From reading the press release. It appears as if Canonical will just handle support contracts with external companies. Basically they will have a help desk or something if those companies/their employees are having issues with Blender. Part of the proceeds from those contracts will then be passed to Blender for it's further development and to fix bugs that may arise in LTS releases of Blender. I do not believe they are hiring developers it looks more like Blender is out sourcing technical support to Canonical with a bit of a kick back.

Seems like a good partnership to me imho, granted I've never worked with Canonical's support.