The federal government is creating a new agency to manage its technology infrastructure and purchases, and has tapped Patrick Pichette, the venture capitalist and former Google executive, to lead it.

The new Digital Transformation Canada will absorb Shared Services Canada, the longstanding federal IT department, along with the Canadian Digital Service development shop and other teams that previously ran Ottawa’s applications and virtual services. 

Pichette is currently a partner at Montreal-based Inovia Capital, where he led investments out of the firm’s growth funds in several prominent Canadian startups, including Cohere, Hopper and Wealthsimple. He also served as chair of Twitter before its sale to Elon Musk in October 2022. Pichette previously served as chief financial officer at Google between 2008 and 2015, and before that was an executive at telecom giant Bell.

Digital Transformation Canada is tasked with ensuring the federal government buys more from Canadian tech firms, rolling out a shared AI and digital toolkit across the public service, and improving departments’ digital services. The Liberals under Prime Minister Mark Carney proposed to establish a new Office of Digital Transformation during last spring’s election. The November federal budget promised the new unit would remove hurdles to selling to the government, and use private-sector expertise to “hasten AI adoption.”

Ottawa has pledged to use its purchasing power to support Canadian technology firms while buying tools that can boost the productivity of the public service and improve service delivery. Startups have long complained that the federal procurement process is too onerous, and favours large multinationals. Previous programs designed to address the problem have foundered or been cut back.

Digital Transformation Canada is the latest agency Carney has created to handle a priority file previously spread across multiple departments, or seen as an area of federal underperformance. In each case, the Liberal government has recruited a prominent executive from the private sector to head up the new unit. They include Trans Mountain chair Dawn Farrell at Major Projects Office, former Toronto councilor Ana Bailão at Build Canada Homes and RBC executive Doug Guzman at Defence Investment Agency. Guzman is reportedly set to step down over frustrations with government bureaucracy.

Shared Services was previously led by Scott Jones, a longstanding public servant. He will become chief of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s cyberspy agency.

Pichette, who has lived in the U.K. for several years, was among over two dozen tech executives named on the task force that advised AI Minister Evan Solomon on the update to the federal AI strategy. In a submission focused on how to scale Canadian firms, Pichette called for Ottawa to reform procurement rules, including letting an AI-focused department make decisions faster with less paperwork, and prioritizing “Canadian built-tech” over U.S. products. 

He also suggested Canada declare Cohere its “national LLM champion, and fuel it with large-revenue contracts.” Pichette cited opportunities for the Toronto firm to help departments like the Canada Revenue Agency or Employment and Social Development Canada deliver services faster and more efficiently, and meet the country’s military and security needs. In April, Pichette also spoke on a panel about the Canadian economy at the Liberal convention in Montreal, alongside ArcelorMittal Dofasco CEO Ron Bedard.

The Liberal government’s AI strategy, unveiled in June, promised Ottawa would act as a “strategic anchor customer” for AI firms, and that the digital transformation office would speed up procurement from them. Ottawa has already made some small-scale purchases from Cohere and other startups like Ada Support as part of pilot programs or tests.

The agency will be able to bring in other private-sector executives on short-term assignments to advise on its work.