This Q&A appears in the 2026 BetaKit Most Ambitious issue. Read more stories of the Canadian tech innovators strengthening our autonomy, security, and prosperity here.
Erin O’Toole has dedicated most of his adult life to public service. The former leader of the Conservative Party and former minister of veterans affairs, he also served for more than a decade in the Canadian Armed Forces. He now channels that experience by advising Canadian defence-tech companies like Dominion Dynamics.
He sat down with BetaKit to discuss how Canada can capitalize on its current push for sovereign defence capacity.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is the situation our nation finds itself in?
I think the prime minister expressed it well in his speech at Davos. We’re facing a rupture of the traditional rules-based system. After World War II, Canada benefited immensely from trade prosperity and relative peace. That’s now out the window.
So now Canada’s a little less prepared than we should be on both the trade and economic fronts. Security-wise, we’re not self-reliant. We don’t have sovereign capability in the areas that we need to for a country with the most coastline in the world, a massive geography, and interests in multilateralism. So we’re playing catch-up.
What does catching up to meet the moment look like?
We need to be self-reliant, and we need to eliminate barriers that have held Canada back from scaling. The very innovations we change the world with, we don’t commercialize as well as we should.
Canada’s strengths lie primarily in our R&D networks. We haven’t commercialized well, but, my goodness, we’ve come up with it. We have one of the top five AI players in the world. We are leaders in quantum.
RELATED: Cold front
Canada was the first country to have a drone. We were also the first country to produce an autonomous submarine. These are innovations that we haven’t really scaled and we’ve seen other people take. We have the capability. We just have to provide the capital and lower some of the barriers.
You just mentioned several examples of how Canada innovated and then failed to commercialize or maintain sovereign capability. What’s the fix?
Empower innovators. One key to doing that is moving faster as a government in procurement.
If you’re a national defence company, you have one customer: the government. And if that customer can’t even buy paper clips without a three-year exercise, you’re never going to see the private investment. But if that one customer suddenly signals that they’re going to buy things faster and they’re going to buy a lot, that sends a signal to the industry.
The defence industrial strategy, with its “build, partner, buy” philosophy, is not enough. We need execution. And that means contracts, that means purchase orders, that means the demand signal showing.
Europeans are still wondering whether Canada’s serious. We’re making these commitments, but they haven’t yet seen enough concrete action.
The federal government has communicated that it will pick winners or champions. Is that a good idea? Innovators usually want government out of the way.
We often bemoan the lack of competition in Canada. But the origin of some of our national champions goes back to the origin of the country.
When Canada was quickly cobbled together in the years after the American Civil War, there was real fear about manifest destiny. The government at the time said, “We need to tie this country together, so we’re gonna build a railway, and we’re gonna build it in 10 years.” It was built in less than that because the company knew it had an exclusive monopoly. So sometimes the government can encourage the private sector.
In the defence context, the fact that we can no longer rely on others means we need to pick some champions to build up that capacity quickly. That champion model will give certainty. A lot of the world is now saying, “Can we really rely on a handful of companies in the same ZIP code in California setting the rules?” Much like we built the railway and tied the country together, we have to apply that same mentality to the modern age.
You have a long history in government and military service and now advise innovators in the defence space. What advice can you share?
It’s both a daunting time and an exciting time to be an innovator or a startup in Canada. We need that outside-the-box thinking. I would say to them: get involved, advocate. If the innovators know what’s holding them back, don’t be quiet. Seize this moment because not only are politicians generally aligned, Canadians are showing the social licence for defence spending. It may not be the same in five years.
READ BETAKIT MOST AMBITIOUS 2026
In the 21st century, there is no sovereignty without technology.
Meet the Canadian innovators strengthening our nation’s autonomy, security, and prosperity in BetaKit Most Ambitious.
Feature image courtesy Studio Wyse for BetaKit.