Earlier this month, the federal government announced billions in funding for its Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) to help reindustrialize and reinvigorate Canada’s military and defence supply chains. Now, a group of Edmonton organizations is looking to make the city a hub for security and defence.
Brent Jensen,
“We [want to] to build a songbook where everyone is singing off of the same sheet.”
Edmonton Global
The Edmonton Region Defence Alliance (ERDA) is a newly formed, partner-led consortium of leaders across innovation, aviation, workforce, and economic development based in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region (EMR). Led by a steering committee that includes the University of Alberta, the Northern Institute of Technology (NAIT), Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, the Edmonton International Airport, and Edmonton Global, the ERDA’s purpose is to advocate for the EMR as a defence hub and to serve as a bridge between regional organizations and the federal government’s DIS needs.
Brent Jensen, the senior director of business development with Edmonton Global, said the ERDA will help the region present a united front in projecting its value to bolstering Canada’s sovereignty.
“We would be able to build a songbook where everyone is singing off of the same sheet, so it’s understood clearly what the value proposition is here and then to decode how companies might get more involved in defence contracts,” Jensen said.
What exactly is that value proposition? It’s largely the same one that the EMR has been touting for years: proximity to Canada’s northern territories, a robust industrial and manufacturing base, a large technically skilled workforce, and proximity to several key military installations (CFB Edmonton, Wainwright, and 4 Wing Cold Lake).
“One of our biggest assets and one of our biggest challenges [as a country] is the North, as we look from a global scale as to how important that territory is,” Jensen said. “It’s a lot of coastline to monitor, and new solutions are required to monitor [it], but also just to get product in and out.”
The ERDA finds itself in good company, with Edmonton already boasting several defence-oriented organizations, including a major western branch of Defence Construction Canada, a crown corporation that provides infrastructure for defence projects. Others include LOF Defence Systems, a body armour and tactical equipment developer; BBE, a transport company that provides logistics support to the Canadian Armed Forces in the region; and Logican Technologies, an electronics manufacturer that has previously been contracted by the Canadian defence sector.
In mid-February, Logican and Edmonton-based deeptech company Zero Point Cryogenics both received funding from the federal government to advance manufacturing capabilities related to defence under the Regional Defence Investment Initiative.
“We’re such a unique environment in the west,” Jensen added. “We have this amazing formulation of skill talent, really focused engineering, we’re used to designing and building things for extreme environments…it’s that unique mix of existing industrial manufacturing, amazing talent, and then being the gateway to the north.”
The ERDA is still in its early stages, with much of the work focused on identifying core goals and defence or supply chain gaps that regional players might be able to fill. Still, Jensen said interest has been large, with a recent information session drawing more than 80 participants.
“We had around 86 people on the call at one point from the region. Companies, municipalities, and government officials are saying: okay, what is this, and how do we get involved?”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Derek Otway.