Waterloo Region companies hoping to get a share of defence spending boost

The Prime Minster has announced a big boost in defence spending. And as CTV’s Karis Mapp reports, it could trickle down to tech companies.

Canada is poised to boost defence spending by billions of dollars, and companies in Waterloo Region are hoping to see some of that money trickle into the area.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced plans to meet NATO’s spending target this fiscal year, a goal the country has never met despite a promise in 2014 to do so.

The federal government said it will need to spend an additional $9.3 billion beyond what was already laid out in pervious spending plans to meet the goal. Some of that money will be used on salary increases for Canadian Armed Forces members, but tech companies are also hoping to see a share.

“There’s both a civilian application as well as a military application,” Matthew Klassen, vice president of external relations with Communitech, said. Communitech works with founders in the technology industry to help them make their ideas a reality.

“Sometimes companies will start out working in fleet logistics or in health care or HR, and it ends up that their application can be scaled and used by the military in theatres around the world,” Klassen said.

Communitech was chosen as one of two Canadian accelerators that would be joining NATO’s DIANA network in 2024.

“We not yet activated as an accelerator, but we’re part of this network and it allows us to basically connect our start ups and scale ups into London, into Estonia, into Germany, into the States,” Klassen explained.

Klassen believes local companies could have an important role to play in bolstering Canada’s defense capabilities.

“We also think it would be really important that [the funding] goes to local innovators who are already working with large multinational companies, with governments and allies across the world to solve some of their biggest challenges,” he said.

A company from Kitchener has already shown how companies from the Waterloo Region can help when it comes to international threats.

SkyWatch gained worldwide recognition leading up to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“There was some rumour of tanks gathering near the western Russian border,” James Slifierz, CEO of SkyWatch, said.

“The volume of tanks got so big that we were able to compare the two previous military exercises that the Russian government had done. Our partners were able to establish that this was very likely to be a real threat to a real invasion,” he said.

Slifierz said the investment in defence spending is crucial to building Canada’s independence from the United States.

“I think Canada’s recognizing that we’ve been over reliant on our neighbours to the south for too long and we’ve probably underinvested and under procured in our own infrastructure, in our own national security, in our own military.”

More details about how the funding will be used are expected to be revealed as the G7 Leader’s Summit continues in Alberta.