Carney set to announce defence industrial strategy today

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to publicly release today his new Buy Canadian plan for supplying the military and growing Canada’s domestic defence industry.

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 small and medium-sized businesses and help more enter the defence sector.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is already dismissing the plan as a “salad bowl of buzzwords” that won’t deliver, and is calling on Ottawa to instead cut bureaucracy and streamline the government’s purchasing decisions.

The much-anticipated road map for growing the defence industry was originally supposed to be released last year, but it has been plagued with delays until it finally leaked out to an international news publication over the weekend.

Its release comes as Ottawa moves to shore up military supply chains and meet a new and ambitious NATO commitment of spending the equivalent of five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2026.