Making ammunition in Canada ‘essential’ for independence: defence minister

The federal government on Wednesday said it will spend $1.4 billion to boost Canada’s ammunition production, with Defence Minister David McGuinty calling it “essential” for Canada’s independence.

McGuinty said the launch of the Canadian Defence Industry Resilience Program will be part of Canada’s broader Defence Industrial Strategy, which Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last month.

2:26 Carney announces Canada’s new defence industrial strategy

“It’s a program that really means we’re trying to strengthen Canada’s ability to produce the defence equipment we need here at home,” he said.

“The ability to produce our own ammunition is not optional, it’s essential. It strengthens our independence, it protects us from global supply disruptions and ensures that our armed forces have what they need, when they need it.”

Through this program, IMT Precision will receive up to $306.4 million to build a new facility producing metal shells for 155-millimetre artillery projectiles, McGuinty said.

“These are critical components used by our armed forces and our allies and in high demand globally, including in Ukraine or even including in Latvia, where we have 3,000 forward-deployed members of the Canadian Armed Forces, where Canada is commanding a 14-nation multinational brigade,” he said.

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McGuinty also announced plans to boost production of nitrocellulose – a critical component in propellants and ammunition – in Quebec.

He also announced $57.8 million in spending to establish Canada’s first facility for making charges for the M-231 and M-232 assault rifles, in addition to a $642-million investment to manufacture 155-millimetre high-explosive projectiles.

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“Taken together, these aren’t just investments. They’re building blocks of modern defence. They are how we ensure that Canada is prepared, not just for today, but for the future,” he said.

Responding to a question from reporters, McGuinty said Canada was on track to achieve its goal of spending two per cent of its GDP on defence by March 31.

“Stay tuned, and this is not a last-minute spending spree. This is the culmination of years of work,” he said.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Canada’s shipments of equipment to Kyiv “drew down all the free stock that we had” and “exposed how inadequate that stock was to begin with,” said David Perry, president and CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“Canada was totally unprepared to deal with a modern battlefield. We don’t produce artillery ammunition for our own troops at nearly a high enough rate that they might have to use if they were ever actually engaged in a civilian conflict,” he said.

While the Ukraine war was a “wake up call” for Ottawa, “we kept hitting the snooze button,” Perry said.

Artillery shells like the 155 mm projectiles McGuinty mentioned, though an old warfare technology, are a “fundamental and basic building block” of modern warfare, he said.

If Russia’s invasion raised global demand for artillery ammunition, the current war in Iran has brought that need into sharp relief.

The rate at which firepower and ammunition has been expended and consumed in the first few weeks of the Iran war has been “shocking,” Perry said.

“We’ve certainly seen some reporting to indicate that there’s been more specific missile types used in three weeks there than have been used at all in the conflict in Ukraine in the last four years. Some of those systems were deployed in larger numbers in the Middle East than they had ever been sent to Ukraine,” he said.