November 3, 2025.
Canada’s grant and funding landscape is a master class in smoke and mirrors, designed not for the hard-working founders and innovators it claims to champion, but for those who already have a foot in the door—or a lobbyist with a phone number on speed dial. The latest Ontario Greenbelt/Skills Development Fund scandal is a symptom, not the disease: millions channeled to insiders, while the real entrepreneurs fight through shifting rubrics, vague rejections, and eligibility criteria seemingly designed for single-use companies
Gaslighting and Gatekeeping
Seeking a government grant? Prepare for a psychological obstacle course. Case managers chirp about empowering “innovation” while never releasing a rubric. Rejections are delivered with a shrug, and never with data. If you do manage to tick every bureaucratic box, watch as goalposts move right before you, or as criteria morph to fit a preferred applicant. Even local grant staff will listen politely, only to twist your own words into new exclusions before vanishing in a puff of bureaucratic smoke.
The Crony Carousel
Just like a psychology lab rationing birdseed to hungry pigeons, the grant system never offers full sustenance: you can claw your way to 80% of the funds (if you’re lucky), but the rest is always just out of reach, reserved for those with the right connections.
Ministers ignore high-ranking applications and bestow funds on friends of friends. Policies are drafted not for the public good but for maximum plausible deniability, ensuring scandals (from municipal councils to Ottawa) are brushed aside as “process errors” rather than industrial-scale cronyism.
Entrepreneurs, Especially Women, Don’t Stand a Chance
If you’re a female tech founder, your odds are even slimmer. Invitations to webinars and paid events substitute for real help, while actual funding remains the preserve of the politically blessed or simply those who can weather endless rejection with no good reason.
The Urgent Fix
With US tariffs tightening the screws on Canadian businesses, the country’s grant system urgently needs a bulldozer: no more pigeon-lab rationing, no more smoke-and-mirror eligibility, and no more gatekeeping by case managers trained more in deflection than development. Until then, Canadian innovators are in for a crash course in “Grant Expectations”, where the reality never matches the fine print, and only the usual suspects ever hold the winning ticket.