After reading Ethan's piece interviewing Josh Ogdan of AVSS, this seems like a logical next step. It's the big boys with lots of capital that can afford to buy ready made solutions from foreign suppliers, and can afford to operate on much smaller margins, as they have other revenue streams, and they can expect to see large volumes over the long term if they can win contracts. Some may see this as an effort by bit players to beat the big boys on optics, and that's not even really false, but it avoids the point. If we want a robust, diverse group of defence suppliers, we can't always prioritize the easy option. It's a variation of the classic saying, "those who trade their liberty for safety will end up with neither." Only in this case, we are (or, arguably, have been) trading sovereign capabilities for speed and volume. And, again arguably, we ended up with none of those. Because at the end of the day, the original suppliers of foreign owned systems have limited incentive to tweak designs, or scale local production in anticipation of our needs. For them, the sale is already made, why bother continuing to work the sale? And if a Canadian company is bringing production to Canada without owning the IP, that ties an arm behind their back for future modifications and upgrades.
It's the same argument, writ smaller, that is playing out in almost every big defence procurement in Canada right now. Only with drones, Canada is actually in a position to offer real domestic competition to foreign developed options, and how we treat Canadian SMEs in this space will largely be the first sign of how we will support domestic capabilities elsewhere. Are the powers that be happy with the largely branch plant model that most of our defence primes currently reflect? Or are they serious about building up truely sovereign capabilities?
I dream of Canadian consortiums buying up GDLS and Lockheed Canada, so there is no longer the tension inherant in using our most developed defence primes, but I don't see that happening in anything like the near term, if ever. But maybe we can avoid the same tension from ever developing in new areas like drones. One can hope, anyways.
Gary…the point is randomly adding a comment which amounts to “never heard of them’ in which the topic is about small Canadian companies in the nascent drone market trying to stand up for themselves so they don’t get completely sidestepped by foreign suppliers masquerading as Canadian companies is in fact a pointless comment. It adds nothing except you letting everyone know that you, Gary, have never heard of them. If that’s your point than I guess thanks for letting us all know. Seriously no disrespect but think about it.
After reading Ethan's piece interviewing Josh Ogdan of AVSS, this seems like a logical next step. It's the big boys with lots of capital that can afford to buy ready made solutions from foreign suppliers, and can afford to operate on much smaller margins, as they have other revenue streams, and they can expect to see large volumes over the long term if they can win contracts. Some may see this as an effort by bit players to beat the big boys on optics, and that's not even really false, but it avoids the point. If we want a robust, diverse group of defence suppliers, we can't always prioritize the easy option. It's a variation of the classic saying, "those who trade their liberty for safety will end up with neither." Only in this case, we are (or, arguably, have been) trading sovereign capabilities for speed and volume. And, again arguably, we ended up with none of those. Because at the end of the day, the original suppliers of foreign owned systems have limited incentive to tweak designs, or scale local production in anticipation of our needs. For them, the sale is already made, why bother continuing to work the sale? And if a Canadian company is bringing production to Canada without owning the IP, that ties an arm behind their back for future modifications and upgrades.
It's the same argument, writ smaller, that is playing out in almost every big defence procurement in Canada right now. Only with drones, Canada is actually in a position to offer real domestic competition to foreign developed options, and how we treat Canadian SMEs in this space will largely be the first sign of how we will support domestic capabilities elsewhere. Are the powers that be happy with the largely branch plant model that most of our defence primes currently reflect? Or are they serious about building up truely sovereign capabilities?
I dream of Canadian consortiums buying up GDLS and Lockheed Canada, so there is no longer the tension inherant in using our most developed defence primes, but I don't see that happening in anything like the near term, if ever. But maybe we can avoid the same tension from ever developing in new areas like drones. One can hope, anyways.
After reading Ethan's piece interviewing Josh Ogdan of AVSS, this seems like a logical next step. It's the big boys with lots of capital that can afford to buy ready made solutions from foreign suppliers, and can afford to operate on much smaller margins, as they have other revenue streams, and they can expect to see large volumes over the long term if they can win contracts. Some may see this as an effort by bit players to beat the big boys on optics, and that's not even really false, but it avoids the point. If we want a robust, diverse group of defence suppliers, we can't always prioritize the easy option. It's a variation of the classic saying, "those who trade their liberty for safety will end up with neither." Only in this case, we are (or, arguably, have been) trading sovereign capabilities for speed and volume. And, again arguably, we ended up with none of those. Because at the end of the day, the original suppliers of foreign owned systems have limited incentive to tweak designs, or scale local production in anticipation of our needs. For them, the sale is already made, why bother continuing to work the sale? And if a Canadian company is bringing production to Canada without owning the IP, that ties an arm behind their back for future modifications and upgrades.
It's the same argument, writ smaller, that is playing out in almost every big defence procurement in Canada right now. Only with drones, Canada is actually in a position to offer real domestic competition to foreign developed options, and how we treat Canadian SMEs in this space will largely be the first sign of how we will support domestic capabilities elsewhere. Are the powers that be happy with the largely branch plant model that most of our defence primes currently reflect? Or are they serious about building up truely sovereign capabilities?
I dream of Canadian consortiums buying up GDLS and Lockheed Canada, so there is no longer the tension inherant in using our most developed defence primes, but I don't see that happening in anything like the near term, if ever. But maybe we can avoid the same tension from ever developing in new areas like drones. One can hope, anyways.
I don't know why this comment posted here, and why I can't delete it now...
Don’t know the companies
So….what’s your point. You haven’t heard of them means what. Look them up and see what they do. They’re Canadian …hint…that’s the point.
Ok, the point was they are small companies in an industry I don’t know.
Sorry! (Canadian word that means not sorry)
Gary…the point is randomly adding a comment which amounts to “never heard of them’ in which the topic is about small Canadian companies in the nascent drone market trying to stand up for themselves so they don’t get completely sidestepped by foreign suppliers masquerading as Canadian companies is in fact a pointless comment. It adds nothing except you letting everyone know that you, Gary, have never heard of them. If that’s your point than I guess thanks for letting us all know. Seriously no disrespect but think about it.
Thanks!
After reading Ethan's piece interviewing Josh Ogdan of AVSS, this seems like a logical next step. It's the big boys with lots of capital that can afford to buy ready made solutions from foreign suppliers, and can afford to operate on much smaller margins, as they have other revenue streams, and they can expect to see large volumes over the long term if they can win contracts. Some may see this as an effort by bit players to beat the big boys on optics, and that's not even really false, but it avoids the point. If we want a robust, diverse group of defence suppliers, we can't always prioritize the easy option. It's a variation of the classic saying, "those who trade their liberty for safety will end up with neither." Only in this case, we are (or, arguably, have been) trading sovereign capabilities for speed and volume. And, again arguably, we ended up with none of those. Because at the end of the day, the original suppliers of foreign owned systems have limited incentive to tweak designs, or scale local production in anticipation of our needs. For them, the sale is already made, why bother continuing to work the sale? And if a Canadian company is bringing production to Canada without owning the IP, that ties an arm behind their back for future modifications and upgrades.
It's the same argument, writ smaller, that is playing out in almost every big defence procurement in Canada right now. Only with drones, Canada is actually in a position to offer real domestic competition to foreign developed options, and how we treat Canadian SMEs in this space will largely be the first sign of how we will support domestic capabilities elsewhere. Are the powers that be happy with the largely branch plant model that most of our defence primes currently reflect? Or are they serious about building up truely sovereign capabilities?
I dream of Canadian consortiums buying up GDLS and Lockheed Canada, so there is no longer the tension inherant in using our most developed defence primes, but I don't see that happening in anything like the near term, if ever. But maybe we can avoid the same tension from ever developing in new areas like drones. One can hope, anyways.
Good to see