July 5, 2026
Maple syrup, but make it secret
Al Vigier: Canada's AI strategy shouldn't include secret Palantir bills
Canada says “buy local AI” while secret U.S. software bills keep piling up
TLDR: Canada unveiled a plan to support local AI companies, but critics say it has already been quietly spending millions on Palantir, a U.S. software firm, through hidden defence contracts. Commenters are split between “buy Canadian in public” and “be real, Canada can’t build this anyway,” with jokes and outrage flying.
Canada’s shiny new “AI for All” plan says the government wants to boost homegrown artificial intelligence and help local companies by becoming a big customer. Sounds patriotic, right? The comment section immediately grabbed the popcorn, because the article claims Ottawa has already been buying AI-style tools from Palantir, a controversial U.S. company, through defence and policing contracts that were quietly expanded from millions to tens of millions of dollars. That’s where the mood turned from policy chat to full-on trust issues.
The strongest reaction was brutally simple: if the government wants to champion Canadian tech, then buy Canadian products openly. One commenter basically summed up the public frustration in six words: stop hiding the bills. But then the thread split into a spicy identity crisis. Some people said Palantir shouldn’t be involved at all, while others asked the awkward question nobody wanted to answer: if you hate Palantir’s surveillance-style tools, why would a Canadian version be any better? As one commenter joked, that just gets you “a Canadian Alex Karp,” referring to Palantir’s famously intense chief executive.
And because the internet can never stay serious for too long, one reader admitted they misread the headline and thought an “AI Vigier” was some kind of superhero bureaucrat assigned to watch artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the harshest hot take came from the doom camp: Canada simply can’t build this kind of domestic tech, and pretending otherwise is “a gimmick or a lie.” In other words, this wasn’t just a debate about software. It became a fight over secrecy, sovereignty, and whether Canada is actually building a future—or just renting one from America.
Key Points
- •The article says Canada’s new “AI for All” strategy aims to raise AI adoption to 60 per cent of businesses by 2034, with government procurement intended to help drive adoption.
- •It states that the federal government already buys AI-related systems, citing a Department of National Defence contract with Palantir’s Canadian arm that began at $14.4 million in 2020 and later rose to about $44.4 million.
- •The article says roughly $46.8 million had been spent under that Palantir-related defence arrangement by last October, and that a separate $3.7 million defence contract surfaced after questioning from a Conservative MP.
- •It reports that the Ontario Provincial Police have used Palantir’s Gotham platform since 2015 as an example of foreign AI-related systems already operating in Canadian public institutions.
- •The article says the strategy includes $500 million for equity investments, $700 million for compute capacity, a Trusted AI Certification program, and a health-focused missions program, while arguing these are not direct procurement commitments.