Invest Ottawa is making a push to transform the National Capital Region (NCR) into the “heartbeat” of Canada’s defence innovation economy.
In a Tuesday presentation at Ottawa City Hall, Ottawa mayor Mark Sutcliffe unveiled Canada’s Capital Region National Defence Innovation Hub Strategy. The initiative, spearheaded by local economic development agency Invest Ottawa, hopes to attract up to $3 billion in public-private investment in the region’s defence innovation sector over the next five years.
“We can achieve disproportionate economic, safety, security, and military impact, but it will take a disproportionate amount of investment.”
Sutcliffe said the strategy supports Canada’s renewed commitment to defence spending, including its pledge to NATO, and said the region is “uniquely positioned” to lead the way in achieving the federal government’s goals. Canada has promised NATO that it will spend five percent of its GDP on defence by 2035.
“We have everything going for us to seize this moment,” Sutcliffe said.
Sutcliffe cited the more than 330 defence and security firms located in the city, alongside federal agencies like the Department of National Defence, Defence Research and Development Canada, the RCMP, and CSIS. The strategy also says the over 65 federal labs, 130 embassies, and 25 NATO attachés in the area are assets.
The pitch is that the NCR’s proximity to business and government makes it the ideal place to build a defence tech hub.
“We have a combination of assets, resources, expertise in this region as a global tech hub, as a defence hub, that doesn’t exist in combination anywhere else in the country,” Invest Ottawa president and CEO Sonya Shorey argued to BetaKit ahead of the announcement: “We can achieve disproportionate economic, safety, security, and military impact, but it will take a disproportionate amount of investment.”
The strategy contains 10 goals that aim to promote the NCR as a hub for defence innovation, expand the region’s innovation infrastructure, attract investment, build out its workforce, and improve procurement and export pathways. Some highlights include building out sovereign infrastructure like test sites and a semiconductor facility, as well as scaling intellectual property (IP) development and protection through ElevateIP, Intellectual Property Ontario (IPON), and IP Assist.
Shorey claimed this “evergreen” strategy will respond to shifts in the ecosystem and could create up to 18,000 jobs and $9 billion in GDP, based on Invest Ottawa’s economic assessment.
In its current form, the strategy is just a starting point. It’s set to be developed and executed by a task force of leaders from industry, academia, government, hospitals, and investors that will form over the next 60 days.
Shorey told BetaKit the federal funding for the strategy could come from the Business Development Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, or even regional economic development agencies like FedDev Ontario, all of which she expects will have targeted funding to fulfill Canada’s NATO spending target. Mayor Sutcliffe told reporters that the 2025 federal budget is “not the be–all or end-all” for the initiative
“If there are announcements that come in the budget, great. If they come at another time, that’s okay too,” Sutcliffe said.
Interest in defence investment has been heating up since trade tensions with the United States spurred the Government of Canada to bolster its sovereign and military capabilities. On top of a commitment to spend five percent of Canada’s GDP on defence by 2035, the federal government has changed its approach to procurement and begun encouraging banks and pension funds to invest in the sector.
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Right in the middle of this is Ottawa, which is home to defence technology venture capital platform One9 and emerging neoprime defence contractor Dominion Dynamics, which recently secured $4 million in pre-seed funding. Also in the city is Calian, which recently launched its Ventures arm to help businesses test, validate, and sell their defence offerings to the Canadian Armed Forces.
On a panel following the announcement of the strategy, Michael Nelson, CEO and founder of Ottawa-based defence tech startup Tactiql, described how being headquartered in Ottawa presents opportunities for his company to export and sell directly to the government. He explained that those connections create demand from prime contractors and original equipment manufacturers.
“They’re looking for traction within the military to help them understand which companies they should focus their attention on as well, “ Nelson said. “I don’t think it’s possible to get that kind of traction, or create that type of value, anywhere outside of Ottawa-Gatineau.”
Feature Image courtesy Invest Ottawa via LinkedIn.