Vimy Ridge + homegrown defence tech
Lest we forget
On Remembrance Day, we honour the sacrifice of all who have served our country.
🎯 Three-Shot Burst
Last week’s federal budget put real money behind years of NATO-side promises, pledging billions for modernization, digital infrastructure, and new kit to keep the Canadian Armed Forces from falling further behind.
It includes a $1-billion program under the Business Development Bank of Canada to support small to medium-sized businesses, which make up the majority of Canada’s defence industrial base. The program will provide loans, venture capital and advice to smaller firms looking to contribute to Canadian defence.
But the budget, as weighty as it looks, is only act one. The real test will be Canada’s defence industrial strategy, now in the works. That’s the part that decides who builds what, where, and how fast—a crucial framework if all this new spending is to translate into actual capabilities.
So what?: The new federal budget was more than a spending plan; it was a set of industrial signals wrapped in fiscal policy. By naming initiatives like a spaceport and counter-drone investments, the government provided “market-making language”, explicitly saying Canada will spend where allies have gaps, including areas like armoured vehicles, long-range strike capabilities, and domestic ammunition production.
Bottom Line: The budget sets the ambition; the industrial strategy must deliver the execution. How will we support homegrown scalable innovation, and original Canadian IP?
One Canadian defence entrepeneur, testifying last week at Parliament, draws upon a timely Vimy Ridge parallel, in which a Canadian engineer neutralized German artillery in 1917 using homegrown innovations in soundranging and flashspotting, to provide a roadmap:
Related:
View from the Tech Ecosystem: Budget 2025 hints at full scope of federal government’s defence agenda… Federal budget 2025: Liberals earmark $6.6-billion to grow defence industry
Dominion Dynamics CEO tells Tectonic: “the most significant transformation in Canadian defence funding in a generation”
Pundit corner: Ottawa plans to spend big on defence. But is there a long-term vision for Canada’s military?… Securing Canada’s Arctic with new defence spending… Where is the money to replace Canada’s aging submarines? It wasn’t in the 2025 federal budget
Industry needs a buyer:
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Dominion Dynamics is building Canada’s next generation of sovereign defence technology, with a focus on Arctic sovereignty.
💾 Drone Detection Hackathon: join us!
November 15, 2025 | Ottawa, ON
Modern battlefields are swarming with small, low-cost drones (Class 1 UAS)—systems too elusive for radar and tricky for traditional detection.
Your mission: Build “Shazam for Drones”—a smart, audio-based system that listens, detects, and pinpoints airborne threats in real time.
Sign up to see the final pitches!
Related:
Here are five of the hottest Ottawa startups in defence and cybersecurity
NATO’s eastern flank is deploying a new weapons system to defend against Russian drones
🤝 Defining Defence Tech
As an umbrella category, defence tech is much broader than rockets, tanks, and aircraft carriers.
Defence tech includes everything that defence departments and the broader national security infrastructure touches—including the systems infrastructure, communications and intelligence technology, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, as well as the innovation leveraged on the battlefield and beyond.
Related:
Leaky Talent Bucket: Canada’s global AI research leadership hasn’t yet translated into economic strength, productivity gains, or IP ownership… Nord Quantique, Xanadu, Photonic advance to next phase of DARPA quantum race — 3 of 11 are Canadian… Is Canada still punching way below our weight?
Deep Tech Rising: Smart capital is shifting from software to frontier technologies with urgent buyers… JPMorganChase Launches $1.5 Trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative to Boost Critical Industries
Europe’s defence start-ups in funding shortfall despite looser bank policies
A Canadian-made Swedish fighter jet may kick-start a domestic defence aerospace industry. But at what cost?
Canada’s opportunity in aerospace
How a defence venture studio works: Interview with Bifrost Defence’s Nicholas McGowan von Holstein
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⚔️ Combat Readiness
US Demands Firms Speeds Weapons Development or Fade Away
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth challenged Pentagon contractors to speed up weapons development or “fade away” in a speech Friday before an audience of executives from major industry players and newer entrants such as Anduril Industries Inc.
“These large defence primes need to change, to focus on speed and volume and invest their own capital to get there,” Hegseth said in a speech at the National War College
The only bipartisan consensus left in Washington is that America needs to reform how it buys weapons. And while the most exciting developments in defence are being driven by flashy, high-risk California VC investments, the man making the decisions comes from the grimly analytical East Coast world of PE.
Bottom line: The speech, titled “The Arsenal of Freedom”, unveiled plans to overhaul weapons procurement. Hegseth is pushing for a new Economic Defense Unit to give new contracting guidelines and a “playbook of modern commercial contract and agreement structures.”
Under the new plan, the Pentagon will deploy capital with grants, loan options, purchase commitments and investments.
Related:
The Biggest Shift in Startup Finance Isn’t Coming from VCs — It’s Coming from Washington
Implications for Canada in Hegseth’s speech
The US DoD has an IP Guidebook for DoD acquisition… America’s plans for a Golden Dome are dangerously obscure
From the front: Russia suffers huge casualties, but its new drone-powered assault is working… Mothership + FPV tactics: Russian carriers now ferry FPVs into dense urban coverage zones before handoff to LTE control… What’s happening in Ukraine is the closest thing to a market economy for the battlefield that exists:
AI wars: Warfighters, Not Engineers, Decide What AI Can Be Trusted… The State of AI and Autonomy in Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV)…
Modernization: Inflection Point 2025 and Modernizing Canada’s Army: LGen Michael Wright… Federal public servants would be trained to shoot guns, drive trucks and fly drones, according to a defence department directive… To fix the Armed Forces, military families must be supported
The Law that is killing Canada’s space industry… ‘A new arms race’: Satellite images, maps and records reveal huge surge in China’s missile production sites
Drone wars: The 20-Somethings Who Raised $121 Million to Build Military Drones… U.S. Army to Procure 1 Million Drones in Historic Shift to High-Tech Warfare… Canadian Army to “Flood the Zone” with Drones, Commander Says
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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision
🔫 Hot Shots
Grey war: Executives from major US telecom providers now meet regularly to swap information on hacking attempts… Pentagon releases ‘revised’ plan to boost cyber talent… Quantum Computing Is Coming for Your Digital Secrets… AI-powered malware is here… Europe’s underwater infrastructure is critical yet increasingly exposed… Beijing’s Playbook for Asset Stripping… Kovrig warns against making China ‘core’ to diversification strategy
Poseidon: Poseidon (good guys) snags $11 million to build unmanned cargo aircraft… Russia tests nuclear-capable Poseidon (bad guys) super torpedo, Putin says
Rare earths: Trump scrambles for minerals to break dependence on China… US Hosts Central Asian Leaders For More Mineral Diplomacy At High-Profile Summit… US, private investors sign off on $1.4 billion deal with rare earth startups Vulcan and ReElement… Canada to stockpile graphite and scandium in $2-billion push to disrupt Chinese domination
Pivot: Sierra Space is raising cash in pivot to defence. The company expects its defence business to generate more than $800 million in revenue this year, up from over $500 million last year, by selling satellites and satellite components for missile warning and detection
Here and there: China reached out to NASA to avoid a potential satellite collision in 1st-of-its-kind space cooperation… What Canadian companies should know about the EU’s new defence-investment deal… Battlefield lessons for Europe’s defence industry… According to the Chief of the Defense Staff of the French Armed Forces, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T systems deployed in Ukraine are capable of intercepting upgraded Russian attacks, a task with which the US Patriot systems are struggling. He, therefore, concluded that the SAMP/T outperforms the Patriot
What we’re reading: The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices [Free e-book!]
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.