Canada Tech & AI Watch: Blue J, Real-Time Rail, AI budget

Toronto tax software company Blue J raised US$176 million, Payments Canada switched on the Real-Time Rail without any of the Big Six banks, and the federal budget set aside $176.3 million for a new digital safety regulator in a busy week for Canadian technology.

Blue J, which sells AI tax research software, announced the Series E round on Nov. 10 in a news release on its website. JMI Equity led the round, with Oak HC/FT, Sapphire Ventures and Intrepid Growth Partners also taking part. The company said the round values it at more than US$700 million, or more than C$1 billion.

Blue J said annual recurring revenue grew 165 per cent in the 15 months after its Series D, and that more than 6,500 organizations now use the platform. It said it has doubled its team over the past year and expects to pass 200 employees by the end of 2026. The money will go toward Workflows, a tool that prepares work such as return reviews and client communications for tax professionals to check. The company also plans to expand in the United Kingdom. Our earlier story has more on the round.

On Nov. 9, Payments Canada launched the Real-Time Rail, a national system for instant payments that runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year. In its launch announcement, the organization said the system lets members clear and settle payments in real time through their existing banking channels. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the rail lays the foundation for a more dynamic and competitive digital economy.

The first participants are Wealthsimple, Questbank, Peoples Trust Company, Paramount Commerce, Koho, DoBusiness.com, Digital Commerce Bank and Bank of America Canada. None is among the Big Six banks. Payments Canada said more participants, including all major financial institutions, will join over the coming months. We reported on the launch and on the missing banks last Monday.

The federal budget, tabled last week, put AI and online safety on the spending list. Chapter 5 of Budget 2026 proposes $176.3 million over five years, starting in 2026-27, and $29.3 million a year after that to Canadian Heritage to set up the Digital Safety and Data Protection Commission of Canada. The budget says the commission would enforce the Safe Social Media Act. The budget document gives no start date for the commission, and the legislation has not passed. Our story on the commission sets out what the act would require of social media services and AI chatbots.

The same chapter recaps the government’s AI for All strategy, launched in June with an initial investment of $2.7 billion on a cash basis. Among the measures it lists since September are $162 million over five years for Mitacs to support 10,000 co-funded work placements, a joint Canada and Germany investment of $150 million and 100 million euros in Montreal-based LawZero, and a commitment of up to $1.6 billion in equity in Cohere. The budget says that stake is meant to create at least 1,000 technical jobs in Canada by 2030.

Cyber incidents also continued to hit Canadian institutions. York University said on Nov. 8 that an unauthorized actor stole personal information submitted through online forms run by 14 of its departments and faculties. The university’s incident page says it has determined who is affected and is notifying those people. Our count of what each form collected is in our earlier report.

Canada Tech & AI Watch appears each Thursday. Last week’s edition is here.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independently owned Canadian newsroom.

Want to present Canada Tech & AI Watch? Email [email protected].