The Decibel - Drones and the future of Canada’s military industry

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Robotics and drones are now leading the charge in modern warfare, reshaping battlefields in Ukraine and on the Strait of Hormuz. The Canadian military, with renewed funding and targets, is focusing on developing drones – and defence companies want to be part of production and investment. Pippa Norman covers the defence industry and Canada’s military strategy for The Globe. She explains why unmanned vehicles are gaining popularity with military and government leaders, how its development is meant to reduce reliance on the U.S. and whether military, government and business can adapt to the moment. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The warfare of today is very different from what it was decades ago. Drones now swarm the modern battlefield, something we've seen in Ukraine and in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. Canada is trying to modernize its own military by investing in the development of these devices. But it's more than just getting new equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. It's also about businesses building a drone industry at home. The federal government recently announced a 9. million dollar defense industrial strategy, including over $300 million going to a drone innovation hub. Pippa Norman has been covering Canada's military and defense industry.

She joins us to discuss why we're seeing this massive shift toward autonomous vehicles, what exactly companies are working on, and how likely it is that Canada will develop a national drone industry. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel. the Globe and Mail. Hi, Pippa. Thanks so much for coming back on the show. Thanks for having me.

So Pippa, how are drones changing the way wars are fought? They're changing the ways wars are fought in a few different ways. One of them is sort of the economics of war. Like if you think about how much it costs to produce a drone versus what we call sort of legacy system, so like a rifle or a tank, or, yeah, any sort of complex military equipment, drones have emerged as like, a much cheaper option. So they cost less money to produce and they also can be produced much quicker and on much larger scale than tools that we may have used in the past. So there's sort of the economic side of it. And then there's also the sort of like the safety side of it. Like any time that a drone can be used to take a human out of harm's way, that's something that

we're now seeing factored into a lot of conflicts. So whether that's by like detecting threats such as a landmine or perhaps, you know, delivering strikes in a conflict, anytime an uncrewed vehicle or a drone can help replace a human and dangerous situation, that's proving to be valuable. And we see this playing out both the economics and sort of the safety side of it in conflicts like the war in Ukraine, where, you know, the size of Ukraine's armed forces might not match that of its aggressor, which would be Russia, or in the conflict in the Middle East, where we have these interesting dynamic now, where you have the U.S., which is known to be like a massive military power and has a lot of very expensive equipment and systems. But then when you put that up against the very comparatively

cheap and mass produced drones being used by a country like Iran, you get this very interesting dynamic that is completely changing the way that we have seen conflicts happen in the past. And drones can take a lot of different forms, right? Can you get a lot of give us a sense of what we're talking about when we say drones? Yeah. So drone is sort of an umbrella term. And so when you talk to either military members or people in the industry, they maybe don't use the term drone as much because it's very unspecific generally.

So within sort of the umbrella of drones, there's a few different acronyms. Defense industry loves its acronyms. So there's a UAV, which is an uncrewed aerial vehicle. There's a USV, which is an uncrewed surface vehicle. there's a UGV, which is an uncrewed ground vehicle, and then there's a UUV, which is an uncrewd underwater vehicle. And then that can all culminate in what is often referred to as UXV, which is just sort of uncrued vehicles generally or like uncrewed systems. All right. So I think the military often uses UXV to just refer to the systems, whether that's being used by the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, that's kind of the more correct general term.

But people know what a drone is. You know, you think of a drone that you could go buy at like Best Buy or something. Like, it's more of a layperson term. So we have more drones in war today. What does it take to defend against them? Yeah, ironically, some of the best defense against drones is drones. It can be kind of confusing in the sector because you talk about drones. There are drones and then there are counter drone technologies.

But often counter drone technologies are also drones. They're just like programmed or used. used in a different way. Some other things that can be used against drones, like missiles, it's kind of a similar function to a drone or a counter drone. And then even like things, there's been some pretty high-tech nets that have been developed that can like, they're just incredibly strong and they can just basically stop a drone if it flies into it. Wow. Yeah. So really interesting. That's like we've seen that being used with, to protect things like tanks where they're kind of sitting ducks when it comes to a drone. There's also like early warning systems, detection,

radar, that sort of thing. Okay. So that gives us a sense of this new battlefield. And we know that Canada's military is going through a major modernization effort, which in part means a need for new equipment. What have officials said about the role drones will play in this modernization? Yeah. So the commander of the Canadian Army, Lieutenant General Michael Wright, has said multiple times that he wants to, quote, flood the zone or flood the army with drones. So the Canadian Army put out, and this is specifically the Army, not necessarily the Navy or the Air Force, although, you know, they're also looking at using drones. But the Canadian Army put out a document in 2025 called Inflection Point, and it's basically

its plan to modernize the Army, equip it with modern equipment, make sure that soldiers have what they need to fight in modern warfare. drones and uncrewed technologies definitely have a central role in that modernization effort. And yeah, I think generally just the Canadian Army knows that the world of warfare is evolving. And if they stand any chance of existing in that and having to be a force in that, then they should probably be looking at what's going on. Yeah, you need drones. And so, of course, then Canada is aiming to spend 5% of GDP toward the defense sector by 2035. and Ottawa's new defense industrial strategy noted that, quote, uncrewed and autonomous systems are one of 10 key sectors sure to benefit, unquote.

So do we know how much money is being earmarked for drones? Yeah, I wish I could give you like one crystal clear number. And industry would love that. Unfortunately, there's not like one single pot that we know is going towards quote unquote drones. Okay. But there are, you know, some numbers and some pools of funding that we know are out there that could. go towards companies working on drones. So, for example, the federal government setting up a drone innovation hub, as they've called it, in Mirabelle

Quebec. There seems to be quite a bit of sort of drone development, research and development companies setting up in Mirabelle, close to the Montreal Mirabelle Airport. So that's an investment of 105 million over three years for the federal government for that innovation hub. And that comes under the $6.6 billion, which they allocated towards their. defense industrial strategy. And then there's a couple other sort of projects and initiatives that the federal government has set up that could help with the drone industry or drone development

in Canada. One of them is called Minerva. It's an initiative by the Canadian Army to sort of bring people who are using the drones, aka the soldiers, and industry into the same room and really talk about like what soldiers need, what industry can build and how they can work together. So that's been really interesting. And then there's also a bureaucratic. called Borealis that's been set up to sort of match industry with funding opportunities. And so, for example, in February, Borealis launched a call for proposals for 50 million over two years to go towards what they're calling defense innovation secure hubs. And some of the research that they want to be done there will be into uncrued systems.

Okay. So what does the Canadian drone industry look like? And how has that changed in recent years? So in 2024, Josh Ogden, who he's a member of the industry, he sort of did some consulting and some analysis of the sector. And he found that there was about 200 players in the aerial drone space. So that's not just companies, but also includes like universities and other institutions that might be factoring into the industry. Just last year, the Canadian Council of Innovators and the Icebreaker, which is like a defense innovation network, They did some surveying of the Canadian dual-use market or companies that could enter into the dual-use market.

Dual-use meaning technologies that are used for both like civilian or commercial and military uses. So they kind of go either way. And just something that came out of their survey, they found that 106 of the 428 companies that responded to their survey are working on surveillance, drone, uncrewd aerial systems, or other sort of aerospace technology. So that's just another stat that kind of came out recently. So it's safe to say hundreds, but it's hard to say for sure. Like we've had drones in Canada for a while. Drones more recently really took off in the energy sector, I would say, because they're really good for things like mapping and data collection,

which the oil and gas, maybe wind, like they can really use that technology. And then also for like scientific research and development in some of the marine drone development, like monitoring endangered species, that sort of thing. So we've had drone companies existing and serving other markets in Canada for a while. And then we do have some that are just directly defense that have popped up in the past few years, if not before. But I think what's safe to say is that there's been sort of like, honestly, similar to how Commander Wright wants to flood the army with drones, there's been a bit of a flood into the market and the Canadian market of companies who say they can build drones or are trying to build a drone because the war in Ukraine

has taught us that this is like where warfare is headed. So if you want to be in the defense market, maybe you should consider having a drone. Where does Canada sit in the global drone race? Yeah, I would characterize that Canada's behind in the global drone race, but that we're catching up pretty quickly. And it's not that we can't be in it. We have countries like Ukraine that are obviously at the front, but they've had to innovate out of necessity. And we simply have not had that level of threat. So we just haven't had to manufacture at scale with drones. And that's something that we're now talking about. But we'll see where the industry goes from here. We'll be right back. Pippa, you actually went to visit a few places that make drones,

including a place called Volatus Aerospace Corp. What kind of drones do they make? Yeah, Velatus, they are definitely one of the larger players in the Canadian industry. So they actually do quite a few things. And honestly, manufacturing is something that they are like really getting into only more recently. They've done a lot of drone resales in the past, which a lot of Canadian companies have done for drones. The drones that they are now looking to make in Canada are, I would say, like, of the larger variety. Because drones can be all shapes and sizes. Yeah, tell me how big these are.

Yeah, one of them that they're going to be producing in Mirabelle has, I think, a 10-meter wingspan, so quite large. They also make one that I saw when I visited that sort of looks like a mini helicopter. I think maybe if I, like, screwed myself up into a ball, I could probably fit into it, like, into, because it's sort of a cargo carrier, so I could probably fit into the cargo space. But yeah, like pretty large, not what you think of when you necessarily think of like the recreational. The dream ones, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was it like there? It's like many defense-adjacent companies that I visit that are in the GTA. It's always some like unsuspecting strip mall that you pull up in and that's where they're based. But one of the things that Philatus is really good at is like drones as a service or operations. So they have this room within their facility in Vaughn where they have operas.

And those drone operators are operating drones that are in places such as Edmonton. And they're doing deliveries to hospitals. So like it's a healthcare sort of delivery service. But the operator of that drone, the drone is on sort of like a programmed route, but the operator is sitting in Vaughn. So it's kind of interesting because we also know that in Ukraine sort of similar things are happening, but from a defense perspective where operators are sitting in rooms and the drones are, you know, elsewhere. So, yeah, it's just a dark room. There's like all these computer screens and there they can see on the big screen at the front, like the where the drones are moving and what they're doing. But they're, you know, across the country, which is kind of cool. Cool and maybe a little bit creepy for me.

Yeah, that's fair. What did you learn about how fast they can build these drones? Yeah, I think with Volatus, the drones that they're going to be building in Mirabell, there are drones that were already being produced by a UK-based company. So they sort of acquired these drones through an acquisition that they made. So it's not like they had to start from scratch with these larger drones that they're going to be producing in Quebec. But they are hoping to sort of have production up and running in summer 2026. So pretty soon in terms of being able to actually fly aircraft out of the facility. But I think in terms of production of drones generally, it's kind of a tricky question to answer because they have such a wide range.

You're going to have much more complex ones. You're going to have much less complex. and each of them sort of serves a different purpose. And, you know, if you think about a drone that's maybe used for a strike capability, you probably don't want to spend too much time making it if you're going to lose it very quickly. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. So it just depends on what kind of drone you're making and the complexity of the piece of equipment that you're building.

Yeah. I imagine in order to be competitive in this space, you have to be building different types of drones. Is that what we're seeing in Canada? Like, our companies specializing in different areas? Yeah, there's definitely a variety of drone companies in Canada. And yeah, they sort of like occupy this spectrum of use cases. Like we have drones that are being developed for the air, for the land, for the ocean or water. Some of them are mostly used for like detection and surveillance.

They don't necessarily have like action capabilities. It's more like data collection. And then there's cargo delivery drones. There's drones that can carry strike capabilities, which, you know, those drones would be used to kill potentially. So, yeah, there's a range, and it really depends on the terrain that they're building for. But, yeah, all across Canada, there's different companies building different drones. Are there any examples that you went to visit that you want to talk about?

I haven't visited Open Ocean in person, but Open Ocean Robotics on the West Coast is, they're really interesting. Their founder, she is like an incredible adventurer, and she created these, uncrewed surface vessels, so they're USBs, that can basically go out onto the ocean and collect data and map the ocean floor or use sensors like a hydrophone to collect data and then bring that back. But they're like autonomous. They're uncruits. They just go out.

They do their thing. And they're like specifically capable at navigating in like rough seas, which is obviously a perk if you're working on the ocean. And then on the other coast and the east coast, there's this company. called Crackin Robotics, and they are also building drones for the water. Theirs would be UV because they're uncrewed underwater vessels or vehicles. And they specialize in like subsea batteries, so like underwater batteries, which is really cool. But they also have their own synthetic aperture sauner technology that they've built into this drone

or this autonomous vessel that they call the catfish. and one of the really interesting defense applications for that vessel is mine detection. So there can be almost like landmines, but they're underwater or on the ocean floor. And it can map or detect or survey like where those are, which is important, obviously, for like ships, submarines, anything that's going on on the water. Once again, very top of mind because that's, again, what we're hearing about in the Strait of Hormuz that there are these sea mines. So this is technology that could detect that. Yeah. Yeah.

When it comes to what these companies are building, are they thinking just of defense or are they looking at commercial applications as well? Yeah, it really varies. I find that in Canada, often there's sort of like two camps of companies. There's the companies that have like started out without even thinking about defense or the application that they might have in defense. So open ocean robotics is an example of that. They started out like monitoring endangered Marines. mammals and then eventually realized that that same technology that they were using could be used to like monitor maritime threats.

And that was of interest to associations like the U.S. Navy who they've done work with. And then there's another camp where it's like, no, we're very much building for defense. We have defense applications. You know, maybe our drones are really good at strike capabilities. The company Sentinel, it's a Canadian company based. in Hamilton, and they do a lot of work in Ukraine because that's like a massive drone market right now. So they have a facility there and they build for Ukraine. But if you think about the kind of drone that Ukraine needs, you know, Ukraine needs drones that can strike that can kill.

So that's a capability that they have the ability to fulfill. What about the parts that are used for these drones? Like are they all coming from Canada? Like how does that work? We definitely don't have the full drone supply chain in Canada. If you picture a drone, like there's tons of parts and different things that need to go into something like that. We have some of those things. Sentinel makes its own sort of, I would call them like the bodies of the drone.

There's also a company called Pegasus that I spoke to and they make power trains, which are basically anything that helps keep a drone in the air, so like a motor or a generator. But I think what we're sort of seeing right now with the industry is that a lot of Canadian companies that are making drones are sometimes just assembling drones that are made of foreign parts. And that's just because we don't necessarily have everything that you would need to put into that drone in Canada. So, yeah, you often do have to get parts from overseas. And maybe that's something that we can improve upon. But that's sort of yet to be determined. I'm guessing if perhaps the goal in the future is to have more of these parts being made in Canada.

Yeah, I think that is the goal. It's just not clear on how realistic or feasible that is. You know, we've seen the government sort of it identified uncrued and autonomous systems, as you said, as a sovereign capability through its defense industrial strategy. And what they mean by that sovereign capability is that they want to, yeah, like probably control as much of the supply chain as they can. the idea being, especially with something like drones, or I often reference like ammunition as well, is that if it's something that we need a lot of, all of a sudden, we want to be able to ramp up that supply and control that supply. You kind of think back to COVID where we needed vaccines and masks. And we had to figure out whether that was something we manufactured or where we could get it from when like global supply chains are being affected, right? So it's, we're sort of

seeing a similar ideas being thrown around forth, something like drones or ammunition. But now we just have to see if the investment matches the ability to actually build out those capabilities for Canadian companies. What is the benefit for the Canadian Armed Forces to have things like drones and other military equipment being made domestically? The benefit is for our Canadian Armed Forces to have access to what they need when they need it. In reporting this story, I spoke to Colonel LaBea, He's with the Canadian Armed Forces, and he told me that they have like an obligation to look at how uncrued systems can enable the forces to increase their capabilities, not only because of their size. You know, we know that the size of our armed forces is not necessarily proportional to the size of our country, and that's something that they're working on through recruitment right now. But he said it was also because, you know, they expect their potential adversaries as well as their allies to be increasing these capabilities as well, these uncruiting.

these uncrewed system capabilities. So if drones are something that one day we need to have a lot of and we need to have a lot of quickly, it's much easier if we have access to that supply chain in our own backyard. And we don't have to necessarily rely on supply chains that, you know, maybe there are allies and they would like to help us, but maybe they just need them themselves. You know, it's not always about like whether somebody will supply you or not. It's also sometimes about whether they have the capability to supply you. So if you can supply yourself, obviously, that's always easier.

But you spend a lot of time reporting on these companies and going to these companies and speaking to people. You know, there's a lot of money going into defense right now, of course, and there's a lot of attention towards it. And of course, that means that these companies that are making drones are probably thinking money might come to us. But I'm curious to know what were people in the industry feeling about the future? Do they feel like the government is going to be able to sustainably support all of these companies? long term? Yeah, I think it's a bit of a gamble right now. Like obviously, if everything that they've said is going to happen happens, they being the government, then yeah, these investments should pay off and they should all go pretty well. And, you know, it's not only selling to the Canadian

government because that won't necessarily sustain a company, but it's also having the Canadian government fulfill their promise of helping these Canadian companies export as well. So if that all happens, then, you know, we might get more of a sovereign supply chain for drones. Companies who are building drones might see their efforts pay off. But it's still too early to say whether that's actually going to come to fruition. You know, the defense and social strategy only came out recently, and it has a lot of goals and initiatives and investments outlined in it. But we are now in the process where we're seeing, like, how those all shake out. BIPA, really great to talk talk to you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. That was Pippa Norman, the Globe's

innovation reporter who covers Canada's defense industry. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. This episode was produced by our former intern and associate producer, Finn Dermot. Our current associate producer and intern is Emily Conahan. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.