Good morning from beautiful Halifax, a city on the forefront of Canada’s sovereignty ambitions that also has delicious oysters. In focus today, we look at the opportunities and challenges emerging on Atlantic Canada’s horizon.

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At the forefront of Canada’s defence push

Inside the Canadian Museum of Immigration on the Halifax harbour, exhibitions and displays tell the story of the nearly one million people who entered Canada through the former ocean-liner terminal at Pier 21.

Through two world wars and the boom that followed, the building became part of a national debate over immigration policy, labour shortages, public resistance and the kind of country Canada wanted to become.

On Wednesday, political and business leaders gathered in this historic waterfront terminal to reckon with what it means for Halifax to be a strategically important harbour city in a country trying to secure sovereignty in large part through defence spending.

In remarks opening The Globe and Mail’s Intersect conference, Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore said governments often treat defence, trade, housing, infrastructure, productivity and immigration as separate issues.

“But in cities, they intersect quickly,” he said. “In Halifax, they intersect visibly.”

Up periscope

Look in almost any direction in Halifax and you can see what he means: new towers rising downtown, construction signs and road closings, and traffic pressing against streets that leave little room for error.

Soon, the federal government is expected to announce the winning bidder for a multibillion-dollar purchase of up to 12 submarines. Whether the contract goes to the South Korean or German bidder, Halifax – home to Canada’s Atlantic naval fleet, Irving Shipbuilding’s Halifax Shipyard and a growing ocean-technology sector – is likely to play a key role in the maintenance, training, infrastructure and supply chains that follow.

It’s a generational opportunity that could also collide with a number of systemic challenges. New defence work would need skilled workers, places for them to live and infrastructure that can absorb the growth.

But Halifax is already dealing with expensive housing, strained roads and transit, pressure on water and wastewater systems, and employers who say labour is hard to find.

Even if we submerge the submarine idea for a moment, Halifax is already becoming central to Ottawa’s defence buildout. In March, the federal government announced $1.2-billion to modernize critical power and municipal-service infrastructure at the CFB Halifax Dockyard and nearby Stadacona, part of the country’s East Coast naval base.

Building on that scale means the region’s ports, airports, energy systems and defence assets should be understood as infrastructure of national significance, Joyce Carter, president and chief executive officer of Halifax International Airport Authority, told the audience.

“You cannot grow and you cannot trade what you cannot move,” she said.

Getting to work

At similar events in recent months, “cautious hope” has made frequent cameos in discussions about Canada’s ability to build a more sovereign country, backed by higher defence spending and a more dependable pitch for global investment.

On Wednesday, the mood felt like something closer to full-blown optimism – that a new plan had been set in motion; that the pain points attached to a massive increase in defence spending could be solved; and that Halifax might grow by leaps and bounds over the coming years and “meet the moment,” as more than one person predicted yesterday.

“I don’t ever wonder for one moment whether or not we can do big things here,” said Karen Hutt, executive vice-president of Emera Inc., a Halifax-based energy company. “We can do big things here.”

That hope still came with a caveat: companies of all sizes and all levels of government – especially Ottawa – need to take actual steps to show investors that change is truly afoot. The stage has been set.

“We must prove that we can execute,” said Susan Rimmer, CIBC’s senior executive vice-president and group head of commercial banking and wealth management.

Chris Pogue, president of defence and space at Calian, said Ottawa wants more military spending to flow to Canadian companies, but the country does not yet have enough domestic firms at the scale required.

“If we had to flip that switch tomorrow morning, there aren’t enough of them,” he said.

Moving quickly on procurement can mean buying equipment already designed and built elsewhere, he warned. Canada could still benefit, he said, if those purchases come with access to the intellectual property, support work and industrial benefits that allow domestic companies to maintain and improve the equipment for decades.

“Going fast generally means you’re going to buy somebody else’s stuff that’s already built,” he said. “Fast, yes – but with pace, thoughtfully.”