01 · THE ARGUMENT
Alberta's manufacturing base is large and mostly small-firm. Canada's defence supplier base is SME-heavy. Applicable work carries recurring quality, security, and workforce requirements that every firm currently meets on its own, at its own cost, from a standing start.
That is a coordination problem, and coordination problems are testable. Six observations from public federal and provincial data follow. Each is sourced. Each says what it supports — and the section closes with what none of them support.
OBSERVATION 01
A base of mostly small firms
In 2023 Alberta had 5,003 employer manufacturing businesses and 144,700 people employed in the sector. 73.0% of those businesses employed fewer than 20 people; 94.3% fewer than 100. Fixed capability overhead — servicing, security practice, calibration, records — does not scale down with headcount, so it lands hardest at exactly that size.
OBSERVATION 02
A dispersed supplier ecosystem
Canada’s defence industry counted more than 620 businesses and $12.6 billion in revenue in 2020, with 88% of enterprises under 250 employees. In 2024 Canadian aerospace manufacturing recorded $39.6 billion in revenue and 57,700 direct jobs, and roughly 49% of manufacturing exports were supply-chain related. A dispersed, SME-heavy base is a coordination problem before it is a capacity problem.
OBSERVATION 03
An older workforce profile
23.8% of Alberta manufacturing workers were 55 or older in 2023, against 19.5% across Alberta employment overall. Nationally, 47.4% of manufacturers expected skilled recruitment to be an obstacle in a Q2 2022 survey, and 19.0% expected a shortage of space or equipment. Succession and applied training are planning questions to answer, not deficits to assert.
OBSERVATION 04
Recurring, layered requirements
Controlled-goods registrants other than sole proprietors submit personnel security-assessment reports every six months, and DND requires suppliers to hold a quality-management system commensurate with risk, contracted against internationally recognized standards. These obligations recur for as long as a firm holds the work, and they are the same obligations whether the firm is large or small.
OBSERVATION 05
Demand that is long-dated, not immediate
Canada’s 2024 defence policy update identifies $8.1 billion over five years and $73 billion over twenty, including $9.0 billion for equipment sustainment and $10.2 billion for infrastructure. The Parliamentary Budget Officer projected NATO-defined expenditure rising from $39.0 billion in 2024–25 to $52.2 billion in 2029–30 — still 1.42% of GDP, below the 2% guideline. Policy intent is not an order book.
OBSERVATION 06
Shared capability already works this way
The National Research Council operates facilities across 24 Canadian locations and reported 1,005 client R&D projects in 2022–23. ISED’s Advanced Manufacturing Cluster supports technology diffusion, SME capacity, training, tools, and test beds with an envelope of up to $427 million. The delivery model being proposed here is not novel — which is why it can be tested against something.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTS
Testing a shared-capability model against firms that would actually use it. Not a site, not a build, not a tenant claim.
National and provincial figures establish structure and context. They do not measure regional unmet demand for secure space, metrology, testing, compliance support, or training, and they are not apportioned to any municipality. Where local evidence is missing, that absence is itself decision-useful and stays on the record.
02 · THE MODEL
Running a defence-capable shop means paying for servicing, security, calibration, records, and training long before you ship a single part. That bill is the barrier — and it is the same bill for everyone.
01THE SWITCH
The same costs, carried once instead of six times.
ON YOUR OWN
ON A SHARED SITE
01 · SERVICING AND POWER
You size it, you pay for it, it sits underused.
Brought to one spine and shared across every pad.
02 · SECURITY AND ACCESS
Your own fence, your own protocol, your own log.
One controlled perimeter, maintained at site level.
03 · QUALITY AND CALIBRATION
Buy the metrology, or ship parts out and wait.
Bookable measurement and calibration down the road.
04 · WORKFORCE
You train someone, and their next job is out of province.
A pipeline built with employers who are all on site.
05 · COMPLIANCE PRACTICE
Same paperwork burden whether you are ten people or two hundred.
Readiness support and shared practice, kept current.
You keep your own business, your own customers, and your own contracts. What changes is the bill for everything around them.
02THE SEQUENCE
One tenant starts it. The rest is compound interest.
HOW A CLUSTER FILLS INILLUSTRATIVE
03THE NEIGHBOURS
Everyone a programme needs, inside one fence.
From the shops that cut metal to the people who certify it and the institutions that train the next crew. Categories only: no company is named without a written agreement.
MAKE · BUILDS THE HARDWARESUPPORT · KEEPS IT WORKINGENABLE · MAKES IT CONTRACTABLE
04THE LINE
Sharing a site is not sharing a licence.
Four things never move to the site — and that is exactly why a shared site can be offered at all.
B1
Your registrations and security
Controlled-goods registration, designated officials, personnel decisions, and incident reporting stay with you.
B2
Your product and your process
A shared quality practice supports your own system. It never replaces it, and never signs off your parts.
B3
Your data and your records
Accreditation scope, test methods, calibration traceability, and record ownership are agreed service by service.
B4
Your customer relationships
Being on site confers no clearance, export permission, certification, or customer approval. That work is yours.
05THE DISCIPLINE
We would rather refer you than build a duplicate.
There is no sense standing up a lab a nearby institution already runs well. So the first move is to map what Alberta has, route work to it, and only build what the map shows is genuinely missing.
That keeps the cost down for every tenant, and makes the case for anything we do build far easier to defend.
01Map — what already exists, at what rate, with what wait time.
02Refer — send work to existing capacity wherever it is good enough.
03Pilot — offer bookable services against the real gaps and see who books.
04Build — only what the bookings and a straight cost comparison justify.
06THE PAYOFF
What a host region stands to gain.
Skilled work that stays
Manufacturing, MRO, inspection, simulation, and software jobs in a region that already has the trades to fill them.
Training with a destination
Programs built with employers hiring on the same site, so graduates have somewhere to go.
Suppliers with real order books
Local fabrication, machining, and services serving a dozen customers rather than depending on one.
Capacity that can be called on
Depth in sustainment and supply-chain work, where the demand is documented and long-dated.
07WHAT WE STILL DO NOT KNOW
Q1Would firms pay for a defined shared service, or only co-locate if space were free?
Q2What can existing Alberta labs, training providers, and industrial parks already serve?
Q3Which shared services survive customer, controlled-goods, export, and insurance review?
Q4Which asset would be booked often enough to sustain itself?
None of these are answered yet. Each one is a gate.GO TO THE SIX GATES →
03 · TENANTS
One entry on the register. The rest are open.
The register records who has committed to the campus and in what capacity. It holds one entry today. Companies are added only on a written agreement, and only within the non-weaponized active scope.
The Drone Factory
CORE · UNCREWED SYSTEMS + PRECISION MANUFACTURING
Entry 002
CORE · ADJACENT · SERVICES · OPEN POSITION
Entry 003
CORE · ADJACENT · SERVICES · OPEN POSITION
Claim an entry
Tell us your category and what you would need from a shared campus. Space, power, security level, adjacency, shared services.
01Nothing here is an offer to lease, sell, or contract.
02No company is named publicly without a written agreement.
03Scope is limited to non-weaponized work in the active phase.
EXPRESSION OF INTEREST · FORM T-EOI
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RECEIVED
Thank you — your submission is recorded in the demand record and forwarded to the project team. Replies come from hello@albertadefencecampus.ca.
04 · GATES
Nothing gets built until six questions are answered.
Each is answered separately, in order, and answering one settles nothing about the next. Where the honest answer is no, the programme narrows or ends. No dates are published, because none are earned.
Decision standard. A physical campus proceeds only when documented demand, service utilization, customer and security acceptance, measured community benefit, and a site-neutral operating comparison show it adds more value than the distributed facilities, laboratories, industrial parks, and training providers that already exist.
01 · DEMANDOPEN NOW
Will a firm pay for this?
Confidential interviews and letters of intent that name a service, a volume, a price ceiling, a date, and the alternative in use today.
If no: there is no project. Attributable demand comes before any commitment to space.
02 · EXISTING CAPABILITY
Does it already exist?
An inventory of public, post-secondary, and commercial labs, space, and training, with rates, turnaround, accreditation, and real utilization.
If yes: the answer is a referral network, not a building.
03 · COMPLIANCE FEASIBILITY
Is sharing permitted?
Customer, controlled-goods, export, cyber, quality, IP, and insurance boundaries tested with qualified advice and a written accountability matrix.
If no: that service stays out of shared scope. Acceptance is documented or it does not happen.
04 · UTILIZATION
Would it be used enough?
Booked hours against outsourced spend, staffing, accreditation path, maintenance, insurance, and a downside case for every asset.
If no: the asset is not bought. Repeatable commitments or nothing.
05 · COMMUNITY BENEFIT
Does the host community come out ahead?
Answered against a baseline taken before anything starts, and reported publicly afterwards. Four measures: jobs filled, by role and by whether the hire came from the region; spend placed with local suppliers and contractors; training seats delivered with local providers, and where graduates went; servicing, traffic, noise, and land-use effects measured against the baseline.
If no: the terms change or the location does. No job, dollar, or tax figure is published before it is measured.
06 · SITE AND CAPITAL · CONDITIONAL
Does one site beat the alternatives?
A site-neutral comparison of a federated network, leased bookable space, phased fit-out, and a campus, on cost, utilities, logistics, and lifecycle risk.
Only then: a site is selected. This is the last question, not the first.
A physical campus is one possible answer to question six. It is not the premise.
WHAT AN ANSWER IS NOT
Interest, enthusiasm, or a preliminary letter.
A national spending figure with no order behind it.
A funding announcement with no agreement behind it.
A tenant list that is not written down.
05 · THE ASK
No point pretending otherwise. A campus needs a site, servicing, and money, and at some point that means asking municipalities, funders, and partners for real commitments. That ask arrives with evidence attached, or it does not arrive.
What we need first is the thing no amount of capital can buy: whether firms would actually use this. So today the ask is four questions — and we will take a no.
TODAY · GATE 01
Answers
Confidential conversations about what firms would pay for. No commitment either way.
LATER · GATES 02–05
A serious conversation about a site
Only once demand is documented, existing capacity is mapped, and compliance is tested.
EVENTUALLY · GATE 06
Land, servicing, and capital
A real ask, with a real number, backed by a site-neutral comparison and public process.
IF YOU MAKE THINGS
What would you pay for?
Name a service, a rough volume, a price ceiling, and what you use today instead. A confidential conversation, not a commitment.
IF YOU RUN A FACILITY
What do you already serve?
Labs, benches, training, industrial space. If you can serve the need, we would rather route work to you than build a duplicate.
IF YOU ARE A MUNICIPALITY
What can you actually do?
Tools you have, process you follow, limits you are bound by. "This is not a fit" is a useful answer.
IF YOU TRAIN PEOPLE
What would you build with employers?
Programs, credentials, placements. The pipeline only works designed alongside the firms doing the hiring.
WHAT HAPPENS TO WHAT YOU SEND
01It is treated as confidential and is not published or shared without written permission.
02It is aggregated into the Gate 01 demand record — the evidence, not a marketing list.
03You are told what the gate concluded, including if the conclusion is stop.
04Nothing here is an offer to lease, sell, or contract, and no name is used publicly without agreement.
START A CONVERSATION · FORM A-01
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RECEIVED
Thank you — your submission is recorded in the demand record and forwarded to the project team. Replies come from hello@albertadefencecampus.ca.
If the answers say this should not be built, that is the outcome we publish.