Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy and the acceleration of commercial space

A rocket climbing through cloud after launch

Canada’s recently released Defence Industrial Strategy, Security, Sovereignty and Prosperity, marks a structural shift in how Ottawa views defence, industrial capacity, and economic growth. It is not simply a procurement framework. It is an industrial policy document that explicitly links national security to domestic capability development, and it is now operationalizing.

Three developments in the past weeks have sharpened the strategic picture for the commercial space sector:

  • Ottawa has confirmed over $900 million in new NRC investment tied directly to the DIS, and Canada has committed to a 5% of GDP Defence Investment Pledge at The Hague: $81.8 billion in new defence commitments now backed by formal targets.
  • The Defence Investment Agency, established October 2025, is live: the first major procurement through it is Canada’s Arctic military satellite communications program, awarded to Telesat and MDA Space.
  • Prime Minister Carney’s visit to Norway and the Canada-Nordic Summit placed aerospace and space cooperation explicitly on the bilateral agenda, confirming Canada’s intent to embed itself in European northern security architecture.
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