Canada Can Build World Leading Dual Use Firms, We Already Have

By Melanie Nadeau

To fill up one’s gas tank nowadays in Canada is to be reminded that we live in an interconnected world that is increasingly marked by destabilizing armed conflicts.  The closure of the Strait of Hormuz that has shot global oil prices to record highs is but one of many significant and ongoing international conflagrations being felt here at home.  There is no doubt now that many of the assumptions upon which we have based our economic and defence and security policies since the end of the Second World War have fallen away.  As Prime Minister Carney has said, “we are in the midst of a rupture.” 

In response, Canada has taken some rather dramatic steps in quick secession towards the development of a defence industrial base to produce a range of sovereign capabilities necessary to secure the nation. The Spring Economic Update announced $104 million over 5 years to establish and operate a stand-alone Defence Investment Agency.  This institutional anchor of the government’s first of its kind Defence Industrial Strategy announced in February will be responsible for allocating the generational investment in defence that Canada has now made and will continue to make in the coming years.

The threats we face are many and growing. Being a liberal democracy in a world trending authoritarian will not be easy for Canada, to say the least.  But, as the CEO of COVE, a not-for-profit that was founded from offsets of Canada’s now 16 year running National Shipbuilding Strategy, I want to provide some insight into just how dynamic and innovative Canada’s defence and dual-use sectors can be. It is important for Canadians to understand that as a country we are more than just capable of being world leaders in the defence sector, we already are. 

COVE is a global technology partner advancing high-impact solutions from seabed to space.  We catalyze innovation into market-leading technologies by providing world class testing facilities, commercialization support, market expertise and access to critical infrastructure to startups, multinational firms, researchers, and public sector collaborators.

Canadian-based, Kraken Robotics, an early partner of COVE, has made significant breakthroughs in subsea intelligence through advances in 3D imaging sensors, power solutions, and robotic systems. Contracts with the UK and Polish navies, along with its KATFISH mine countermeasure applications, are garnering global attention given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the role that Iran’s Maham mines are playing in closing the Strait of Hormuz.  But it isn’t just in the Strait of Hormuz.

Over 90 percent of global trade depends on maritime routes, and more than 95 percent of internet data travels through a network of roughly 400 fiber-optic cables resting on the ocean floor. Yet much of the ocean remains unmapped and under protected. Recent incidents, from the severing of Taiwan’s subsea cable infrastructure to Ukraine’s strategic deployment of naval drones in the Black Sea, illustrate how the disruption or control of critical infrastructure can significantly impact communication, trade, military operations, and energy supplies.

“We see you, we see your activity over our pipelines and our cables and we will not tolerate any attempt to damage our way of life” was the direct message UK Defence Secretary John Healey delivered publicly to Vladimir Putin on April 9th in response to Russian submarine activity that had been tracked by the UK and Norway for over a month near critical undersea infrastructure in the north of the UK.  The reality is that Russia has been at this sort of business for far longer than the month-long tracking operation the UK Defence secretary was speaking to, and the UK has been well aware of this.  What the Defence Secretary’s remarks indicate, however, is that subsea infrastructure is coming to the surface of geopolitical conflict.   

Traditional methods of subsea inspections using costly, manned ships are not scalable or sufficient in the face of sophisticated threats and the sheer scale of the challenge. Autonomous drones and robotic systems are already redefining how we secure critical maritime and underwater infrastructure, enabling continuous surveillance in vast and risky parts of the ocean.  As global security threats grow, Canadians can take some comfort in the fact that one of their own companies has secured a place on the cutting edge of technological progress in subsea defence and intelligence solutions.   

Kraken is undoubtedly a remarkable success story.  But COVE is also partnered with more than 700 other innovative companies including those from other NATO countries like the UK.  Zelim, for example, a Scotland-based dual-use company that specializes in AI-enabled man-overboard detection systems for the cruise and ferry, offshore energy, shipping and defence sectors has leveraged COVE’s innovation ecosystem and services to accelerate its growth and Canadian market entry.  Through its innovation platform, COVE is building transatlantic networks to help develop dual-use technologies that can address critical security and defence challenges.  

As more and more of Canada’s spending envelope is allocated to defence through the Defence Investment Agency, Canadians will rightly want to be able to understand how the country is supporting the development of its national champions in the various sovereign capabilities that were identified in the Defence Industrial Strategy.  COVE has built a model for doing so.  It is critical that Canada maximize the return on this generational investment.  Looking to proven homegrown examples of how dual use innovation can be catalyzed into world leading firms is crucial to helping Canada adapt to a more dangerous world.  

Melanie Nadeau is CEO of COVE, official accelerator with NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and leaders of Canada’s first Defence Innovation Secure Hub.