Prime Minister Mark Carney says Ottawa’s new “Buy Canadian” defense strategy is aimed at reducing Canada’s reliance on the United States while ramping up domestic production after years of underinvestment in the military.
“There are many strengths to this partnership that we have with the United States, but it is a dependency,” Carney said Tuesday as he announced his government’s Defense Industrial Strategy — which was leaked over the weekend — that aims to add 125,000 new jobs in the sector in the next decade.
The long-awaited strategy commits to deepen partnerships with Europe and key Indo-Pacific allies in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive security and trade posture. Carney was careful not to diminish Canada’s longstanding military partnership with the U.S., including the bilateral continental defense pact, NORAD, which he called a “fundamental” partnership.
But Carney said Canada must expand its domestic defense industrial base, “so we are never hostage to the decisions of others when it comes to our security." The strategy notes that half of Canada’s defense-related products and services are exported, with a majority (69 percent) going to the United States and Canada's other Five Eyes partners, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
“We have committed to double — double — our defense expenditures by the end of this decade, and that amounts to an additional C$80 billion over the next five years,” Carney said. “As part of our NATO commitments, we will invest an additional C$45 billion per year on domestic resilience, yielding both security and economic benefits.”
Carney has pledged that Canada will meet its NATO defense spending commitment for the first time, hitting 2 percent of GDP this year, and 5 percent by 2035. Carney acknowledged that — as American leaders on both sides of the political aisle have charged — Canada has been a defense-spending laggard.
"The truth is, over the last few decades, Canada has neither spent enough on our defense nor invested enough in our defense industries. We've relied too heavily on our geography and others to protect us. This has created vulnerabilities that we can no longer afford," Carney said, flanked by leading Cabinet ministers at a Montreal-based aerospace company.
The strategy document is credited to Defense Minister David McGuinty, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Stephen Fuhr, the secretary of state for defense procurement.
"Buy Canadian" will be the new "guiding North Star" for defense acquisitions, says the plan.
The government plans by summer to pick “defense champions” — a list of key strategic partners.
The document lists 10 “sovereign capabilities” for the Canadian Forces — from aerospace platforms, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to land-, sea- and space-based sensors and intelligence, production of missiles, bombs and arms, specialized manufacturing of land vehicles and ships, and drones, including aircraft and uncrewed vessels that can operate above and below water.
The strategy outlines ambitious targets over the next decade: raising the share of defense acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70 percent and boosting Canada’s defense exports by 50 percent; increasing government investment in defense-related research and development by 85 percent; and lifting Canadian defense-industry revenues by more than 240 percent, including growing small and medium-sized business revenue by more than C$5.1 billion annually.
The government says hitting the targets by 2035 will result in "more than half a trillion dollars of overall investment in Canada.”
Carney was supposed to release the strategy last week but postponed the announcement after a mass shooting in British Columbia. In response to the domestic tragedy, he also canceled a trip to the Munich Security Forum, where he was to deliver a speech that followed up on last month’s watershed address in Davos at the World Economic Forum.
On Tuesday in Montreal, Carney appeared to have dusted off the speech he didn’t deliver in Munich, saying in French that “the various assumptions which have defined Canadian policies in terms of defense and foreign affairs — these assumptions have been completely upended.”
The strategy billed itself as an essential tool in safeguarding Canadian sovereignty, noting it is “especially important” in the Canadian Arctic, a point Carney emphasized again Tuesday.
“The nature of warfare is changing because of the proliferation of drones and autonomous weapon systems,” the prime minister said. “This strategy is about protecting Canada's sovereignty in its fullest sense.”
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