Rogers made a big promise to Calgary when it took over Shaw in 2021: it would create 500 high-skilled tech jobs in a new innovation hub called ThinkLab, pitched as a national centre of excellence in AI, cybersecurity, and cloud computing.
Three years later, The Logic is reporting that the hub’s leadership has walked out the door, its advisory council has mostly scattered, and Rogers won’t say how many people actually work there.
The company’s responses haven’t exactly inspired confidence. Rogers spokesperson Leann Yutuc said ThinkLab is “continuing to evolve,” with work now focused on applied research in remote health and wildfire safety. Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri called it “early days” and said the company is still working out what the lab is actually supposed to do.
Rogers has tried to redirect attention to its broader hiring numbers in Western Canada, saying it has filled nearly 2,600 of the 3,000 jobs it pledged for the region after the Shaw deal. The 500-person ThinkLab target didn’t come up in that update.
The timing doesn’t help, as Rogers recently offered buyouts to roughly 10,000 employees across the country as part of a cost-cutting push. This makes the silence around a promised Calgary tech hub harder to explain away. Local business and academic leaders have taken notice, and the gap between what Rogers committed to and what it’s actually delivered is becoming hard to swallow.
The federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Rogers-Shaw merger without any issues. François-Philippe Champagne in March 2023, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) at the time on the Rogers-Shaw merger, said he would be watching Rogers “like a hawk”.
“Should the parties fail to live up to any of their commitments, our government will use every means in our power to enforce the terms on behalf of Canadians,” said Champagne, referring to the 3,000 jobs Rogers had to create in Western Canada and maintain them for at least a decade.
Champagne has since moved on and was promoted to Minister of Finance in the government of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Whether the current Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Mélanie Joly, will actually follow through on the promise to hold Rogers accountable remains to be seen.
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