A CH-148 Cyclone prepares to land on HMCS HALIFAX during an Operation Reassurance exercise on May 28, 2022/Pte Connor Bennett, Canadian Armed Forces photo

Melanie Nadeau

September 22, 2025

We are living in a dangerous time. Russia has recently violated the airspace of three members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). President Donald Tusk of Poland, one of the countries whose airspace was violated, has declared that his country is the closest it has been to open conflict since the Second World War.

This testing of NATO’s resolve by Russia comes on the heels of China’s latest display of bravado. On September 3, President Xi hosted a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square, where he reiterated in the clearest terms yet previous calls for a new world order, this time, with the leaders of Russia and North Korea by his side.  It may be tempting to dismiss Xi’s comments as rhetoric or hyperbole, but that would not be wise.

After two decades of economic, geopolitical and institutional challenge, our systemic adversaries are positioning themselves for a more overt confrontation with the liberal democratic world. Canadians should be preparing themselves for that eventuality, one that we have for too long ignored.

Canada will be spending more on the Canadian Armed Forces in response. The defence budget is slated to increase significantly to 2% of Gross Domestic Product this year, and 3.5% in 2035. These are laudable goals, and the Carney government deserves credit for making these pledges.

But one still senses a lack of urgency around the need to prepare Canada for a major international conflict, particularly when it comes to the investments we need to make in our sovereign industrial capacity. Canada must do far more, far faster to build the sectors and specialized workers we will need.

An alarming percentage of experts—some 40 percent of those polled by the Atlantic Council — expect a world war by 2035. Our allies have heard the message. The United Kingdom’s updated national security strategy warns of a period of “radical uncertainty” in which “for the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in wartime scenario.”

A generational investment comes with a generational responsibility on the part of both government and private sector leaders.

It has taken Canada longer to wake up to our new reality. Canada’s previous Chief of the Defence Staff, Wayne Eyre, warned us as early as 2022 about our lack of preparedness, saying that Canada’s defence industry must get on a “wartime footing”. Three years later, we are only starting to get serious about this idea.

We cannot delay any longer. Our time to prepare for a potential conflict is limited. Ottawa’s forthcoming defence industrial strategy should provide momentum, but that will depend on how it is rolled out and over how many years. Industry requires clarity about what capabilities we should develop and when Ottawa plans to invest. This is not the time for new government programs, grand schemes, or lengthy consultations. What we need from Ottawa is decisiveness and long-term commitments.

We in industry, however, must recognize that building Canada’s defence industrial capacity and preparedness is a national undertaking, not merely an opportunity to profit. If the defence industrial strategy is perceived to unduly benefit private firms, public support will understandably wane.

We must ensure that investments in our defence industrial capacity provide truly national returns, in the form of Canadian intellectual property, the use and development of Canadian materials and expertise, and wider economic benefits outside of the defence sector. These investments must have a dual purpose: to both defend and build the nation.

As important, we must not limit ourselves to traditional defence firms and technologies as part of our defence industrial strategy and preparation for a potential large-scale conflict. To be sure, Canada’s large defence companies will be a vital part of the effort, but so should start-ups, firms working on dual-use (civilian and military) products and innovations, and those that involve partnerships between universities and the private and public sectors.

One need only to look at how the Halifax region has changed under the National Shipbuilding Strategy to see how a vibrant defence industrial ecosystem can be built through these types of whole-of-society partnerships.

Bringing Canada onto a wartime footing should involve replicating this model in various parts of the country, particularly in those that will be greatly impacted by American tariffs. A generational investment comes with a generational responsibility on the part of both government and private sector leaders.

We, collectively, must ensure that building up our sovereign industrial capability happens both at a pace commensurate with the threats on the horizon, and in a way that maximizes the benefits to Canadian society.

Melanie Nadeau is CEO of COVE, Canada’s official accelerator with NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA).