concerns about Canadian dairy policy more seriously than in the past six months. Mike Crawley (new window) · CBC News · Senior reporter Mike Crawley has covered Ontario politics for CBC News since 2009. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., spent six years as a freelance journalist in various parts of Africa, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, N.B. Follow Mike Crawley on Twitter (new window)
