Dominion Dynamics is an Ottawa-based defence technology company founded in 2025, focused on developing AI-enabled command-and-control systems, autonomous platforms, and aerospace technologies for Canada’s Arctic and allies. The company integrates sensors, uncrewed systems, and data networks to support threat detection, domain awareness, and military operations in complex environments.
Before launching Dominion Dynamics, you spent much of your career at the intersection of technology and defence. What made this the right moment to build a company of your own in Canada?
As a Canadian who grew up in Canada, I've always had a lot of passion and desire to see the country succeed.
Canada needs a defence industry, and has never needed it more than now.
This isn't simply about the Trump administration being antagonistic toward Canada; it's about geopolitics getting toothier and the fact that we need hard power.
Canada is often thought of as a soft-power giant, but that overlooks our history of developing hard power in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. The work of Defence Research and Development Canada and National Research Canada, alongside companies such as Canadair, Bombardier, de Havilland and Avro Canada, helped shape the future of defence. We largely abandoned that after the Cold War. A lot of the myth-making talked about in Canada is overweight soft power and underweight hard power. I contend that we're a hard-powered country, which is much more in keeping with our history.
You've spoken about Canada's historic strength in defence and industrial capability. How did the country lose that momentum?
For the past three decades, much of the narrative has been that integration is synonymous with security, particularly integration with the United States. That made sense when geopolitics favoured that arrangement, and we shared the same value system. We effectively entrusted our security to a broader North American fortress, which meant divesting from defence and that created complacency.
The US will always be our most important security ally, but that relationship becomes more complicated when your neighbour is changing rapidly. When you're deeply integrated into another country, you also inherit its vulnerabilities. The Prime Minister is trying to diversify that risk, and a big part of that is investing in defence. That appears to be translating into action rather than rhetoric.
Dominion Dynamics describes itself as a new kind of defence company. How is the approach different from traditional defence contractors?
We're building things we know the country needs without waiting for RFIs, requests for proposals or contracts. We don't necessarily know whether the government will buy what we're building, but we're willing to take that risk.
Second, we have strong conviction about what Canada needs. For example, we believe the country needs a sensor network across the Arctic to understand what's happening from under the ice to space.
Third, we're building with the user. That's the future of warfare. It's not companies sitting in a box in Kanata or Arlington, and it's not soldiers sitting in a government office. It's industry and the user building together. That's what you see in Ukraine and across modern militaries.
Field testing is often where assumptions meet reality. Can you share a deployment that changed the way Dominion Dynamics thought about one of its products?
We participated in Operation Nanook, a 5,200-kilometre journey across the Northwest Passage. We deployed a tactical mesh network with the Canadian Rangers over 90 days in temperatures reaching minus 60 degrees as they travelled by snowmobile across the Arctic.
We went in with what was essentially a communications device and came out with a common operating picture that combined proprietary, public and operational data. The Rangers were constantly telling us what worked, what didn't and what they wanted next. We completed roughly 200 minor software updates and two major backend refactorings during the deployment. The operating system changed completely because we were building alongside the user in real time, whether in the field or back in Ottawa through a secure Signal chat.
When you look at Canada's Arctic today, where are the biggest vulnerabilities?
The biggest gap is that there's any gap at all. The shortest distance between the greatest threats to Western civilization, China and Russia, is over the Arctic. We've already seen a willingness to deploy advanced weapons systems, including hypersonic missiles. If those threats emerge over the Arctic, warning times are measured in minutes.
The challenge extends beneath the ice as well. We don't have sufficient visibility into what may be operating in our northern waterways. What we're building is a multi-domain system spanning space, sky, surface, land and subsurface. The goal is to compress the timeline from sensor to shooter from minutes to seconds. That's the purpose of AuraNet.
For years, you've been critical of how Canada approaches defence. Do you see signs that the country is starting to change course?
The procurement system was designed to maximize efficiency with taxpayer money. The idea was simple: if government buys at scale, it can reduce costs. Whether you're buying pencils or submarines, everything goes through essentially the same process. The consequence is a highly centralized system that struggles to deal with companies inventing the future. In some respects, it became overly efficient. The Department of National Defence underspent roughly $18 billion over the last five years and viewed that as a success. Meanwhile, recruitment for the Canadian Armed Forces declined, assets weren't fully operational, Canada consistently missed NATO spending targets and investment lagged. This isn't a partisan issue either. It spans governments of different stripes over the past 25 years, and has been a long-term Canadian problem.
That said, I do think the country is beginning to change course. Prime Minister Carney has recognized the problem and responded through the defence industrial strategy. He understands that Canada needs to invest in Canadian capability rather than simply operate as a branch plant of the US. There is now broad recognition across the country. The worker at the Port of Halifax or the Navy reservist in Victoria-Esquimalt understands the stakes. People don't want to be passive observers of geopolitics; they want to help shape it. There is still some hesitation on Bay Street and within parts of the bureaucracy, but that is changing too. I recently attended a defence summit hosted by one of Canada's major banks that drew 800 people. A year ago, it might have drawn 80. Canada is rapidly moving toward a more muscular sense of patriotism, which I'm excited about.
What would make you feel that Dominion Dynamics had genuinely changed the trajectory of Canada's defence industry?
We're building technology to defend the Dominion, to defend Canada. That's reflected in our leadership, ownership structure, headquarters and client base. We're focused on Canada because we believe that's where the greatest opportunity is today. Will the company always be Canadian? One hundred percent. Will it always focus exclusively on Canada? No. The reason to build a company like this is to project Canadian values, Canadian ingenuity and what Canadian power can look like in the 21st century. We want to be a global company, but right now the priority is building for Canada with Canadians.
When I think about who I want to reach, I think about my mother. During the 20 years I lived in the US, she clipped news articles and sent them to me, telling me to come home. I want mothers of ambitious Canadians around the world to read this and send it to their children and say, "You should apply for a job at Dominion Dynamics."
