Ottawa, ON – Ready to get your company ready for defence procurement? At Space Canada’s SpaceBound conference on Nov. 19, a group of companies with a collective decades of experience in dual-use technologies took to the stage in Ottawa to give their recommendations. Here was the lineup of panellists.
- Moderator: David Perry, President and CEO, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
- Stewart Bain, CEO, NorthStar Earth & Space
- Mina Mitry, Co-Founder and CEO, Kepler Communications
- Scott McCrady, Director, Corporate Business Development & Canadian Government Affairs, Magellan Aerospace
- Mary Preville, CFN Consultants
Some of their key insights are below.
The scheduling is different. Listening to Bain, it sounds like working in defence is a bit like working on a rocket launch – scheduling is in windows, he said. Of course, the adversaries in this case are not the weather or technical issues, but other actors in space. But in both cases, if you don’t act quickly, the window is gone – and unlike a launch, in a military operation there may not be a second opportunity. With the maturity of the space industry, many CEOs are well-aware of that already even if they are not already in defence, so Bain said the Canadian government has to be aware industry will be “pushy” or even “a little more desperate” so that opportunity is not lost.
The questions are tightly defined. Mitry encouraged companies trying to break into defence to keep two key things in mind: to know the problem they are solving, and to know there are “deeply rooted” concerns about security, which brings with it risk aversion. So senior leadership needs to be able to address that throughout the company, from a cultural perspective, and to put the right development processes in place to make changes – quickly.
The new Defence Investment Agency may be an enabler – or a barrier. Industry is eagerly looking forward to the defence industrial strategy to begin formulating their own plans of attack on how to participate. Meanwhile, in October we received word of a Defence Investment Agency (DIA) that the government promises will be “centralizing expertise, cutting red tape and streamlining decisions.” McCrady, however, warned the DIA could be a barrier if its inclusion adds more layers to already complicated procurement decisions. If DIA is indeed able to build bridges between different silos, so much the better. But the risk is there that the agency will add time, making it difficult to pivot in the already constrained environment of military procurement.
Changes in culture are needed. Preville, who has been in the public service for 30 years, said she foresees two challenges in embracing dual-use technologies. The first is security clearances – usually only offered to select people, or in a select window of time. The second is more open communications; while defence officials have valid reason to be worried about disclosures, she urged them to participate more often in consultations with industry (if carefully) so that folks know what requirements will be.
Have a strategy. This is an obvious point, but worth repeating as the panellists brought it up: industry is eager for an industrial strategy, for a pathway to sovereign capabilities, and for funding mechanisms to allow for rapid procurement. Canada’s last space-specific strategy was in 2019, which was done under a different prime minister and U.S. presidential administration, when computers were not as powerful, when cislunar discussions were in their infancy, when sovereign launch was barely on the map, and when space was not being described as “contested” – just to name some key changes in the last nearly seven years.
Build a community. While all of the points above touch on aspects of trust and relationships, it was Bain who used this type of phrasing. He pointed to the various types of infrastructure that Canada has to provide what the defence industry needs – launch by Maritime Launch Services and NordSpace, for example, and communications through companies like Kepler Communications. Most of the tech Canada has, actually, is not entire machines (submarines or tanks, Bain said) but components – something that we have known for a long time, but naturally, something that can be repurposed for multiple niches, at modest cost, in extreme environments (see: remote, cold, multilingual) that Canadians are used to. In defence, where speed and flexibility are essential, this puts Canada in a very good spot.