Carney Plots ‘Buy Canada’ Defense Strategy to Unlock Billions in Investment to Boost Domestic Industries amid Growing Arctic Threat by Russia, China

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• Canada will spend more of its growing military budget with domestic firms under a defense-industrial strategy that’s meant to unleash more than C$500 billion in investment over a decade.
• The government wants to more than triple Canadian defense industry revenue, boost defense exports by 50% and create 125,000 jobs over a 10-year period.
• The strategy aims to reduce reliance on the US for security and boost the share of defense acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70%.

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Canada is embarking on its largest military buildup in decades, driven by an aggressive US administration and mounting concern about Russian activity in the Arctic. After years as a NATO spending laggard, the country is racing to increase its military outlays. NATO members have agreed to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense and security by the middle of the next decade.

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Meanwhile, a CSIS officials say that China is more of a concern in Canada’s Arctic than Russia.

While Russia remains a military threat in the Arctic, Canada’s security officials told a House of Commons committee this week that they remain primarily focused on China’s threats to economic security in the North.

“Russia has a tremendous interest and focus in the Arctic,” Paul Lynd, assistant director at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told the foreign affairs committee on Thursday. “However, they are of less concern than, say, the activities of China and other hostile state actors at this time.”