An Open Letter to Canada
Our security requires capital and a reliable customer
IMG // AJ Robles on Unsplash06.12.2025
The technologies that could determine the outcome of the next armed conflict may not yet be invented, but when they are, they are almost guaranteed to be the result of private sector innovation and investment. Therefore, if the Crown is to uphold its primordial duty of defending the nation, it has no choice but to rapidly reshape its relationship with the entrepreneurs and investors that it will rely upon to create, fund, and scale the emerging and disruptive technologies necessary to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving battlespace.
This letter, the product of an ongoing dialogue among patriotic founders and investors, calls on the wider Canadian business community to join us in urging Canada to take swift action to secure our national security, sovereignty, and prosperity.
Our recommendations rest on principles we believe to be self-evident:
The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence will only be able to meet the challenges of 21st century competition and conflict if Canada can rapidly acquire traditional military systems while also adopting emerging and disruptive, commercially developed, capabilities;
Meeting these demands requires a sovereign defence industrial base that builds upon Canada’s existing strengths in advanced tech and manufacturing;
A strategic ecosystem of innovation that fosters and delivers disruptive capabilities requires deliberate government catalyzation that leverages the innate power of the private sector; and
Growing and sustaining this ecosystem should be viewed not just as expense, but an investment in Canada’s future.
Lessons learned on the battlefield and in the boardroom lead us to conclude that Canada must identify and support elements of its existing high-tech industries that can deliver asymmetric capabilities now, forming the foundation of a revitalized defence industrial base.
As world leaders in, among other things, AI, quantum computing, cybersecurity, space technology and materials science, Canada must fully harness these industries to deliver disruptive defence and security capabilities to our end-users and our allies. Achieving this requires two essential ingredients: capital and a reliable customer.
We are heartened by Prime Minister Carney’s recent commitment to expanded and accelerated defence spending. Our goal is to ensure that the operationalization of this commitment includes the aspects we believe are necessary to meaningfully advance Canada’s ecosystem of investment and innovation. We therefore recommend that Canada:
Commit and catalyze mission-focused capital through public-private partnership. Seeding both capital deployment vehicles and companies with strategic government capital will support early-stage innovation while signaling to other sources of private captial that building defence companies in Canada is both urgent and encouraged.
Establish a dedicated public-private organization to rapidly adopt emerging and disruptive Canadian capabilities. If Canada is to see a meaningful return on its investments, this new organization must create a pathway from innovation to adoption, including mandated minimums for domestically developed solutions. It must implement allied best practices and remain independent from other innovation bodies, focused on a single mandate: delivering disruptive capabilities to defence end-users. This will require a more agile, iterative, and risk tolerant Crown customer.
We have both the opportunity and the obligation to transform how our nation fosters the innovation that will safeguard our future.
We urge leaders across the Canadian business community, regardless of sector, to join us in endorsing these recommendations. By standing together, we can send a clear signal: Canada must act now to empower our innovators, support our entrepreneurs, and secure our future.
Add your name to this letter below and advocate for these essential reforms.