Thank you for the invitation to join you again for this very timely study.
The traditional dual-use model is familiar. Technologies developed for defence, like GPS, the Global Positioning System, eventually find civilian applications. More recently, commercial technologies with roots in defence, like drones and Starlink, are increasingly being adopted for operational use in conflict zones. Rather than relying on these slow and opportunistic evolutions, we have an opportunity to make dual-use innovation intentional, demand-driven and deployment-focused.
Canada spent decades pushing innovation into the world, hoping someone would find a use for it. Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform are facing real problems in real time. What if we flipped the model? What if we started with the Canadian Armed Forces' operational challenges and pulled the best of Canadian innovation toward them, fast? This isn't about building more innovation; it's about aiming it properly and delivering when it matters.
At technology access centres, we don't start with a technological solution looking for a problem. We start with the problem. What are the operational challenges on the ground, at sea or in the air right now? Then we ask, what technologies already exist in Canada that can help solve them? That's a demand-pull model. We act as scientific troubleshooters and innovation problem-solvers. We don't just ask what's possible; we ask what works and how fast we can deploy it.
Importantly, this isn't theoretical. A recent independent federal evaluation of the college and community innovation program found that technology access centres are delivering measurable economic and innovation impacts across Canada. The evaluation found that firms working with TACs improved productivity, accelerated time to market, strengthened their competitive position and increased revenues and hiring. In fact, small firms that worked with a TAC experienced average increases of 143% in sales and 69% in employment following engagement with a TAC, compared to companies that did not. That's not innovation theory; that's deployment at work.
We've done this before in automotive, in energy and in other sectors during moments of disruption or transition. We've helped companies modernize operations, adopt technologies, stay alive and remain competitive, not by advising from the sidelines but by working shoulder to shoulder to implement solutions. We take things that normally take years for companies to figure out internally—technology adoption, validation, deployment—and compress those timelines dramatically. We're a force multiplier. More importantly, we're a time compressor.
With that in mind, I want to propose two practical near-term actions—not studies and not strategies, but deployable actions.
The first is dual-use technology assessments. Under this model, Canadian SMEs would work directly with technology access centres to adapt, prototype, test, validate and accelerate dual-use technologies, while ensuring those same companies retain their intellectual property and commercial upside. Fuelling the work would generally fall into three streams: first, existing defence technologies that require an objective validation and refinement; second, civilian technologies with potential defence applications; and third, entirely new solutions to operational challenges identified by the Canadian Armed Forces. Some projects could be completed within six months, others within 12 to 18 months, but the point is speed. While others are still capability mapping, we're already in the field.
The second is supplier modernization for defence readiness. If we're serious about readiness, we need to strengthen the backbone of the supply chain—our tier two and tier three manufacturers and suppliers. These are companies that need to adopt robotics, automation, specialized equipment, advanced manufacturing techniques and digital systems to increase productivity, meet OEM quality standards and participate in defence supply chains. If we can help upgrade the shop floor, we can help unlock the supply chain.
Canada has done this before. The British Commonwealth air training plan demonstrated what this country can accomplish when infrastructure, talent and mission align around a common purpose. During the Second World War, Canada helped scale the production of the De Havilland Mosquito, a versatile platform adapted into reconnaissance, fighter, bomber and transport roles, with multirole capability, rapid adaption and industrial coordination. Somewhere along that way, that industrial muscle atrophied. Rebuilding it won't be easy, but applied R and D and rapid commercialization are part of that rehabilitation process.
Technology access centres are a turnkey pan-Canadian network of applied R and D and commercialization centres. We share a common operating model. We're embedded in industry, and we already have the infrastructure—simulation labs, environmental testing facilities, pilot scale manufacturing capacity, robotics platforms and specialized testing equipment—distributed across the country. We do not need to build a new system; the system already exists. The need has finally aligned with this capacity, so turn us loose.
If you want evidence, we can point to the more than 50,000 Canadian SMEs that have worked with a technology access centre since 2012—and I'm willing to go further. I'm willing to be held accountable for performance, outputs and outcomes, because this is not about more innovation; it's about deploying what we already have when it matters most.
The ask is simple. Unleash us, and let's move at the speed that this moment demands. While others are still discussing frameworks, we should already be validating technologies. Our goal should be to have the first wave of projects completed within 180 days of the D-Day anniversary, before December 31 of this year.
Thank you.