Emerging Technology and Canadian Defence: From Strong, Secure, Engaged to Present

In June 2017, the Trudeau government released Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE), superseding the Canada First Defence Strategy as Canada’s defence policy. The document was the result of internal assessments from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), Department of National Defence (DND) as well as external advisors. SSE was released under the context of an evolving global security environment. First and foremost was the re-emergence of great power competition, as tensions between the United States and China have been simmering over a variety of issues in the Indo-Pacific region, while Russia had undertaken a proxy war in Ukraine. By 2017 Canada had moved on from its Afghanistan War deployment but was committed to join the military coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Climate change had emerged as an ever-present threat to human security, affecting every global region. In Washington, the Trump Administration’s “America First” philosophy had disrupted relations with long time allies who were then pressured to reassess how they engaged with the world in terms of foreign and defence policies. Underpinning these interrelated trends has been the emergence of a new generation of technologies which hold the potential to significantly affect how defence policy is developed and operationalized for Canada, its allies, as well as its global adversaries.iIn April 2024, Canada released a new defence policy update which aims to adjust the DND and CAF to meet rapidly evolving international threats.ii Further, there has also been a host of documents released since 2017, each of which aiming to shape different elements of defence policy. This presents an ideal opportunity to explore the influence of SSE on emerging technologies and the current state of Canadian defence. This analysis begins with an overview of the emerging technologies discussed in SSE. Second, it reviews the follow-on engagement from the CAF and DND for emerging technology from 2017-2024. The analysis concludes with an assessment of the next steps for Canada in terms of defence and technology.