Business leaders explore BC's place in defence and sovereign systems
Defence is rising up the agenda in Canada. After years in the background, it has become a live economic conversation, driven by a federal government committing to a large, sustained increase in defence spending and to steer more of it toward Canadian-made capability. That is a scale of investment that changes what defence can mean for domestic industry.
British Columbia is moving to claim its share. Through its Look West strategy, the province has tied provincial priorities to federal defence and industrial objectives and set out the targets it wants to hit, from shipbuilding to skilled trades. The direction is clear: BC intends to capture a meaningful part of this work as the investment lands.
Part of what is shifting is the idea of defence itself. Once understood broadly, by the public, as ships and tanks, it is better described today as the work of securing what a country runs on: the electricity grid, data and communications, ports and satellites. Seen that way, defence becomes an economic story as much as a security one.
The conversation around defence is broadening, and that was clear at a panel session hosted by Invest Vancouver and moderated by Bridgitte Anderson, President and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.
Key takeaways
1. Defence is being treated as industrial strategy, not only military spending. Speakers tied it directly to manufacturing, technology, exports, workforce and investment, describing a shift from buying capability to building it here. "Defence is a critical part of our industrial strategy," as one put it. That framing tracks Canada's Defence Industrial Strategy, the federal policy that directs investment toward Canadian-made capability and a larger Canadian share of defence procurement. The implication is that defence decisions are also economic decisions.
2. Dual-use technology is now security capability, and BC has it in depth. Much of the opportunity lies in commercial technology that also has security uses, what the panel called dual-use: cybersecurity, satellite and earth observation, AI, quantum, ocean technology, advanced manufacturing, and marine and shipbuilding. Speakers noted that "dual use" has shifted over roughly three years from a term with negative, mostly military associations to an accepted commercial opportunity. Fortinet, whose largest global campus and threat-research hub is in Burnaby, made the case through cybersecurity, and Wade Larson of Vancouver's EarthDaily Analytics pointed to its satellite constellation for daily earth imaging.
"Cybersecurity used to be seen as an IT cost centre. Today it's part of national defence."
Derek Manky, Global VP Threat Intelligence, Fortinet
3. Government demand can pull in private capital. The recurring argument was that private capital follows clear public demand. Procurement validates a market, lowers risk for investors and helps companies commercialize. Without a domestic customer, Canadian firms often scale first with foreign governments, and innovation built here gets commercialized elsewhere. The session's framing was government as the anchor customer, not the only one, captured in a line that came up more than once: "Capital follows public sector demand."
4. Build capability at home, then export. The goal speakers described was not buying defence products, but building Canadian companies, supply chains, skilled workers and sovereign capability, which takes patient capital, long-term procurement and predictable policy. People are part of the constraint. Seaspan Shipyards, the North Vancouver builder of vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard under the National Shipbuilding Strategy, named the workforce gap plainly.
"Our institutions here are not educating nearly enough people for what we need."
David Hargreaves, SVP, Strategy, Business Development and Communications, Seaspan
Proven at home, speakers argued, Canadian technology can move into allied markets: build it for Canada, then export it to the rest of the world.
5. The story has to change, and it cannot rest on one government. Speakers kept returning to narrative. Defence is poorly understood in Canada, some firms still avoid the word in investor materials, and that weak story limits awareness, capital and public support. The opportunity, they argued, needs a durable consensus that holds across political cycles rather than the priorities of any single government.
"We as a nation need to change the story of what defence means for us."
Joe Armstrong, President, 49North
The session also pointed to anchors for the opportunity here: MDA Space and decades of Canadian capability from the Canadarm onward, and the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, a new multilateral institution to finance defence and security projects for NATO members and allies. Canada has been chosen as the bank's host country, and Vancouver is one of the cities bidding to host its headquarters. Together they point to the case for Metro Vancouver as a hub for defence and sovereign systems.
The BC Chamber is in a good position to start this work. Our first step is an inaugural council that brings companies working across defence and dual-use systems together. Our early focus is deliberately narrow: to define the narrative for the sector in BC and how it wants to be known. That shared foundation is what everything else builds on. From there, the council becomes the base for the connective tissue that the sector needs, the introductions, the shared positions, and the practical links across the network to help BC capture its share of what is coming. Reach out if you are interested in joining us in this work.