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Canada’s New Defence Strategy Is Bold and Unprecedented. Will It Work?
Eight experts break down the plan’s strengths and weaknesses
Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the Defence Industrial Strategy yesterday morning in Montreal. The first document of its kind for Canada—one shaped, in no small part, by the country’s altered relationship with an increasingly unpredictable and predatory United States—the DIS sets out a national approach to our defence industry.
For decades, governments assumed that security could be solved by buying the right gear from the right allies at the right time. The DIS suggests that era is ending. By linking the long-term needs of our armed forces to economic policy, the DIS reframes sovereignty as an industrial question: What must Canada’s military do to design, build, maintain, and supply itself at home?
Throughout the day, I reached out to national security experts, policy analysts, scholars, and former diplomats for their insights into the strategy. You’ll find their responses below, in some cases edited for length and clarity.
“Few policy bets have carried higher stakes.” Patrick Lennox Former Royal Canadian Mounted Police Intelligence Manager
The Carney government’s Defence Industrial Strategy has been in the works for many months, which is common inside federal bureaucracy. Indeed, it’s important not to get too hung up on word choices because, by the time a document like this gets published, it’s been through more revisions than anyone in the public service would care to admit. As my old boss at the Treasury Board Secretariat used to say, “every dog’s gotta leave its mark.”
So let’s focus on the underlying message, which is actually quite profound. The DIS is an ambitious course of action for a dangerous age. Having been through a long experiment with neoliberalism, the Canadian government is getting back into the macroeconomic game with bravado. At the heart of the strategy is using the power of the public purse to establish a “clear, long-term demand signal to Canadian industry for defence and dual use goods so it can be better prepared to meet the requirements of the Canadian Armed Forces.”
What this means is that the government will work with private-sector defence firms to establish an array of sovereign capabilities without which Canada cannot defend itself. It’s going to get into the business of picking “national champions” it hopes to turn into world-leading defence industrial firms. It’s also going to secure the supply chains required to construct these capabilities—from raw materials, all the way through to functional kit. Industries include aerospace, ammunition, digital systems, in-service support, specialized manufacturing, personnel protection, space, sensors, training and simulation, and uncrewed and autonomous systems (or drones).
Canada’s defence procurement history doesn’t bode well here, but the government seems to be acknowledging it has played a role in that reputation. Fixing it, however, will require industrial partners willing to do their part. This must be a two-way street. Reliable demand must be met with reliable supply. The government will have to make this message clear to the champions it anoints; it will need to choose them carefully. This strategy is for all the marbles. Get this right, as a nation, and we survive. If greed takes over—if Canadian tax dollars are drained into a burgeoning military industrial complex that holds profit above any commitment to sovereignty—it all goes sideways fast.
The DIS’s bureaucratese might not suggest this, but it is important to read between the lines and recognize the gravity of what the Carney government is setting out to create: a sovereign defence industrial base that will supply the material required to defend the nation from direct attack. Few policy bets have carried higher stakes.
“The strategy doesn’t say ‘Canada is back,’ but that is the plan.” Wesley Wark National Security Expert
The Defence Industrial Strategy is, like all government strategies, a message in a bottle. It’s meant to reach multiple shores, multiple audiences: government itself, the public, allies and partners, and adversaries.
For the government, it’s a road map to achieving more sovereign military capacity in a new world of volatility and danger. The road map is, first, build in Canada where possible, with up to 70 percent of acquisitions going to Canadian firms. Second, partner with trusted allies, especially the Europeans, to procure. Third, buy off the shelf (that means, essentially, the US market) but, even then, with economic benefits to Canada. Huge quantities of money will flow, but defence expenditure will be, we are promised, an engine of economic growth for Canada. This plan is more than ambitious. If the promise is fulfilled, it will be for the first time since World War II. But doubters and status quo proponents will circle around.
The message for the public is simple, perhaps deceptively so. Investing, hugely, in a defence industrial base is a win for Canada and a win for the Canadian economy. That win depends on whether Canada can truly wean itself off its branch-plant status with the US, can truly excel in key defence production sectors, and can find major export markets for its products in a world increasingly hungry for military gear but also increasingly competitive. Canadians will have to see these wins delivered in pocketbook ways over the next decade, including in new job opportunities and skills training. Canadians will also have to fully onboard the message that Canadian sovereignty is truly at risk in an age of global “rupture.”
The public message is also, of course, addressed to Canadian industry. Lots of promises about finding better pathways to support and collaboration with industry, but also a key identification of the defence sectors where Canada wants to focus. There are no less than ten of these, many high-tech. Aerospace, space platforms, sensors, drones, and digital systems with military applications all make the list. Some of these, such as drones, sensors, and even space platforms, are more aspirational than yet fully realized. Others, such as digital systems, are pioneer fields.
The strategy promises a “drone innovation hub” at the National Research Council. I would have liked to see the promise extend to a major drone manufacturing hub and centre for excellence, funded by the government and managed by the private sector.
For allies and partners, the message of the DIS is twofold. Canada is open for business, both investment and manufacture, but with clear economic benefits to Canada, attention to national security risks, and with protections for intellectual property. The other message is that Canada plans to export military capabilities the world needs. That will require a fundamental shift in government support, more........