Canada and South Korea have signed a new defence agreement, roughly a month after Prime Minister Mark Carney urged middle powers to band together in the face of "great power" economic coercion. Following negotiations that concluded in October, the two countries signed a deal Wednesday related to the exchange and protection of classified military and defence information. In October, Ottawa...
Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) sends a clear signal that defence capability, economic security, and industrial capacity are inseparable. Investment will deliver tangible outcomes: a stronger domestic industry, sovereign capability, and cooperation with allies. Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the first Canadian Defence Industrial Strategy at our CAE headquarters in Montreal. This marks an important first step...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has finally revealed his plan to turn Canada into a weapons-exporting global mega-power. “In total, the Defence Industrial Strategy is an investment of over half a trillion dollars in Canadian security, economic prosperity, and our sovereignty,” he announced this week, promising to create over 125 thousand “high-paying careers” building weapons and otherwise supplying the Canadian military...
Hyundai Motor Co. has proposed building hydrogen fuel-cell infrastructure in Canada as part of South Korea’s bid for a contract to build a new submarine fleet, according to an executive at Hanwha Ocean Co. Hanwha Defence Canada Chief Executive Officer Glenn Copeland said Hyundai briefed Canadian officials during their recent visit to Korea, presenting early plans for three or four...
As the world marks four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday, analysts say Moscow has contributed to global instability that will force Canadians to spend more -- and more quickly -- to defend their territory. "People need to understand why defence is extremely important right now, and why we're going to have to make sacrifices...
Canada's defence industry plan could draw U.S. pressure as Ottawa shifts contracts to Canadian firms. The ink isn't even dry on Canada's new defence industrial strategy, and there are already uneasy rumblings from Washington. The objections are not aimed at Canada — at least not yet — but they could eventually spill across an already strained border. A week ago...
In his celebrated speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos, warning middle powers of the perils of integration with predatory great powers, the Prime Minister also warned against one “understandable” response: each country retreating within its own borders, supplying critical needs domestically, in the search for “strategic autonomy.” “A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less...
As he looks to rebuild Canada’s military, Prime Minister Mark Carney has surely been thinking of C.D. Howe. Howe became William Lyon Mackenzie King’s “minister of everything” at the outset of the Second World War, when “few thought of Canada as an industrial power,” as he later wrote. He believed not only that Canada could industrialize but also that the...
Eight months after downgrading the air fleet readiness target, the Liberal government’s Defence Industrial Strategy is promising new ambitious goals for serviceability in the next 10 years. As part of the much-anticipated strategy, Canada has pledged to raise air fleet serviceability to 85 per cent, as well as 75 per cent for maritime and 80 per cent for land fleets...
Our trailblazing Prime Minister was at the podium in Montreal. “Over the last few decades,” Mark Carney said, “Canada has neither spent enough on our defence nor invested enough in our defence industries.” That has to change, he added, setting out plans for far more domestic spending on military hardware because “the assumptions that defined decades of Canadian defence and...
Canada’s first-ever Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) marks a genuine shift in how Ottawa thinks about sovereignty, security, and economic resilience. After decades of treating defence procurement as a back-office function, the government is now framing it as strategic statecraft — linking military readiness, industrial policy, innovation, and economic security. The creation of a Defence Investment Agency and the adoption of...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January address to the World Economic Forum called for Canada to join with other middle powers in following a path that is both principled and pragmatic. He argued that we are witnessing a rupture in the rules-based international order, and must rethink how we engage with the world. Our fundamental assumptions about Canada’s place in the...
The sight of David McGuinty as a silent presence at the prime minister’s announcement Tuesday of a new defence industrial strategy was a reminder that, while that government purports to be a team, it is really a confederation of warring tribes. The defence minister is ostensibly the lead author of the plan, but it seems to have been hijacked by...
For generations, Canada lived under a durable assumption: integration guarantees security. We carried the flag for multilateralism in the postwar period, embedding ourselves in alliances, supply chains and global markets, confident that economic openness and collective defence would reinforce our sovereignty. By and large, that strategy helped Canada prosper. But in today’s volatile world, it no longer holds.
Prime Minister Mark Carney revealed his government’s Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) Tuesday, including plans to spend more than 6 billion additional dollars transforming the Canadian Armed Forces into a modern self-sufficient military force. Carney said the plan’s primary role will be to defend Canada and Canadian sovereignty. But it will also meet NATO obligations with like-minded allies and allow Canada...
Prime Minister Mark Carney sent a clear signal through his overtures to the domestic defence industry on Tuesday: it's time to grow. Carney announced the country's first defence industrial strategy in Montreal, a $6.6 billion plan that lays out how Ottawa wants to build out the defence industrial base and scale up small and medium-sized Canadian businesses to create anchor...
Embedded in the marquee numbers of the Defence Industrial Strategy Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled on Tuesday was a long-unfathomable message: the United States is no longer a reliable ally, but a potential kinetic enemy. “The assumptions that defined decades of Canadian defence and foreign policy have been turned upside down,” Mr. Carney said at the DIS unveiling in Montreal...
New defence strategy has been in the works for more than a year. The Canadian government’s long-awaited defence industrial strategy formally landed on Tuesday and arrives in the shadow of a push by the Trump administration to further make the United States the arms-maker of choice among allies. The new strategy has been in the works for more than a...
Canada’s defence industry got a $6.6 billion boost Tuesday, as Prime Minister Mark Carney formally unveiled Ottawa’s new Defence Industrial Strategy. The plan promises to create 125,000 new jobs over 10 years and award 70 per cent of defence contracts to Canadian companies, through a “Build-Partner-Buy” framework that prioritizes domestic industry. It is part of the government’s plan to increase...
Prime Minister Mark Carney released his new Buy Canadian plan for supplying the military and growing Canada’s domestic defence industry on Tuesday. The $6.6-billion plan promises to prioritize building military equipment at home, hike the share of defence contracts awarded to Canadian firms and add up to 125,000 new jobs over the next decade. The strategy aims to grow out...
Canada has officially signed onto the European defence procurement program it announced it would join last summer, as Washington's upending of geopolitics overshadows the world's top security conference. Defence Minister David McGuinty announced Ottawa had signed onto the European Union's 150-billion euro program called Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. The program allows EU...
The Liberal government is making sweeping changes to the way it approaches supporting the domestic defence industry, as Canada looks to transition away from over-reliance on the United States for military gear. The government was expected to announce its strategy last week, but Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended his travel due to a mass-shooting in B.C. and pushed the announcement...
Defence minister says Canada's the only non-European country to join program. Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada has now officially joined the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, which offers loans to member states to invest in defence capabilities. "The agreement strengthens our collective security, supports the development of key defence capabilities, and gives Canadian industry access to...
Normally, it's considered a good thing when the world beats a path to your door. Maybe not so much when we're talking about nuclear deterrence. At the very least, it is an ominous sign of the times.
Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner says access to spaceports is a challenge. The head of Canada's military space division says the country "should absolutely be" concerned about Russia's potential capabilities amid global fears the Kremlin is considering putting nuclear weapons in place to target satellites. "That would be cataclysmic," said Brig.-Gen. Christopher Horner, Commander of 3 Canadian Space Division during an interview...
Pact enhances collaboration on surveillance and joint operations. Canada and Denmark signed a defence co-operation agreement on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, setting the stage for a deeper partnership after the Trump administration threatened to annex Greenland. The agreement was signed by Defence Minister David McGuinty on Friday. Originally Prime Minister Mark Carney was supposed to be present...
Canada would like to see NATO’s new Arctic Sentry mission become permanent as part of a greater focus on the north for the Western alliance, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says. NATO announced Wednesday it has launched this mission to strengthen its presence in the Arctic as part of an agreement to defuse severe tensions within the alliance prompted by...
Canadian aerospace company Magellan Aerospace Corp. MALJF has signed an agreement with German submarine maker ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) to produce torpedoes for its vessels if the European company’s bid to build Canada’s next submarine fleet is successful.
The federal government plans to choose a number of “key strategic partners” from Canada’s defence sector to get special support and access to contracts under the new military industrial strategy that Prime Minister Mark Carney was scheduled to release on Wednesday, the Star has learned. Carney’s announcement will be postponed after Tuesday’s mass shooting a high school in Tumbler Ridge...
The federal government may name the winner of the heated competition to supply the navy with a fleet of new submarines as soon as this year. Stephen Fuhr, secretary of state for defence procurement, says Ottawa will "probably" announce a winner this year -- and declared the vessels will be in the water by 2032. He made the comments today...
Prime Minister Mark Carney intends to deepen defence ties and attract new business investment when he travels to Germany this week, according to government officials. Carney will depart for the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, becoming the first Canadian prime minister to attend the conference since Justin Trudeau in 2020. More than 60 heads of state and government leaders are...
A decade after the Department of National Defence pledged to fix systemic inequities facing military reservists, a new report from the Canadian Forces ombudsman concludes that little has changed — leaving ill and injured Primary Reserve members navigating a fragmented system marked by delays, confusion and unequal treatment. In the report — titled Marking Time: A Decade of Stalled Progress...
Despite an ongoing review, Ottawa made payments related to the acquisition of more U.S.-built fighters jets. Ottawa has started to make payments for key components for 14 additional U.S.-built F-35s, even as the Carney government has been reviewing future fighter-jet purchases in the context of trade tensions with Washington, sources have told CBC News. The money for these 14 aircraft...
Canada’s Arctic is one of the most exposed places on the planet, where communications routinely fail — satellites fade, cellular networks vanish, hardware freezes. Those problems led Ottawa-based Dominion Dynamics to build AuraNet, a software layer tied to rugged sensors that can push high-definition video, photos and audio through the frontier’s dead zones, allowing military commanders to swiftly assess threats...
The new submarines Canada plans to buy will not arrive with all the necessary equipment to operate under Arctic ice, meaning they will require modifications after delivery, the head of the navy says. Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee said Canada will need to add under-ice gear to the boats after they arrive, such as upward-facing sonar that can detect and map overhead...
Retired general Wayne Eyre, Canada’s former chief of the defence staff, says this country’s security and sovereignty would be best protected if we possessed our own nuclear weapons and the delivery systems to fire them at whatever targets we deemed in need of vaporization. He didn’t recommend starting a program at once, but said it would be the only real...
The Canadian military has destroyed 2,000 Second World War pistols but is still waiting to hear from Ukraine on whether it wants the rest of the guns for its arsenal. The latest update from the Department of National Defence on the fate of the Browning Hi-Power pistols reveals a topsy-turvy strategy for the aging handguns. In October 2022, the Canadian...
On a packed bullet train heading towards Seoul, the face of Stephen Fuhr, Canada’s secretary of state for defence procurement, suddenly appeared on monitors in each of the 18 train cars. In a four-minute news story, Fuhr was shown touring Hanwha’s shipyard in Geoje, along with more than 20 Canadian CEOs along for a trade mission. Over two days, the...
The Liberal government’s new Defence Industrial Strategy is expected to be released next week, according to industry officials who have been brief about rollout plans for the document. Defence Minister David McGuinty said in late October that the strategy, which will be a critical roadmap on how Canada spends its defence funding domestically, would be released no later than Christmas...
Prime Minister Mark Carney's pledge to NATO allies that Canada will spend the equivalent of five per cent of GDP on defence will cost the country an extra $33.5 billion a year, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer says. A PBO report released today says all that extra defence spending will push up the federal budget deficit by $6...
The NDP says it wants Prime Minister Mark Carney to cancel contracts for U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets -- including the 16 Canada already has committed to buying. Citing Carney's call for middle powers to work together in his World Economic Forum speech last month, Interim NDP Leader Don Davies says Canada should instead purchase Gripen fighter jets from the Swedish...
Canada has "absolutely no intention" of acquiring nuclear weapons, Defence Minister David McGuinty said Tuesday -- rejecting the suggestion from former chief of the defence staff Wayne Eyre that Ottawa should not rule it out. McGuinty said Canada has signed international treaties explicitly opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "Canada is a signatory to international treaties which preclude us...
