Montreal has more students/capita than anywhere in North America, due to a clustering of big Unis downtown.
So, in a way, it has a 'geography' advantage to such numbers :).
That said, I'm highly doubtful that they will be able to effectively leverage the knowledge.
Bombardier etc. are slow, monolithic entities, who will no doubt take AI up, but I wonder how effectively and profitably for local entities.
Air Canada is an airline operator - much like Verizon etc. - they 'operate' they don't 'innovate'.
On the startup side, Montreal is weak - no as bad as other places unknown for startups (say, Houston?), but it does not have the 'acquiring entities' to take up the funnel. Toronto has this disadvantage as well, but because it's bigger, English, and a little more well-known, I think it's less of a problem.
The language issue cannot be overlooked - a little less than 1/2 of Montreal is primarily English speaking, and though basically every Francophone speaks English, it does affect how networks are oriented. Francophone networks are weak. They are very local, and poor, and for a variety of reasons a little 'self oriented'. This is a Quebec thing, but also a French thing, and naturally a thing that happens when you're an enclave of people speaking something other than English in North America.
Finally - there is a lack of industrial spirit in Montreal. They are academically, socially and creatively inclined, but they don't want to build 'products and services' and aren't keen on making 'big bucks'.
The series of 'big business' magnates that came up in Quebec over the last 40 years have been mostly locally oriented: taking up TV/Media, Energy and retail banking sectors during the 'quiet revolution'. The big 'startup' here is a Circus!
In my very Francophone neighbourhood, 100% of the waiters and waitresses will tell you they are 'in school' or 'actors' or 'photographers' - yet many of them are late 20's early 30's - and it's not exactly hollywood around here. An acquaintance calls herself a 'playwright' and she's written 2 tiny productions for the local theatre with 2 actors each - no props or anything. She's late in her 'career' already. This attitude is due to a bunch of historical factors and it runs deep.
I'm not suggesting people can't build great companies here, and surely some will pop up - and there are some natural advantages such as lots of students and ridiculously low cost of living ... but I'm not sure if anything big will come of it.
To grow a startup you need all sorts of motivated people with special skills: recruiting, supply chain, sometimes niche stuff like ASICS etc. - I never, ever meet anyone here remotely in that vein.
It's a great city, but I'm not sure it will ever be the 'leader' in anything applied or industrious. I predict a few wins here and there.