At CIX Summit, Sentinel R&D CEO argued Canada must do more than onshore other companies\u2019 capabilities.<\/p>\n
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Sentinel R&D<\/a> co-founder and CEO Kath Intson thinks that Canada\u2019s definition of sovereignty needs more precision.<\/p>\n On stage at CIX Summit<\/a> Wednesday morning in Toronto, the defence technology entrepreneur argued that the country is \u201cstarting to get real wishy-washy\u201d with how it defines sovereignty amid the defence gold rush<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not enough to just onshore some other company\u2019s capability and call it Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re defining things that are nice to have, or simply copies, \u2026 as being sovereign, and that\u2019s not what sovereignty is,\u201d Intson said during a panel discussion featuring defence and dual-use startups looking to support Canada\u2019s push to ensure the country\u2019s security and sovereignty.<\/p>\n As geopolitical volatility has forced Canada to reduce its economic and military dependence on the US<\/a> and other nations, the federal government has promised to invest heavily in defence<\/a> after decades of neglect, and sovereignty has become a hot political buzzword.<\/p>\n Panel moderator and Canadian SHIELD Institute managing director Vass Bednar noted that, in the process, the word has also become \u201cvague and meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n Intson said her Hamilton-based defence tech startup, which makes military drones, defines sovereignty as \u201cthe power and authority of a country to govern itself and defend itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow panellist Craig McLellan offered an even more focused definition. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the kill switch and the ability to recover from the kill switch,\u201d he said, referring to the potential remote disabling of key infrastructure, such as cloud services<\/a>, by other countries or foreign companies.<\/p>\n McLellan is the founder and CEO of ThinkOn<\/a>, a Toronto-based cloud service provider that is part of a four-company consortium seeking to sell<\/a> sovereign AI infrastructure to the feds.<\/p>\n RELATED: Denvr partners with Dominion Dynamics on drone development<\/a><\/p>\n McLellan argued that Canadian businesses and investors are not buying from or backing Canadian companies enough, and it\u2019s \u201chollowing out\u201d Canada\u2019s sovereign capability. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to support the home team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to buying Canadian, as somebody who\u2019s very familiar with the Statistics Canada Inter-Corporate [Ownership] database<\/a>, having the word Canada after your name doesn\u2019t count, and shouldn\u2019t count, but does count\u2014and there\u2019s something that we could do about that, too,\u201d Bednar quipped.<\/p>\n