Canada has relied on space systems to address the challenges of its geography and security environment since the early years of the Space Age. Satellites have supported communications across vast distances, environmental monitoring of the Arctic and surveillance of remote regions. For Canada, entering orbit was problem solving, and it quickly became a necessity. Canada bound economic activity, environmental monitoring and defence operations to the stability of space and the international actors therein, and that landscape has changed dramatically in the time since Canada first entered. At this point in the Space Age, where space has become more congested, commercialized and strategically contested, it's no longer sufficient to just be there, out in orbit. Canada has a more active role to play.
This policy brief by CIGI Senior Fellow Jessica West examines Canada’s evolving role in space and the systemic pressures affecting it, arguing that Canada can strengthen stability in space by acting simultaneously as builder (governing innovation), stabilizer (practising operational discipline) and steward (institutionalizing cooperation). Canada’s next phase of space leadership lies in aligning innovation, operational discipline and cooperation in an effort to strengthen governance both in space and back home.
