Defence Tech: Building What Canada Can't Afford to Outsource
Canadian companies building the systems the country can no longer buy from someone else.
Hello friends,
What a week. Between the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the military rhetoric surrounding Greenland, this week has felt (to put it mildly) unsettled.
Earlier this week, a Globe piece by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Adam Gordon drew attention for a simple reason: It articulated a fear many have been feeling but few have named.
The authors argue that under the newly unveiled “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, Washington no longer treats Canada as an “irrelevancy,” but as a strategic asset to be secured.
“With its oil, minerals and water, Canada is a vital resource hinterland in the U.S.’s part of the map.”
Homer-Dixon and Gordon conclude that if Canada wants to stay independent, we can no longer outsource our security or technology to foreign giants. We need homegrown systems.
I’m not a geopolitical expert. But I am a fan of builders.
If the authors are right, some of the most important work in the country is happening in the unglamorous corners of defence tech.
Today marks the launch of Not Sorry For Winning: our weekly series celebrating Canadians absolutely crushing it on the world stage.
Not Sorry for Winning is designed to be fun. Because when the world feels heavy, we get to choose where we put our attention, and right now, the good deserves it.
Think of it like tuning in for the Jays, but instead of baseball, it’s Canadians dominating their fields. Let’s see if we can get 18.5 million.
First up: Defence Tech. (If the authors’ analysis is correct, this space is more critical than ever).
Let’s tuck in.
Quote of the week
“Canada is free and freedom is its nationality.” — Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Song of the week
“Northwest Passage” — Stan Rogers (the Hamilton GOAT)
Ok, onto winning!
(1) North Vector Dynamics, Calgary, AB | Paul Ziadé, CEO
Counter-drone systems and hypersonic propulsion.
North Vector Dynamics is trying to solve a very simple modern problem: drones are cheap, and the places we care about aren’t.
A small drone in the wrong place can shut down an airport, stalk critical infrastructure, or turn a public event into a security incident. And the annoying part is the mismatch: the drone might cost a couple thousand bucks, but the response can cost a fortune if you don’t have the right tools.
That’s where North Vector comes in. They build counter-drone (counter-UAS) systems: the practical job of detecting, tracking, and stopping drones that shouldn’t be there. They emerged from stealth in 2025 pitching made-in-Canada solutions to this exact problem.
They’re also playing in a completely different league of “future air”: North Vector secured a four-year, $4.2M contract with Canada’s defence R&D organization (DRDC) for work tied to propulsion and hypersonic technologies (meaning Mach 5+, about five times the speed of sound)!
From Paul:
We’re not sorry for being a pure defence company. “Dual-use” is real, but it’s too often a euphemism used to soften or sanitize what is ultimately a serious responsibility. As nations take sovereignty more seriously, we must be unapologetic about the most fundamental enabler of that sovereignty: a strong, capable, and innovative domestic defence industry – and we’re proud to build it.
The fastest way to help is to make introductions to defence founders in the US, Europe, Australia and other friendly countries who are building exciting technologies. We are always open to exploring interesting collaborations.
(2) CCX Technologies, Ottawa, ON | Chris Bartlett, President
Secure networks for aircraft and defence.
Everyone understands cybersecurity in the place we live: phones, laptops, bank accounts. You click the wrong link, it’s a mess. Now take that same idea and move it to a place where “restart it” isn’t an option: an aircraft.
Modern aircraft have digital systems that talk to each other: avionics, communications, maintenance systems, and sometimes connectivity to the outside world. That’s great for efficiency, but it also means you need to take cyber really seriously.
That’s what CCX Technologies builds: onboard cybersecurity (hardware and software) that lives on the aircraft and watches the aircraft’s internal network.
I love this story because it’s classic Canada: quiet, unglamorous, extremely important. The stuff that keeps complicated machines honest, so the rest of us can fly (defence and commercial) and never have to think about it.
(3) Dominion Dynamics, Ottawa, ON | Eliot Pence, CEO
Sovereign Arctic surveillance.
Dominion Dynamics is trying to solve a very simple Canadian problem: Canada is gigantic, the North is remote, and it’s surprisingly hard to know what’s happening up there in real time.
Their idea is to build a “single picture” of the Arctic by bringing together existing sensors (satellites, drones, maritime data, and other off-the-shelf tools) from land, sea, air, and space. Instead of each sensor living in its own silo, Dominion wants it all to flow into one Canadian-controlled system so decision-makers can see what’s happening quickly and clearly.
They launched publicly in October 2025 with $4M in pre-seed funding, backed exclusively by Canadian investors. They’ve also partnered with the Arctic Training Centre to test in extreme conditions.
From Eliot:
We’re not sorry for building a defence prime in Canada — and insisting that control, ownership, and IP matter. The Arctic is becoming a front-line theatre, and Canada can’t outsource its awareness, autonomy, or security stack to foreign primes forever. We believe this country can invent, integrate, and export world-class defence platforms again — and we’re proving it by building AI-native systems designed for the hardest operating environment on earth.
The fastest way to help is find builders who want to do the most meaningful work of their careers — engineers, product leaders, and operators who believe Canada should control the technologies that protect it. And help tell the story: share what Canadian defence companies are actually building, challenge the idea that the only path to scale is to sell early to a foreign acquirer, and amplify the teams choosing to build here, for the long haul.
(4) Cellula Robotics, Burnaby, BC | Eric Jackson, President and CTO
Long-range autonomous underwater robots.
Canada has the longest coastline in the world, and it’s hard to keep an eye on it.
If you’ve never thought about underwater robots (AUVs), you’re not alone. The simple problem is: the ocean doesn’t have outlets. When the robot runs out of power, the mission ends. And if the mission ends quickly, you’re usually paying for the expensive part: the ship and crew needed to launch it, keep tabs on it, and bring it home.
Cellula builds underwater robots designed to stay out for a long time. Their flagship, Guardian, is listed at 45+ days underwater and up to 5,000 kilometres on a hydrogen fuel cell. Basically Vancouver to Halifax, except underwater!
And that matters. If the robot can stay out for weeks, you don’t need a ship hovering nearby the entire time. More coastline and Arctic water covered, for a lot less money.
(5) Kraken Robotics, Mount Pearl, NL | Greg Reid, President and CEO
High-resolution subsea intelligence.
If you’ve ever tried to look into the ocean, you know the feeling: you can see a bit… and then it turns into murk. Now imagine you’re trying to do that at the bottom of the ocean, where it’s dark, cold, and the water is full of noise. You can’t use a camera. So you “see” with sound (sonar).
Kraken Robotics builds sonar that makes those underwater pictures sharp enough to be useful, instead of “is that a fish?” Their synthetic aperture sonar is designed to produce 3 cm × 3 cm resolution in real time, which is an absurd level of detail underwater. In a major naval exercise (REPMUS 2025), Kraken said its sonar clearly showed mine-like objects and even subsea cables as small as 5 cm in diameter.
If you’re wondering why any normal person should care: clearer sonar helps you find hazards, clear old explosives, and protect the underwater cables that basically run the internet. And the story behind it is very Newfoundland. Founder Karl Kenny passed away in February 2025. Today, Kraken supports customers in more than 30 countries.
Have a great weekend everyone!
To winning,
Bryan
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Love this! Great to see some spotlights on homegrown Canadian defence tech during such a critical time for the industry and for Canada's security environment