By Adam A. Janikowski, June 10, 2026
Canada has a habit of achieving outsized results in space from modest means. The Canadarm, our most conspicuous contribution to the space program over the last several decades, cost the country comparatively little, yet it placed Canada at the centre of human spaceflight for decades. That is the model worth remembering as we look to future-proof our country and participate in the burgeoning commercial space economy.
The global space economy reached a record US$613 billion in 2024, and McKinsey, in work prepared for the World Economic Forum, projects it will approach US$1.8 trillion by 2035. The momentum is echoed in the US markets, with SpaceX having recently filed what is expected to be the largest initial public offering in Wall Street history, expected to raise around US$75 billion.
Clearly, the commercial space market matters. The question is, will Canada and Canadian firms reach escape velocity and launch the next generation of investment?
The honest answer today is that Canada is drifting. The country has no dedicated legal framework for commercial space resources, and federal officials acknowledge that responsibility for space policy is spread across several departments with no single owner of the file. No one department can claim true ownership of all aspects of developing space and various responsibilities are split throughout diverse and siloed organizations such as Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN), Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), and the Canadian Space Agency.
A recent consultation of industry stakeholders on a modern regulatory framework for space returned a blunt message: without legal and regulatory certainty, investors hesitate and companies take their business to jurisdictions where the rules are written down.
Other governments are already preparing the ground for commercial space initiatives. The United States granted its citizens the right to own resources recovered in space through the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015. Luxembourg followed in 2017 with a law that opens simply, stating that space resources are capable of being owned, and built a licensing regime around that principle. Japan enacted its own space resources law in 2021, granting operators ownership of what they extract. All these regimes were drafted to sit alongside the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits national appropriation of celestial bodies but says nothing about the resources extracted from them. Canada signed the Artemis Accords in 2020, which affirm that resource extraction need not constitute appropriation, and yet has not taken the next domestic step that its allies took years ago. If Canada does not act decisively, it risks being excluded from leadership in the next stage of human expansion.
To fix this, we do not need sporadic investments in stranded space infrastructure, a revamped space agency or any kind of larger appropriation. We need targeted and appropriate legislation and coordinated government oversight. Canada needs to enact a Commercial Space Act that provides legal certainty across the spectrum of commercial activity, from satellite operations and on-orbit servicing to the recovery and sale of space resources. The Act should state plainly that Canadian entities may possess, own, transport, and sell resources extracted in space, and it should be drafted to be consistent with the Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords. It should also state plainly which department in government is responsible for commercial space.
Historically, Canadian governments have spent heavily trying to scale early-stage companies across the economy, often with little to show for it. One of the most recent examples is the government subsidies of battery manufacturing plants. Developing the space economy is different. Canada is not being asked to manufacture an advantage it does not have. It already possesses the two things this sector needs: deep resource finance markets and a mature mining and resource-development culture. The need for government handouts is limited, and the ask is not a subsidy but legal certainty and clear lines of governmental responsibility. These requirements can be easily met with clear policy and forward-thinking. Low-investment, high-impact action will allow Canada to participate meaningfully in the space economy.
This is the same logic that underpins the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy, which treats secure access to strategic materials as a matter of industrial and economic policy. Just as we need sovereign development and ownership of our critical minerals industry, Canada needs sovereign development and control over its commercial space industry. The federal government set out its ambitions in Exploration, Imagination, Innovation, Canada’s space strategy, which committed the country to remaining a serious spacefaring nation. Legal clarity is what converts these strategies from aspiration into investment.
We also need to lean into our strengths, one of which is resource financing. The country runs one of the deepest pools of mining capital in the world, and the junior mining model on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the TSX Venture Exchange is purpose-built for exactly the kind of long-dated, high-risk, capital-intensive development that space resources will require. Terrestrial resource projects routinely take 10 to 15 years from rights acquisition to production, and Canadian markets have learned how to finance that patiently and at scale. A space resources sector follows the same arc, with prospecting and rights in this decade, early development in the next, and production beyond. The institutions that financed Canada’s mining sector are well suited to finance its orbital successor, but without regulatory certainty, they cannot be accessed.
Canada needs to help the TSX and TSXV become the primary venue for capital formation in the space economy, in the same way they became the global home for mineral exploration finance. Canada must work with regulators to develop listing and disclosure approaches suited to space companies, and actively court satellite operators, remote sensing businesses, launch providers and resource ventures to incorporate, list, and raise capital in Canada rather than elsewhere.
If the TSX and TSXV can develop listing rules suited to the sector, these markets can provide a natural home market for space capital that gives companies a reason to incorporate, scale, and importantly, stay in Canada. Legal certainty draws the firms here and domestic access to capital is what keeps the resulting value and ownership in the country.
To achieve this, we need a Commercial Space Act. Capital cannot price what is legally ambiguous, and it will not stake a long-term investment position on a regime that does not yet exist. Give the market certainty on space resource rights, and the comparative advantage Canada already holds in resource finance transfers naturally to the new frontier of the space economy.
The time to act is now. As allied and competitor jurisdictions build out their frameworks, Canadian companies and Canadian capital are being forced into a binary choice: either relocate to where the rules are clear or accept a subordinate role in someone else’s value chain. Neither of these options offers upstream ownership, high-value employment, and technological sovereignty. Committing to mediocrity is not an option, and bold steps are needed.
Prime Minister Mark Carney recently framed the broader moment plainly, telling the World Economic Forum that Canada is no longer relying only on the strength of its values but on the value of its strength, built at home. A commercial space framework is a concrete expression of exactly that idea.
As Canada grapples with geopolitical uncertainty and the reframing of multinational agreements, it’s important to remember that we don’t need to outspend the major space powers to matter in this economy. We simply need to repeat what has worked here on terra firma – playing to Canada’s strengths in governance, finance, and resource development. The Canadarm proved the Canadian model. A Commercial Space Act and policy support for the capital markets to fund the space sector would prove it again.
Adam A. Janikowski is managing director of BDJ Capital and co-founder of the commercial space advisory firm SpaceHK.
