Yesterday, the Honourable David McGuinty, Minister of National Defence, hosted a roundtable discussion with venture capital stakeholders to help advance Canada's forthcoming Defence Industrial Strategy.
Participants discussed how best to mobilize innovation, finance and industry in the service of sovereignty.
Canada is looking beyond traditional defence capabilities to rapidly leverage innovation in areas like quantum sensors, post quantum encryption, robotics, autonomous systems, and AI, so that those who wear the uniform are never left to fight tomorrow's wars with yesterday's tools.
The next phase of our effort requires aligning public purpose and private capital by creating regulatory certainty, demand signals and risk-sharing mechanism that makes defence innovation investable and delivers the capabilities required by the Canadian Armed Forces.
Moving forward participants agreed that Canada must become our own best customer and strongest proponent for our own technology and companies on the world stage.
We resolved to develop procurement mechanisms that move at the speed of threat, relevance and capital.
The Department of National Defence will continue working closely with Canadian industry partners to build a strong and resilient defence industrial base that supports Canada's defence and economic needs for decades to come.
