Canada quietly paid Palantir up to $46.8M while launching a strategy about owning its own AI
An AI founder argues Ottawa already buys foreign AI like Palantir — just secretly — while preaching sovereignty. His fix: buy Canadian the same way, only out loud. The thread notices he runs a Canadian AI company.
Al Vigier's numbers are concrete: a Defence Palantir contract that began at $14.4M in March 2020 climbed past $44M by last October through a dozen-plus amendments, a separate $3.7M contract surfaced only via an MP's question, and Ontario police have run Palantir's Gotham since 2015 — all undisclosed.
The sharpest reply turns his own pitch against him: flag-wrapped calls like this usually come from a company hoping for a sole-source contract it has no business getting.
The argument: you already do this, just in the dark
Al Vigier argues that Canada's new "AI for All" strategy is hollow because Ottawa already buys AI from foreign vendors — it just doesn't say so. His evidence is a paper trail. A National Defence contract with Palantir started at $14.4M in March 2020 and, after a dozen-plus amendments, reached about $44.4M by last October, with roughly $46.8M actually spent. A separate $3.7M Defence contract only came to light after a Conservative MP's question. The Ontario Provincial Police have run Palantir's Gotham platform since 2015. None of it was disclosed up front. His proposed fix: procure Canadian AI the same way the government already procures the foreign kind — openly.
Vigier is a Canadian Army veteran, medically released after being shot, and the founder and CEO of a Vancouver AI firm. That last detail is what the thread can't unsee.
The reply that reads his own byline
"in Canada, calls like this (all wrapped up in the flag), usually come from Canadian companies hoping for some sort of sole sourced contract that they have no business getting." — a commenter, on who tends to make flag-wrapped pitches
Others pushed on whether "sovereign" even fixes the thing people fear about Palantir:
"If you're idealogically opposed to Palantir, how will a home-grown Palantir help? It would likely do the same things Palantir does but with a Canadian Alex Karp" — a commenter on what sovereignty actually changes
And an engineer based in Canada argued the sovereignty ship sailed at a lower layer than AI:
"most if not all critical infrastructure are 100% relying on US cloud products… the US can in a click, turn off Canada's grid and banking … whenever I see all that buzz words of "sovereign xyz" I know it's a just a way to funnel tax money back to some companies." — a Canada-based EE and cybersecurity engineer
What survives the self-interest
Strip out the author's stake and the disclosures still stand: a defence contract that roughly tripled in the dark, a second one that needed a parliamentary question to surface, and a decade of provincial-police Palantir use nobody announced. The thread's cynicism about his motive is fair — and orthogonal. "Buy sovereign" may be pork with a flag on it, but "buy secret" is the status quo he documented, and that part isn't a sales pitch.
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