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Field Guides: two pages, one crossing each

Each guide maps one hard crossing into or out of the Canadian market, names the gates on both sides, and lists its sources. We first handed them out at events; these are the dated web editions. Each guide states the date its facts were checked.

Edition: October 2026 · facts current as of 5 October 2026

Canada and Latin America: Two directions. The same gates.

A trade agreement lowers the tariff. It does not tell you who buys first, which data law your product now answers to, or what a buyer's security reviewer will ask for. The guide sets out those gates in both directions.

Southbound: Canada to Latin America

Which country first. Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru each have their own agreement with Canada, their own buyers and their own sales cycle.
Your data rules travel with the product. Mexico published a new private-sector data protection law on 20 March 2025. Chile's Law 21.719 takes effect on 1 December 2026; a bill to delay it a year is before the Senate and has not passed (Senado de Chile, 2026). Brazil's LGPD and Colombia's Law 1581 also apply to the personal data you collect there.
Who sells it there. How the industry buys decides whether you sell through a distributor, a partner or direct.

Northbound: Latin America to Canada

Which market in Canada. Ten provinces, three territories, two official languages, and a federal buyer that behaves nothing like a private one.
Federal security gates run on the buyer's clock. A cloud service holding Protected B data for the Government of Canada usually enters the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security's assessment program once a department sponsors it. A defence contract can require Controlled Goods registration and, where it says so, CPCSC certification.
A bilingual buyer. Federal buyers work in English and French.

Trade agreements in force in the region: Chile (1997), Costa Rica (2002), Peru (2009), Colombia (2011), Panama (2013), Honduras (2014), Mexico (CUSMA), and the CPTPP with Mexico, Chile and Peru. Canada and Ecuador signed an agreement on 24 July 2026, which awaits ratification in both countries (Global Affairs Canada, 2026). Talks with Mercosur are under way.

Download the guide (PDF, 2 pages)Version française (PDF)

Sources

Global Affairs Canada, 2026 — Canada and Ecuador sign a free trade agreement (July 2026). canada.ca
Senado de Chile, 2026 — Boletín 18.623-07, tramitación. tramitacion.senado.cl

The PDF lists the full source set for every claim.

Edition: October 2026 · sources checked 5 October 2026

Crossing the valley of death: a field checklist

A funded prototype is not a purchase. Experts told Canada's Procurement Ombud that as innovation programs multiply, “many more ‘orphan’ products and services will fail to reach procurement” (Office of the Procurement Ombud, 2026). The guide works through both sides of the valley.

The market side

Sort every “win” into three columns. A qualification, a funded challenge and a contract are different things. Only the contract comes with an invoice.
Look where the revenue sits. Firms under 250 employees are 86% of Canada's defence firms and earn 20% of the industry's revenue; firms with 500 or more employees are 8% of firms and earn 70% (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada [ISED], 2026).
Find a sponsor, not only a user. A survey of 272 product-development practitioners found that champions, sponsors and gatekeepers move projects across the valley together (Markham et al., 2010).

The gate side

Controlled Goods registration. Required before you can receive bid documents containing controlled goods or technology. There is no cost to register; as of October 2026, Public Services and Procurement Canada reports processing “significantly longer” than its 32-business-day standard (Public Services and Procurement Canada [PSPC], 2026a).
CPCSC Level 1. Where a defence contract calls for it, the self-assessment is “required at contract award, and not during the bidding process” (PSPC, 2026b): it lands when you have the least time.
Security clearance needs a sponsor. “Organizations cannot request a pre-clearance under any circumstance” (PSPC, 2026c).

The full argument, with every source, is in our article More Innovation Funding, More Orphans: Why Canada's Valley of Death Is Widening.

Download the checklist (PDF, 2 pages)Version française (PDF)

Sources

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 2026 — State of Canada's defence industry 2026, Figure 5 (2024 data). ised-isde.canada.ca
Markham, S. K., Ward, S. J., Aiman-Smith, L., & Kingon, A. I., 2010 — The valley of death as context for role theory in product innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 27(3), 402–417. doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2010.00724.x
Office of the Procurement Ombud, 2026 — Turning complexity into capability. opo-boa.gc.ca
Public Services and Procurement Canada, 2026a — Register in the Controlled Goods Program. canada.ca
Public Services and Procurement Canada, 2026b — How to meet Level 1 cyber security certification requirements. canada.ca
Public Services and Procurement Canada, 2026c — Sponsorship process. canada.ca

Sagentix advises on readiness. It does not perform the independent assessment, issue certification, run penetration tests or operate a security operations centre; that party is always independent of us.

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