Dawn Calleja, Report on Business magazine editor.Daniel Ehrenworth/The Globe and Mail
Between Mark Carney’s much lauded speech at the World Economic Forum and the wild success of Crave’s Heated Rivalry, Canada is suddenly cool again. Both global phenomena present a sort of utopia: In Heated Rivalry’s case, it’s a world where openly gay hockey players are embraced by fans, and a Canadian team regularly wins the Cup. In Carney’s, it’s one where middle powers really do stop accepting subordination and actively work to build the reality we claim to believe in.
There’s a lot to do between here and there, of course. Much of it begins by building strength at home, as the prime minister put it, noting that his government has so far cut taxes on business investment; removed federal barriers to interprovincial trade (though the provinces have yet to catch up); fast-tracked $1 trillion in investments in energy, AI and more; diversified our trade partnerships; and vowed to double defence spending so we can protect both ourselves and our allies from threats far and disconcertingly near.
A lot of those threads come together in this month’s cover story. It’s a profile of Top Aces, which for years has flown under the radar as one of Canada’s most successful global defence contractors. Founded by a trio of former Canadian fighter pilots, Top Aces offers air-combat training to militaries around the world. Its key product is the expertise of its roster of top guns, along with a fleet of jets tricked out with Top Aces’ own cutting-edge tech that allows these aged aircraft to take on even the most sophisticated fighters.
Business is booming. Its most recent contract with the Canadian Armed Forces, a 10-year deal signed in 2017, is worth $750 million. Recently, it re-upped with the German military for $650 million over 10 years. It has contracts in several other countries, too, including the U.S., where Top Aces owns the world’s only private fleet of F-16s. It’s an arrangement that’s surely becoming more fraught the deeper into mayhem and belligerence that country falls.
The Globe and Mail
I have to admit, I was burning with jealousy when I assigned this story to Jason Kirby. My dad spent 30 years in the Canadian Air Force, much of it keeping our aging fleet of C-130 Hercules in the air, and attending the annual air show at CFB Trenton was practically a religious experience: the ground-shaking roar of a Herc’s four massive turboprops, the throaty rumble of a Lancaster, the screeeeeeech of a CF-18 that would rattle your bones.
The fighters were, of course, everyone’s favourite, and the pilots who flew them were like rock stars. They’d chased the demon that lived around Mach 1 on the meter. They’d made it to the top of the pyramid. And they had the egos to show for it.
Maybe that’s the key to Top Aces’ success: the fighter jock’s unflinching faith in their own ability, whether facing down an enemy aircraft or coming up with tens of millions to buy an entire fleet of jets.
If you’re an entrepreneur in need of a little Yeager swagger, read Tom Wolfe’s 1979 masterpiece The Right Stuff. If you’re in need of reminding what Canadian companies can accomplish, read “The fight stuff.”