Ideas to make Québec’s Economy More Innovative

The new parliamentary session in Québec City began one week ago, and this will be a critical fall for Premier François Legault.

The next election is one year away, so each week is a chance for the CAQ to prove that they’re serious about Québec’s economy, delivering real prosperity for the people.

As the government seeks to streamline spending, this presents an ideal opportunity to embrace fresh ideas and advance an ambitious economic vision to generate more wealth and prosperity for all Quebeckers.

In CCI’s pre-budget submission, we presented a few ideas that we’d like to see the government fund in the 2026 budget. But the truth is, these ideas are not one-time announcements that can simply be created through a budgetary line item.

As Québec’s political leaders debate the economy in the National Assembly, here are a few ideas they should be talking about:

1. Building Quebec digital infrastructure

Our most sensitive data—banking transactions, medical records, communications—are predominantly stored in the cloud, vulnerable to intrusive foreign legislation like the U.S. Cloud Act, which grants Washington access to all information hosted by American companies, regardless of where it resides.

Québec can become a leader by leveraging local expertise and know-how. By actively supporting our provincial suppliers and investing substantially in their AI computing capabilities and data centers, we can achieve true digital sovereignty.

This approach will maintain compatibility with international standards while eliminating dependence on foreign providers. Without clear priority given to Quebec technology companies and concrete adoption targets, the province risks falling irreversibly behind. This issue is critical to Quebec's long-term economic prosperity, and we are eager to help shape ambitious policies to address it.

2. Championing local content in government procurement

Quebec must adopt a whole-of-government procurement approach that enables greater participation by innovative provincial businesses through reduced administrative burden and increased process transparency. Government contracts represent the most powerful economic development tool at the government's disposal. When deployed strategically, procurement can address public sector needs with unique innovative solutions while stimulating key industries and driving economic growth. We want to collaborate with officials to create the right conditions—drawing inspiration from initiatives like Ontario's Building Ontario Businesses Initiative.

3. Leveraging local expertise in the Digital Health ID project

Santé Québec has been piloting a unified electronic ID system for a year. While we support this initiative, we believe the government should tap into local expertise rather than award the entire contract to a foreign multinational. Québec already hosts numerous established health technology companies integrated into our ecosystem with deep knowledge of the provincial system's unique characteristics. Alberta and Newfoundland have successfully implemented hybrid models combining local and international partners. The digital health ID project can succeed while providing meaningful opportunities for homegrown businesses. Failing to use this ambitious initiative as a catalyst for local innovators—and instead sidelining them—would be catastrophic. Québec cannot afford to squander this opportunity.

CCI remains firmly dedicated to supporting Québec innovators and collaborating closely with government officials to tackle the strategic challenges facing the province's fastest-growing companies. Québec's innovation ecosystem must maintain its competitive edge, with businesses benefiting from policies that fuel growth, encourage development, and ensure international success. Through robust public-private partnerships, we can position Québec as an indispensable leader in North American technological innovation. We look forward to these discussions with our government counterparts.

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About the Council of Canadian Innovators

The Council of Canadian Innovators is a national member-based organization reshaping how governments across Canada think about innovation policy, and supporting homegrown scale-ups to drive prosperity. Established in 2015, CCI represents and works with over 150 of Canada’s fastest-growing technology companies. Our members are the CEOs, founders, and top senior executives behind some of Canada’s most successful ‘scale-up’ companies. All our members are job and wealth creators, investors, philanthropists, and experts in their fields of health tech, cleantech, fintech, cybersecurity, AI and digital transformation. Companies in our portfolio are market leaders in their verticals, commercialize their technologies in over 190 countries, and generate between $10M-$750M in annual recurring revenue. We advocate on their behalf for government strategies that increase their access to skilled talent, strategic capital, and new customers, as well as expanded freedom to operate for their global pursuits of scale.