Our grandparents built bombers faster than we award drone contracts today.

At the height of the Second World War, the British needed planes built quickly and out of reach of Nazi bombers. They turned to their Canadian allies to ramp up production of the Lancaster bomber, a legendary design that Victory Aircraft, a Canadian Crown corporation, quickly refined into the Canadian variant, known as the Mk. X, at their Malton, Ontario plant.

The time it took from receipt of the first blueprints until the first flight was just 16 months. By the war’s end, Canada had produced 430 of the heavy bombers. At the peak of production, we built one Lancaster bomber every day.

Much like the bombers of WWII, drones play a key role in today’s conflicts. Two examples in the last few months, the Strait of Hormuz and the war in Ukraine, demonstrate their ubiquity on the modern battlefield.

An American neo-prime’s drone boats have rescued two American pilots from the Gulf of Oman and carried out the first combat strike by U.S. unmanned surface vessels against an Iranian naval facility. That capability reached the fleet through a rapid commercial acquisition model championed by the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit, a reminder that procurement speed is now a battlefield advantage.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has changed the economics of military innovation. Modern defence technologies are emerging from small companies building drones, electronic warfare systems, autonomous platforms, and software that evolves every few weeks. Just recently, Ukraine conducted what is believed to be the world’s first fully unmanned amphibious assault, using a sea drone to deliver a combat ground robot while an aerial drone provided reconnaissance and overwatch, all without a single soldier setting foot ashore.

Ukraine has shown the world that the winners are not necessarily those with the biggest defence budgets. They are the countries that learn the fastest. In a landscape where innovation is now measured in weeks instead of years, delay is the real enemy. Capability delayed is capability denied.

The Government of Canada’s Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science (BOREALIS) was launched this year to accelerate the development and adoption of emerging defence technologies. It demonstrates that Canada understands this reality. The program recognizes that autonomous systems and advanced technologies will define the future of defence: everything from autonomous aircraft and underwater vehicles to AI-enabled surveillance networks, electronic warfare systems and attritable drones.

Canadian companies are already building many of these capabilities for Arctic surveillance, maritime security and next-generation aerospace. The intent is right. Now the procurement system has to catch up. If these new funding streams move at traditional government speed, they will produce reports instead of capability. It took us over a decade to sign contracts for new fighter jets. In some cases, by the time a procurement process concludes, the technology it was designed to acquire is already obsolete.

The recent decision to accelerate the building of Canada’s new submarine fleet – compressing the evaluation timeline for prospective builders – shows Ottawa recognizes the need for urgency. China and Russia have demonstrated a growing interest in our Arctic waters. Our neighbours to the south have pondered the security of our far north. In the face of these new challenges, the prime minister understood that we needed to move quickly to shore up our security in the far reaches of the North. That momentum must now continue beyond major projects into emerging technologies.

China and Russia are compressing innovation cycles from years to months, allowing them to tool up with cutting-edge technology and equipment. In this environment, Canada must match them month for month, innovation for innovation. We cannot let process become a disadvantage. Our defence systems only work as a deterrence if China, Russia and other adversaries believe that, if tested, we truly have the means to fight back.

History tells us Canada already knows how to solve this problem.

When the Second World War began, Canada possessed only a modest defence industrial base. Within a few short years, we had become one of the Allied world’s great manufacturing powers. Aircraft, ships, armoured vehicles and munitions rolled off Canadian production lines at speed because the government understood that in wartime, bureaucracy cannot move more slowly than the threat. We didn’t demand perfect certainty before acting. We built, tested, improved, then built again. Some ideas failed, but many succeeded.

That willingness to move fast became a strategic advantage in its own right. Today’s technologies demand exactly the same mindset.

Unlike fighter jets that remain in service for forty years, autonomous systems’ software-enabled capabilities evolve continuously. Electronic warfare systems adapt every time an adversary changes tactics. Small drones are redesigned faster than many governments can approve a contract. Trying to buy these capabilities using twentieth-century procurement processes is like waiting to update your smartphone every ten years. Technology has already moved on, and your phone has become a brick.

Canada should establish a dedicated procurement pathway for low-cost autonomous systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms and electronic warfare capabilities developed by Canadian-owned companies.

The objective should be straightforward. Ninety days from proposal to contract and twelve months from contract to field-testable prototype. Not every prototype will succeed. In fact, we should expect that some will fail. Instead of picking winners from day one, we need to create an environment where dozens of Canadian companies can build, test, iterate and compete until the best capabilities emerge. Those that prove themselves scale quickly, while those that don’t simply make room for the next idea.

The country that procures fastest will learn the fastest. The country that learns fastest will have the strongest military. Our country includes vast stretches of the Arctic, three coasts and one of NATO’s largest territories to monitor. Those responsibilities don’t disappear because we have traditionally preferred to see ourselves as diplomats rather than defenders.

Velocity must become a Canadian military capability. Canada proved we could do that by producing hundreds of Lancaster Mk. X’s at unprecedented speed. We must do it again, before someone else moves faster.

Eliot Pence is the founder and CEO of Dominion Dynamics and co-chair of the Alliance of Canadian Defence Companies.

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