How Canada can build the marine industry its future depends on

Canada's ocean ambitions are growing faster than its ability to deliver on them—especially in the Arctic.

Every year that Mark Carney is prime minister, federal departments are tasked with increasingly ambitious priorities: Arctic sovereignty, ocean conservation, hydrographic charting, offshore energy development, climate science, critical infrastructure protection, and defence modernization.

All of these priorities have one thing in common: they require ships.

Yet, Canada continues to approach these challenges as one-offs through isolated procurements rather than a long-term national strategy for developing what we know about our oceans. Canada has invested billions of dollars into Arctic sovereignty, ocean intelligence, and critical infrastructure—but almost nothing into the fleet assets required to deliver any of it. 

Government departments are being asked to provide world-class outcomes while operating with limited resources, aging fleets, and procurement requirements that often do not reflect the reality of this country's vessel market—all while we are being told to “buy Canadian” and be worried about the security of Canadian data.

Recent procurements have exposed this disconnect. Requirements are being issued for vessel classes that simply do not exist in Canada, opening the door to foreign participation for work that is fundamentally tied to our national interests. Activities like the detailed mapping of Canada’s Arctic waters are not the things we should be sharing with potentially hostile governments right now. 

This is not a criticism of public servants or even politicians, tempting as that sometimes is. It is a failure by government as a whole to connect the dots.

Just like when it comes to completely replacing the Royal Canadian Navy’s assets, Canada has not built the domestic marine capacity required to deliver on its own ambitions.

We are asking government departments to solve a problem without owning or building a tool box to execute a solution. And the answer is not for government to buy more ships.

The answer is to create the opportunities for industry to build and fund a Canadian marine industry capable of supporting government priorities for decades to come.

Canada should adopt a new model—one that treats private marine operators as strategic infrastructure partners.

Instead of repeatedly chartering foreign vessels or issuing procurements around assets that do not exist domestically, the federal government should invest directly in helping Canadian companies acquire, modernize, and build the vessels the country requires.

Canada has done this successfully in other sectors. We support aerospace, agriculture, critical minerals, and energy development. Why should we not do the same for our marine industry?

Imagine a fleet of Canadian-owned, commercially operated vessels designed to support multiple national priorities year-round.

The same vessel could support hydrographic surveys one month, Arctic sovereignty missions the next, offshore energy development after that, and scientific research throughout the year.

At the same time, Canada must address another emerging challenge: ocean data sovereignty.

Locating strategic ocean data is only part of the equation. A company having a server located in Canada is not enough: we must ensure that strategic seabed and ocean intelligence is collected, processed, and accessed by appropriately cleared Canadian personnel using the same protocols demanded inside government.

Fortunately, Canadian industry is already stepping forward.

Following on discussions from defence and aerospace companies led by emerging leaders like Dominion Dynamics and others, companies like mine are actively working toward a long-term vision of building a Canadian Sovereign Ocean Intelligence Infrastructure—an integrated ecosystem that combines Canadian-owned vessels, secure marine infrastructure, domestic data processing centres, and future ship repair capacity.

This is not simply an economic development opportunity. It is a nation-building opportunity.

But to make this a reality, the federal government needs to share the visions and commit. It would start by ensuring that procurement for these services is no longer viewed solely as a purchasing exercise. It should be treated as an instrument of an integrated national policy.

Every procurement decision should ask one question: does this build Canadian capability, or does it bypass it?

Canada has the geography, expertise, and industrial capacity to become a global leader in ocean intelligence, marine operations, and Arctic accessibility.

What we lack is a co-ordinated strategy and the will to execute.

Megan Murphy is the CEO of Sea Centric, a St. John’s, N.L.-based company already walking the walk when it comes to building a Canadian Sovereign Ocean Intelligence Infrastructure strategy. 

The Hill Times