Manitoba’s Innovation Moment: Turning Momentum Into Strategy

By Jess Sinclair,
CCI Director of Prairie Affairs

MLAs have convened in Winnipeg for the Fall 2025 Manitoba Legislative sitting. The Kinew Government is being somewhat tight-lipped about its legislative agenda over the next few months, but as policymakers wrap up the final debates required to pass the 2025 budget we’ll be looking ahead to plans for 2026 spending.

From appointing its first Minister of Innovation and New Technology Mike Moroz in November 2024 to stressing the need to buy domestic in Budget 2025, to establishing an Innovation and Productivity Task Force in May of this year, the Kinew government has been making a lot of the right moves over the past twelve odd months.

Now it’s time to get down to some of the tactical work of advancing the province’s innovation economy. As policymakers debate legislation in the coming months, they should focus on developing and implementing a comprehensive intellectual property framework, reforming antiquated procurement processes to focus government buying power on domestic IT and service providers, and devising a provincial data and AI strategy that dovetails with the work already being done at the federal level.

A key theme woven through government vision and mission communications over the past several months has been increasing AI adoption. When I speak with CCI’s members in Manitoba, I hear a mix of measured optimism and suggestions for opportunity. Dan Belhassen, CEO of Neovation, an award winning eLearning platform based in Winnipeg, told me he’s encouraged by the commitment to growth and higher productivity outlined in the 2025 provincial budget and subsequent government communications pieces.

“We believe that widespread investment in AI upskilling is a crucial component of this vision, ensuring Manitoba's workforce and businesses can compete globally and secure a high standard of living for all citizens. We welcome the province’s planned productivity-enhancing programs and look forward to the upcoming 2026 Budget translating this strategic momentum into tangible, funded programs that support companies and their employees in adopting the technology and skills necessary to thrive.”

Governments that want to prioritize AI and machine learning as part of their current and future economic growth strategies would do well to ensure that they are capturing valuable intellectual property in these areas and, critically, utilizing local firms in their upskilling efforts and efforts to improve government services using AI tools. Officials should also ensure their efforts are maximizing federal AI/ML funding and aligning provincial policies with those of the federal government.

Recently, Mark Evans, CEO of Winnipeg fintech Conquest Planning, told me he’s “been encouraged by the ambition and enthusiasm the province has shown around supporting domestic technology-leveraged industries.” In budget 2026, the Conquest team would like to see a focus on strategies to attract and retain the capital and talent that are the lifeblood of the province’s 21st century firms. Mark added, “We hope to see Manitoba policymakers advocating for harmonized, common-sense financial technology regulation, including AI and data policy, in conversations with their federal counterparts."

These recommendations, outlined in more detail in CCI’s Manitoba 2026 Pre-Budget Submission, linked here, will lay the groundwork for the province’s future prosperity in the 21st century economy and make good on Premier Kinew’s promise to ensure the next generation of Manitobans see the province as a place of opportunity.

To learn more about CCI’s advocacy efforts in Manitoba and across Canada, and to get involved, please contact Jess Sinclair, Director of Prairie Affairs.

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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.