Alliance of Edmonton-area pillars looks to attract investment from $6.6B federal defence industrial strategy

As Canada outlines its defence strategy, a new group, the Edmonton Region Defence Alliance, is looking to get involved. Amanda Anderson reports.

A local partnership between a handful of major entities aims to establish the Edmonton region as a defence-related hub.

The recently launched Edmonton Region Defence Alliance seeks to harness the city’s location relatively close to the Arctic, industrial readiness, workforce and resources in Canada’s efforts to protect national sovereignty.

The coordinated partnership is being spearheaded by the University of Alberta, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, the Edmonton International Airport, Alberta’s Industrial Heartland of chemical and petrochemical production at Fort Saskatchewan, and international business development agency Edmonton Global.

The alliance comes as the federal government announced Canada’s first defence industrial strategy on Tuesday, a $6.6-billion plan that looks to build the country’s defence industrial base and to expand capacities of small- and medium-sized businesses so they can be consistent suppliers for the military.

Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack, who hopes to be able to dedicate city staff to support the process, told media at a city hall media availability that he believes the region is well-positioned to procure some of the federal investment as Ottawa looks to increase the number of domestic suppliers for the armed forces.

“When it comes to defence, you think about the level of investment that can go into that space, into the businesses that we’ve already been developing here,” said Knack, who trumpeted the city as a leader in innovation, AI research, advanced manufacturing and life sciences. “(There are) incredible opportunities.”

The Edmonton group was formed in anticipation of the new federal strategy, which had been rumoured for months.

Dave Bressler, the university’s vice-president of international innovation and enterprise, said with Canada gaining some of the global spotlight following Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcements in his speech in Davos, Switzerland, we’re seeing “a transformational change today on procurement and build-out tomorrow on next-generation technologies around AI, health, energy” with the federal investment announcement.

“We’ve been working in all those areas and we’re global leaders in those areas,” Bressler said. “This is a chance to amplify it for military purposes.”

And the Edmonton International Airport is already working toward becoming a main military operating base for the Royal Canadian Air Force in the west, extending CFB Edmonton, CFB Wainwright and 4 Wing Cold Lake’s defence operations.

The airport’s Margeaux Maron, the airport’s director of government and external relations, said it expects the project will create not only numerous new jobs but also several “tangential opportunities to locate other maintenance, manufacturing or logistics facilities near that.”

“We’re very much focused at our airports on increasing the amount of defence supply chain activities that are happening there, including in training and in logistics,” said Maron, adding the airport recently started work on its 2,000-acre international cargo hub that’s “important for increasing the operational readiness and speed at which we can access the north.”

Knack said he expects the Edmonton region will see “a large portion” of the funds that are earmarked for investment Canada-wide and that he plans to bring forward a motion to help ensure the city is in a position to bid on projects that come forward as part of the strategy.

“There’s a role we need to play (where) some of these investments might require new infrastructure,” Knack said. “If we’re putting this in a certain part of the region or a certain part of the city, do we have the transportation infrastructure to support that? What do we need to do to make sure we’re connecting in with that? How do we make sure, while we have this alliance, that when those proposals are coming forward, that they have the city support?”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson