Latest news with #NorthVectorDynamics
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
You can't fly sovereignty on foreign fuel
Omar Saleh is the chief operating officer at North Vector Dynamics. This week, China slapped a 75.8-per-cent preliminary anti-dumping duty on Canadian canola, threatening $5-billion a year in exports and putting the Prairie agricultural economy squarely in the crosshairs. Yet in this crisis lies an opportunity. The same crop now caught in a trade war could also be the key to fixing one of our biggest national security vulnerabilities. Canola has quietly become one of the most credible feedstocks for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – chemically identical to conventional jet fuel, yet with up to 90 per cent lower life-cycle emissions. It's a drop-in fuel – usable in current engines, aircraft and refuelling systems with no modifications. The U.S. Air Force flies on it. Lufthansa uses it regularly. NATO is preparing to deploy it. Canada isn't. We have committed to spending $38.6-billion on North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) modernization and Arctic deployments – without securing the fuel to support them. No strategic reserve. No domestic supply chain. No plan. Poilievre urges Ottawa to cancel BC Ferries loan in response to Chinese canola tariffs At Canada's most remote base, CFS Alert, it takes seven litres of fuel to deliver just one usable litre. In a crisis, that's a logistics choke point an adversary wouldn't even need to attack – just wait for the supply chain to strain and watch operations slow. This isn't a technical gap. It's industrial abdication. Canada has the tools to lead. New high-oil varieties can grow on Class 4 marginal lands – millions of acres across Saskatchewan and Alberta that aren't used currently for food crops. That means no pressure on food systems, and no need to convert premium farmland. That shift wasn't driven by marketing – it was earned through hard science, better crop genetics and proven refining results. What's more, Canada has a real shot at global leadership not only because of what we grow, but also what we can store. Alberta already has one of the most advanced carbon-capture networks in North America. Facilities such as Quest, and the provincewide trunk line that supports it, are exactly what will separate low-carbon SAF from the ultralow-carbon SAF needed to win international contracts. That infrastructure is already there. Put it together and the Prairies don't just have the feedstock. They have the land, the logistics, the refining and the emissions solution. No other country has all five. So why are we still acting like this is someone else's opportunity? The European Union and Britain are mandating SAF blending – 2 per cent by 2025, climbing to 70 per cent by 2050. The United States has committed billions through the Department of Energy, Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Defense. Yet Canada remains on the sidelines, siloing SAF under clean fuel programs, ignoring it in procurement and treating it as someone else's file. We've got more to lose than most. Almost a quarter of Canada's jet fuel is imported, leaving our defence and Arctic operations dependent on foreign supply chains that are vulnerable to global disruptions. This isn't about emissions – it's about operational readiness and supply chain control. Scaling SAF to 15 per cent of Canada's jet fuel use could generate $3-billion to $5-billion annually across agriculture, refining and logistics. It could give farmers a new market, insulate us from geopolitical fuel shocks and create an Arctic fuel reserve that doesn't cost $10 a litre to deliver. It means rural jobs. It means Indigenous-led infrastructure and northern resupply chains. It means fuel security for defence operations without relying on U.S. or overseas supply. Ottawa wants certainty from China before making concessions on canola tariffs, minister says It also means leverage. SAF opens the door to premium export markets in the EU and U.S., and strengthens interoperability with NATO and NORAD fleets. Done right, this isn't just industrial policy – it's foreign policy. If Canada can't fuel its own jets, we don't control our defence. If we can't deliver fuel to our Arctic bases without draining our supply chain, we don't control our territory. And if we can't build the industrial system we're uniquely positioned to lead, we don't control our future. Ottawa must treat SAF as strategic infrastructure, not just a climate file. That means committing to a federal SAF procurement mandate for defence and Arctic operations, subsidizing Prairie-based SAF refineries and creating a domestic strategic reserve by 2028. It also means integrating SAF into NORAD modernization planning – so the next time we upgrade our northern air bases, we're upgrading their fuel supply, too. Sovereignty isn't a slogan. It's fuel in the tank. It's time to fill it.
Globe and Mail
29-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
A $500 attack drone costs millions to repel. It's an economic war, and the West is losing
Omar Saleh is the chief commercial officer at North Vector Dynamics Paul Ziadé is the chief executive officer at North Vector Dynamics and an associate professor at the University of Calgary Canada and its allies face a new kind of economic warfare. In early 2024, a US$2.1-billion U.S. Navy destroyer used a US$2.1-million SM-2 missile to shoot down a US$500 one-way attack drone launched by Houthi rebels over the Red Sea. It wasn't the first time. Over several weeks, the United States and its allies expended more than a billion dollars in high-end munitions defending commercial shipping lanes against threats that, in many cases, cost the enemy a few hundred dollars each to launch. This isn't a tactical mismatch. It's an economic war – and we're losing it. For more than a decade, Western defence procurement has drifted toward the exquisite. Precision, complexity and integration have become synonymous with capability. But in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen and across every theatre of war now defined by drones, the shape of modern warfare has shifted. The most strategically disruptive systems aren't the most advanced – they're the most affordable, adaptable and numerous. Ukraine says Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet, part of an escalating campaign Sudan declares UAE 'enemy state' after wave of drone strikes on its Red Sea port And yet, most Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS) today are built to fight a different war. A war of doctrine, not of contact. A war where every engagement is clean, jammed signals mean safety and supply lines never break. Where the defender always has more – more equipment, more time, more missiles. That kind of war doesn't exist any more. Drones have flipped the battlefield. Every new drone engagement pushes the same question to the surface: how long can Canada and its allies outspend an adversary before the ledger becomes the real battlefield? In Ukraine, US$39,000 Shaheds and US$35,000 Lancets have knocked out multimillion-dollar NATO tanks and air defence systems. In Gaza, rockets costing a few hundred dollars have triggered US$40,000–US$50,000 Iron Dome interceptors – and occasionally slipped through. In the Red Sea, low-end drones have forced the U.S. Navy to expend US$3-million missiles while still managing to strike commercial vessels. Across every theatre, the attacker's return on investment keeps improving. Even when intercepted, the cost ratio favours the offence. When not, the damage speaks for itself. According to the U.K.'s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British defence and security think tank, drones are now responsible for 60 to 70 per cent of all damaged and destroyed Russian equipment in Ukraine. Many of these are low-cost tactical drones operating within 10- to 30-kilometre ranges. A growing proportion are equipped with AI guidance, allowing them to autonomously lock on to targets even if radio frequency links are jammed. Research by CSIS shows that while human-piloted drones achieve 10- to 20-per-cent hit rates, AI-enabled systems can exceed 70 to 80 per cent, reducing the number of drones needed to destroy a target by a factor of four. This means adversaries can now field smaller, cheaper and smarter swarms, making each engagement harder to detect, harder to track, harder to kill. And every step in that chain bleeds time, money and readiness. And now the math is getting worse. Sure, defence has always cost more than offence. That's not new. You spend more to protect something valuable than to destroy something expendable. But the current dynamic goes well beyond asymmetry. These drones are not just nuisance threats. They're destructive, strategic tools of exhaustion. Their job isn't just to penetrate air defences. It's to exhaust them. It's to force defenders to burn through interceptors, reposition assets and respond faster than procurement cycles allow. The goal isn't precision. It's volume. Time. Attrition. This is not about one drone versus one missile. It's about the balance of industrial capacity and the economics of attrition. If the cost to stay in the fight keeps rising for defenders and falling for attackers, the outcome won't hinge on technology. It'll hinge on who runs out of options first. Why, then, do we continue to field US$15-million truck-mounted CUAS to intercept drones worth less than a used iPhone? The problem isn't capability – it's culture. The Western defence procurement ecosystem isn't built to reward cost-efficiency. It rewards integration, vendor relationships, program longevity and adherence to legacy doctrine. Major defence firms still push gold-plated, monolithic systems built for complex and tightly controlled battlefields. And for high-end threats, this makes sense. But against swarms of cheap drones, this is like buying a luxury SUV to operate a motorcycle courier service – reliable, expensive and completely mismatched to the problem. The result is predictable: exquisite systems deployed for every threat, until the cost-per-kill breaks the budget and operational tempo grinds to a halt. This is where conventional military logic breaks down. If you design a missile to hit a drone with 98-per-cent reliability and a $100,000 price tag, you'll win every engagement. That is, until you run out of money, interceptors or political will. That's not a strategy. That's a liability. As Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, former U.K. chief of the general staff, warned in late 2023, 'We are now in a race to mass. Wars of the future will be won by those who can deploy at scale, not by those with the most sophisticated single asset.' This point applies far beyond Britain: mass, modularity and replenishment will define survivability in the drone age. Modern CUAS architecture needs to do more than just bring down drones. It must bend the cost curve of battlefield survivability. That means building systems around a new set of assumptions: That sensing and targeting systems can be blinded or thrown off. That there may be nothing to jam, either because control runs through fibre-optic cable or because it's guided by AI that won't miss. That the next wave won't be the last one. What's needed is a shift – from complex, centralized systems toward modular, distributed and affordable components that can degrade gracefully under fire, replenish quickly and keep operating without perfect infrastructure or exquisite command-and-control. This isn't a call to abandon integration. It's a call to rethink where the centre of gravity is in CUAS architecture. And that is not in centralized control towers, but in distributed launch points. Not in high-profile weapons platforms, but in low-cost surveillance drones and expendable strike units. Some defence firms are already moving in this direction. Others are still locked into exquisite, top-heavy systems – built to serve entire divisions, not squads – that can't deploy without weeks of preparation. But the battlefield is no longer waiting for integration timelines or procurement cycles. It's defined by who can absorb losses, reconstitute quickly and operate without the illusion of perfect conditions. Canada, with its $26.5-billion defence budget and 1.76 per cent of GDP spending – below NATO's 2-per-cent target – can't afford to fire million-dollar missiles at $500 drones. Modernizing NORAD and meeting NATO commitments demand affordable, scalable defences against this growing threat. Procurement agencies must prioritize systems that can be deployed by platoons, resupplied in hours and purchased in volume. The future doesn't belong to the side with the most expensive defence system. It belongs to the side that can afford to keep fighting – and defend long enough to win.
Cision Canada
29-05-2025
- Business
- Cision Canada
North Vector Dynamics Emerges from Stealth to Tackle Counter-UAS Threats with Made-in-Canada Solutions
CALGARY, AB, May 29, 2025 /CNW/ - North Vector Dynamics (NVD) has officially emerged from stealth, offering advanced and cost-effective counter-uncrewed aerial systems (CUAS) solutions. Incubated by Think Solutions and backed by ONE9, NVD introduces a sovereign Canadian capability to address one of today's most pressing defence and public safety challenges: neutralizing hostile drones. The launch of NVD marks a critical milestone in strengthening Canada's ability to respond to increasingly sophisticated and decentralized UAS threats. NVD's modular and scalable architecture integrates AI-powered detection, advanced sensing, and flexible mitigation tools. It is designed for seamless integration with both current and next-generation security infrastructure, offering fast deployment and adaptability across a range of operational environments. "Our goal from the beginning has been to build a capability that meets the needs of not just Canadian end-users, but also our allies," said Paul Ziadé, CEO and Co-Founder of NVD. "The threat is real and it's here today. We're proud to offer a Canadian solution that empowers our national security end-users with the tools they need to protect against evolving aerial threats." Backed by Canadian Innovation Leaders ONE9, Canada's first and only venture firm focused on global security technologies, is a founding investor in NVD. From ideation to execution, ONE9 has played a strategic role in shaping the company's mission and market entry. "We're incredibly proud to have been part of North Vector Dynamics as it evolved from concept to reality," said Glenn Cowan, Founder and Managing Director of ONE9. "This is the kind of Canadian innovation our ecosystem needs: dual-use, defensible, and deployable. NVD demonstrates what's possible when elite operators, technologists, and mission-aligned investors unite around a shared vision." Canadian Founders and Investors Are Ready to Meet the Moment The partnership between NVD and ONE9 reflects a renewed commitment across Canada's innovation sector to prioritize sovereign defence capabilities. "For decades, we've treated defence as a dirty word in our industrial vocabulary," added Ziadé. "But there should be nothing controversial about building to defend Canada, Canadians, and our allies." Cowan concluded, "North Vector Dynamics is uniquely positioned to bring these capabilities to market, and ONE9 is excited to help scale this homegrown solution. Together, we're proud to be part of Canada's defence and security technology renaissance."
