With the Royal Canadian Navy facing urgent demands to grow its workforce, maintain aging ships, and prepare for increasingly complex security challenges in the Arctic and Indo-Pacific, can it balance immediate operational needs with long-term modernization?

Today, Vice Admiral Angus Topshee, commander of the royal Canadian navy, joins us for a discussion on the future of the RCN, its challenges, priorities, and evolving role in a more contested global security environment.

VAdm Topshee details the RCN’s efforts to rebuild its force through accelerated recruitment and training, sustain aging fleets while transitioning to next-generation platforms, and project Canadian naval presence in both the Indo-Pacific and Arctic. He also reflects on the Victoria Class replacement and its role in Arctic security, infrastructure needs in the North, Canada’s evolving Indo-Pacific posture and multilateral naval cooperation, technological modernization, including the pursuit of unmanned systems and ISR platforms, as well as Canada’s interests in Antarctica.

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The CDA Institute is a non-partisan think tank that conducts research and education programming on defence and security.

The CDA Institute is a non-partisan think tank that conducts research and education programming on defence and security.

Learn more: CDA Institute