Training & Simulation: Sovereign Strength or Strategic Vulnerability for Canada
April 28, 2026
National Arts Centre, Ottawa, ON
Agenda
April 28, 2026
7:30 – 8:15
Registration
8:15 – 8:30
Welcome
Master of Ceremonies:
Colonel Andre Dupuis (Ret’d), President SSCL
Terri Pavelic, Editor-in-Chief, Vanguard Media
Name to follow
8:20 – 8:25
Platinum Sponsor - CAE Defense & Security Canada
Major-General Timothy Arsenault, Deputy Commander, Canadian Joint Operations Command
8:30 – 9:00
Opening Keynote
9:00 – 9:30
Presentation
Major Jake Balfe, Royal Canadian Air Force
Lieutenant-Commander Nicholas Culhane, Operations Room Officer Course Officer, Naval Fleet School Pacific, Royal Canadian Navy
The Coal Face Two: officers, go back and forth on what they are seeing, what they are excited about, and what worries them. No moderator. No set pieces. Canada is spending more on defence, buying more complex platforms, and facing a faster-moving threat environment than it has in a generation. These are the people who have to train for it.
9:30 – 10:25
Panel 1
Moderator:
Major-General Colin Keiver (Ret’d), Associate, CFN Consultants
Panelists:
Major John Nicol, Royal Canadian Air Force
Commander Byron Ross, Section Head – Naval Training Requirements, Director Naval Training and Infrastructure Requirements, Royal Canadian Navy
Lieutenant-Colonel Dan Shaver, G5, Army Training Authority, Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre, Canadian Army
Army, Navy, Air Force: Same Urgency, Different Worlds. Where Does Canada Actually Stand?
Three environments, three sets of challenges, one honest conversation. Army, Navy, and Air Force representatives on where their training enterprises are today, where they are trying to go, and what is getting in the way.
10:25 – 11:05
Networking Break
11:05 – 11:25
Presentation
Name to follow
An Allied Perspective
Sharing what is required in the training and simulation world to deliver operationally ready forces for tomorrow's battlespace.
11:25 – 12:25
Panel 2
Moderator:
Colonel Richard (Rick) Fawcett (Ret’d)
Panelists:
Major-General John Errington, Commander Canadian Army Doctrine Training Centre (CADTC), Department of National Defence
Jean-Marc Lanthier, Chief Executive Officer & President, ADGA Group
Chris Pogue, President Defence & Space, Calian
Next-Gen Training and Force Capacity Enablement for Operational Readiness
The importance of partnership and collaboration among industry experts to deliver the breadth and complexity in training that is required to meet the demands of what it means to be executing Next Gen training where "Train as you will fight" becomes embedded not only in doctrine, but in architecture.
12:25 – 13:30
Lunch & Networking
13:30 – 14:00
Lunch Keynote
Shelly Blake-Plock, President of I2IDL and co-founder of Yet Analytics
What the Science Actually Says
A learning engineering and cognitive science expert makes the case from first principles. Not what Canada should do, but what the evidence shows about how people learn complex skills under pressure, what AI and adaptive systems are doing to compress timelines and raise standards, and what a mature training enterprise looks like when it gets this right.
Copyright ©2022 Vanguard Canada Media
14:00 – 14:45
Panel 3
Moderator:
Jeff Tasseron, Director, Strategy and Innovation, CAE Defense & Security Canada
Panelists:
Rami Abielmona, Chief Technology Officer, Larus Technologies Corporation
Scott Arbuthnot, Head of Capability Development, CogSim Technologies Inc.
Hugo Hodgett, Chief Executive Officer, H2 Analytics Inc.
The Way Ahead
Delivering readiness for the warfighters of tomorrow and leveraging technologies to optimize training in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness when considering the complexity of systems, security concerns.
14:45 – 15:15
Networking Break
15:15 – 15:30
Innovation Showcase
Names to follow
Three companies. Five minutes each. Not roadmaps, capabilities that exist and are being used today. Focused on smaller and emerging players with approaches the room may not have encountered yet.
15:30 – 16:15
Fireside Chat
Jeff Tasseron, Director, Strategy and Innovation, CAE Defense & Security Canada
The Conditions Are Right. What Comes Next?
Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy outlines areas of strategic importance, training and simulation is named as a sovereign capability area where Canada already leads. How do we take advantage of this capability? How do we invest in our people and organizations? How can Canadian companies build upon DIS and become leaders in the area of training and simulation for growth and export.
16:15 – 16:25
Closing Remarks
Master of Ceremonies:
Colonel Andre Dupuis (Ret’d), President SSCL
Terri Pavelic, Editor-in-Chief, Vanguard Media
16:30 – 18:00
Reception
Sponsored by: ADGA Group
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