The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that Ottawa is creating a marketplace of drone suppliers to expedite the delivery of the low-cost technologies to the Canadian Armed Forces. The Globe's Pippa Norman writes that the Defence Drone Initiative marketplace was launched on Thursday with a request by the federal government for companies to apply to enter a pool of suppliers that the Armed Forces and Coast Guard can go to for specific products and services. This could include testing, prototype development or production opportunities. The initiative is being led by the Department of National Defence and the Defence Investment Agency and is a direct follow-on from the federal government's Defence Industrial Strategy, which was announced in February. It identified uncrewed and autonomous systems as one of 10 sovereign capabilities that the government wants to prioritize building at home, ensuring it has access to essential capabilities without necessarily having to rely on suppliers from outside the country. Sluggish, traditional project-based procurement doesn't lend itself to technologies such as drones that require constant iteration, testing and adaptation to keep up with a rapidly changing battlefield.