CRC 2025 Symposium brings together industry stakeholders to help shape the future of Canadian robotics

The manufacturing industry and Canada’s economy as a whole has spent the better part of a year operating in front of a backdrop of uncertainty and hesitance created by the ongoing trade war with the United States.

It was against this backdrop that the 2025 Canadian Robotics Council (CRC) Symposium, held on October 9 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., began, bringing together over 200 experts and key stakeholders from industry, government and academia to network, collaborate and strategize, with the goal of creating a unified strategy for the future of Canadian robotics.

The event was opened with addresses from Hallie Siegel, chief executive officer of the CRC, Kevin Deluzio, professor and dean of the Stephen J.R. Smith Facility of Engineering and Applied Science at Queen’s University and Joshua Marshall, professor and Queen’s University, as well as CRC executive committee updates from Ryan Gariepy, chair of the CRC and vice president of robotics for Rockwell Automation, in which he shared the 31 per cent increase in attendees from the 2024 symposium and echoed Manufacturing AUTOMATION’s call for a national robotics strategy from the federal government.

“There is not a national robotics strategy nearly on the level of the national AI strategy,” Gariepy said, emphasizing the importance of that changing.

The morning  sessions were marked by an ongoing examination of the impact increased government defence spending will have on the industry, starting with a panel titled The Dual-Use Robotics Advantage: A New Industrial Strategy for Economic Resilience and Prosperity and ending with a fireside chat between Duncan Stewart, parter, deep tech fund at BDC and retired lieutenant-general Frances Allen from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Murad Hemmadi, AI reported for The Logic and host of the panel discussion, set the stage by identifying that, “Canada is about to spend, I believe the technical term is, absolutely gobs of money on defence in a way we haven’t in a very long time,” which opened the floor for panel participants Brent Barron, chief of staff for AI from CIFAR, Eric Jackson, president of Cellula Robotics, Lydia Macchiusi, HR director, corporate R&D for Magna International Inc. and Philip Smith, chief financial officer for Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation, to share how robotics companies can shift their processes to facilitate dual-use robotics and capitalize on the increased spending.

The panel called for adjustments to the existing procurement system, with Jackson saying it is, “very difficult to depend on standard government contracts as long as the current procurement procedures are in place.”

Allen echoed the calls for collaboration between public and private entities, highlighting the importance for an ecosystem that supports simultaneous growth for both sectors.

“I’m a big proponent for trying to create an environment that will let the…military learn from industry and produce and defend Canada and its allies and our values around the world,” she said.

After a break for lunch and a panel titled From Pilots to Lead Customers: Empowering Municipalities in the Age of AI-Robotics, the symposium shifted to an afternoon of roundtables, where those in attendance broke off into groups to discuss actionable strategies each could take to improve the resilience of the robotics industry.

Topics included the creation of a toolkit for ethical robotics integration in the workforce, applying the latest safety standards to collaborative applications (formerly called cobots), crafting case studies for the Canadian Robotics ROI Library and creating a blueprint for a Canadian maritime situational response network, among others.

Each roundtable will be distilled into a report which will be viewable at a later date.

To view a playlist of each of the panels, click here, and view the full event agenda here.

You can visit the CRC website to learn more about and join the organization.