After Greenland, is Canada next?
Canada risks becoming a “flyover Arctic"
Editor’s Note: Thank you to the DND Stakeholder Engagement Office and LGen Michael Wright, Commander of the Canadian Army, for the invitation to yesterday’s roundtable on Canadian Army Modernization and the modern threat environment.
🎯 Three-Shot Burst
Murray Brewster reports that Canada is considering sending soldiers to Greenland for military exercises with NATO allies, as Donald Trump threatens gunboat capitalism tariffs, or worse, on European nations unless they let him purchase the semi-autonomous island.
At the same time, NBC reports that Trump is increasingly complaining to aides in recent weeks about Canada’s vulnerability to US adversaries in the Arctic:
As Trump’s advisers work toward his goal of acquiring Greenland, the president has privately grown more exercised about what he sees as Canada’s similar inability to defend its borders against any encroachment from Russia or China.
Reality check: With President Trump musing about Canada’s vulnerability, Philippe Lagassé reminds us that it’s time to reconsider Ørvik’s concept of ‘defence against help’, which holds that a small state should build enough military credibility to deter unsolicited intervention or “help” from a powerful neighbour, thereby protecting its own sovereignty rather than relying on that neighbour’s forces.
We have only 1 heavy icebreaker in the Canadian Arctic in 2026. Canada has failed to equip our armed forces to meet this test. Citizens have noticed, and have some thoughts:
Now what?: Canada risks becoming a “flyover Arctic” — our airspace, seabed, and spectrum monitored and mapped by allied and rival platforms running on foreign hardware and foreign data. The gap between Canada’s rhetoric and our actual deployable capability is widening, and that’s where the real opportunity lives.
Bottom Line: Canadian defence is a frontier market. For founders, operators, and investors, the real action is in closing the gap between political rhetoric and deployable capability: Arctic‑proof ISR, autonomy that actually survives −40, and comms that don’t die at the pole.
The countries that matter are already using defence procurement as industrial policy; Canada still uses it as crisis response, and our ‘Buy Canadian’ policy doesn’t even require companies to be Canadian.
If Canada doesn’t commercialize its defence innovation ecosystem now, the North will be defended by foreign hardware and foreign data — and Canada’s role will be to pay the bill and read the briefings.
Related:
Greenland roundup:
In 1940, Canada developed “Force X” as a plan to occupy Greenland. President Roosevelt’s administration vehemently opposed those plans, which Canada abandoned
Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) has warned Danish officials and government agencies to immediately cease using Bluetooth headphones and AirPods while on duty due to the high risk of being spied on by US intelligence services
Greenland is too important to invade… Trump’s Greenland threats will only make Canada’s sovereignty claims in the Arctic more vulnerable… Denmark sets a military tripwire. It’s a message to Trump more than Russia or China… U.S., NATO have long history of not being serious about Greenland. That’s about to change
Sovereign Capability: The Arctic is the only place on Earth where autonomy fails in every way at the same time… Dominion Dynamics, vying to become Canadian defence ‘neoprime,’ raises $21-million led by Georgian… Trudeau’s former defence minister launches tech startup that could bolster Arctic sovereignty
Trump’s Greenland threats give boost to Churchill port expansion… U.S. ice-forecasting company PolArctic launches Canadian joint venture
‘Disgraceful and indefensible’: feds’ failure to release new Defence Industrial Strategy by deadline sparks backlash
Canada’s defence policy rhetoric consistently emphasizes commitment to alliances—most notably NORAD and NATO—yet persistent capability gaps undermine both national sovereignty and alliance credibility
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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.
🤝 Deal Corner
TD Bank report bullish on additional Canadian defence spending as a growth driver
Canada is turning defence spending into a quasi–industrial policy: Ottawa is ramping military outlays sharply while trying to kick-start growth and productivity.
Near term, most of the economic boost comes from personnel pay, healthcare, and recruitment, offering a modest but reliable lift to GDP and employment.
The bigger prize is capital spending, but it’s constrained: roughly half of procurement leaks abroad due to heavy reliance on foreign suppliers, muting multipliers. Still, Canada has meaningful spare capacity in defence-adjacent manufacturing (transport equipment, fabricated metals, machinery), where multipliers are high and inflation risks low, creating real upside if spending is timely and domestically anchored.
Bottom line: Defence spending will help stabilize growth and deliver a small macro upside (up to ~0.2% GDP in 2026), but the true long-term payoff hinges on execution speed and whether Canada uses this moment to deliberately build a deeper domestic defence supply chain rather than importing it.
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Private Capital and the Strategic Rewiring of Defence and Frontier Technologies
What do you get when you offset investors’ recent loathing of software startups with their lust for defence tech? Fast-growing Onebrief, the latest startup to double its valuation in a short span after raising $200 million this week from Battery Ventures and Sapphire Ventures at a $2.15 billion valuation, including the new investment
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US corner: IQT welcomes back Dan Gwak as chief investment officer… Inside America’s $3T nuclear bet… Cambium — AI-Native Materials Platform Focused on Manufacturing Time… San Antonio defence tech startup raises $136M… Fleetzero secures $43 million to scale shipping electrification and autonomy… What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About National Security… Pentagon Overhauls its Innovation Ecosystem… Army to field Bell MV-75 aircraft this year, integrate more drones… How Exposed Is the US Defence Industry to Europe?… European defence founders and VCs weigh in on Trump’s intensifying Greenland threats… Why the Jan. 7 Executive Order marks the end of defence financial engineering and the return of the industrialist:
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Join Canada’s innovation leaders at the N³ Summit in Toronto. Promo code: Icebreaker10
⚔️ Combat Readiness
Defence begins with infrastructure
Trump’s Greenland threats have given a boost to Canada’s Churchill port expansion: Already in planning for years, the Churchill port expansion in northern Manitoba could help commerce, but also protect Canada’s Arctic sovereignty.
As the New York Times has reported, last year, with its eye on the Arctic, China built and deployed its first domestically designed icebreaker in 10 months.
This remarkable achievement pales in comparison to its infrastructure-building elsewhere:
“China quietly mobilized thousands of fishing boats twice in recent weeks to form massive floating barriers of at least 200 miles long, showing a new level of coordination that could give Beijing more ways to impose control in contested seas.”
China has also been busy building piers for container ships but keeping them ready for their destroyers:
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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.
🔫 Hot Shots
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If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.
Well said