OTTAWA — Simon Kennedy, Canada’s deputy minister of innovation, will retire this month, exiting the role he has held for five years.

The longtime public servant shared the news on Wednesday with employees at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) in an internal email that The Logic obtained. 

ISED manages policies and programs for a significant portion of the Canadian economy. Officials in the department write rules in cross-sectoral areas including privacy, competition and intellectual property. They also oversee a portfolio of major financing programs for businesses and researchers.

As the department’s deputy minister, Kennedy has been responsible for implementing the Liberal government’s industrial policy under ministers Navdeep Bains and François-Philippe Champagne. 

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada shortly into his tenure, ISED refocused some programs to spur domestic production of medical equipment, therapeutics and other health-care supplies. 

The department has also long been involved with the automotive industry, and under Kennedy implemented a strategy to build a domestic supply chain for electric vehicles. Its flagship Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) has financed facilities to make battery-cell materials, tires, batteries and cars themselves. And ISED has crafted or renewed strategies for emerging technology fields like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. 

Reached by phone on Thursday afternoon, Kennedy said he’d long planned to retire this fall. “My time at ISED in the last five years was marked by the pandemic, which was a singular event,” he said, citing the work on pandemic supply chains and relief measures for businesses. 

He also noted the department’s role in implementing the government’s industrial policy to achieve net-zero emissions and boost sectors like critical minerals, as well as in updating major private-sector legislation governing areas like foreign investment, incorporation and competition. 

Kennedy has been at ISED since September 2019. He was previously the top official at Health Canada, and in the early 2010s served as then prime minister Stephen Harper’s representative to the G20. “It’s been a privilege to have the roles I’ve had,” he said, noting his time in Ottawa has spanned six prime ministers.

His is the second recent departure of a top ISED official, after senior assistant deputy minister Mark Schaan moved in July to a new AI-focused role at the Privy Council Office. 

The Liberal government has yet to name Kennedy’s successor. 

The new deputy minister will be tasked with implementing several key initiatives, including the rollout of $2 billion to increase access to AI processing power as well as deals with heavy industry under the SIF’s $8-billion emissions reduction program.