Canada’s biggest arms expo is booming as Carney prioritizes defence

OTTAWA — Canada’s biggest arms expo is booming as an uncertain geopolitical climate and the federal government’s drive to rebuild the military combine to light a fire under the defence tech sector.

Hundreds of military equipment companies jostled to sell their wares this week at CANSEC, an annual event in the nation’s capital.

“There’s a belief this government wants to see action on this file and they’re following their ambitions with some actual concrete actions to make things happen,” said Christyn Cianfarani, president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, which hosts the show.

“I think that’s what’s giving the signal to the industry.”

Defence has been a top agenda item for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government as it ramps up spending on national defence and seeks to leverage the sector to help shore up the economy.

Carney even made an appearance at the trade show, telling the crowd he’s the first prime minister to do so.

That shift in federal priorities under Carney — who campaigned last year on Buy Canadian policies and on reducing the amount of Canadian defence dollars headed to the U.S. — has captured the industry’s attention.

CANSEC organizers said they had 20,000 registered attendees, and although only about 11,000 were physically on site on the first day, the space was packed the to brim.

“If it continues to grow like this, we will have to be very creative about how we deal with the show,” Cianfarani said.

Organizers have doubled the venue size through temporary structures and reconfigured floor space.

Defence has never been a high priority for any federal government since the end of the Cold War.

Former budget watchdog Kevin Page pointed out in a recent interview the federal government quietly eliminated a line-item from the annual budget tracking yearly defence spending — likely out of embarrassment.

Now, that spending is being ramped up to levels not seen since the 1980s.

The intensification of companies’ interest in CANSEC is also being driven by opportunity — a chance to press the flesh in Ottawa, where people in government are going to be making some big-money decisions on military procurement contracts.

Ottawa is replacing its aging Bell CH-146 Griffon helicopters, and the navy is in the market for a fleet of up to 12 conventional submarines.

Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr said a decision on the subs will come within weeks, by the end of June.

“This could possibly be the biggest procurement Canada has ever done, if we add in 12 boats, all the infrastructure and all the things that go along with that,” he told reporters at a news conference.

South Korea’s Hanwha Oceans bought prominent sponsorship slots at the expo, while a large German delegation promoting rival TKMS roamed the convention centre floor.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius made a lengthy and not-so-subtle sales pitch for the “state-of-the-art” war machines at a media availability, while standing alongside Defence Minister David McGuinty.

“It’s not only about military benefits,” Pistorius said, pledging tens of thousands of new jobs. “The impact on the GDP will amount to $85 billion and the total economic output will be $167 billion.”

A political decision about Canada’s much-delayed fighter jet procurement project also hangs over the show. A review of Ottawa’s F-35 order has now stretched on past a year.

Instead, Carney announced Ottawa will negotiate with Saab for a fleet of airborne radar surveillance planes.

Fuhr said choosing these surveillance planes doesn’t affect Ottawa’s fighter review.

“It doesn’t influence our direction to go one way or the other with the fighters.”

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly meantime unveiled at the venue that the Liberal government will overhaul how it weights bids on defence contracts, putting a larger premium on domestic content.

Joly said companies that expand their production or invest in R&D in Canada will get a larger industrial and technological benefits score multiplier.

She said the new policy will be linked directly to the government’s defence industrial strategy, so decisions are “based on what actually builds Canadian industrial capacity, not old regulatory habits.”

The Liberal government unveiled its strategy earlier this year, which seeks to build up annual revenues for small and mid-sized domestic firms by more than $5.1 billion.

Eric Giroux runs a tech startup based in Sherbrooke, Que. called SBQuantum.

It’s about 20 employees strong and growing, as it works on tech with civilian applications as well as military, is the kind that the strategy aims to support.

His company designs technology aimed at countering jamming of drones by providing navigation through magnetic fields, which can substitute GPS.

Speaking form a packed hallway, he said the people on the show floor buzzed all day about the Carney government’s prioritizing of defence.

“You walk around here and you can see everything is being rejuvenated. People are super excited about the Canadian government going full throttle on the defence strategy,” he said. “It’s booming.”

While industry has heard the Carney government’s grand political vision for the defence sector, other firms are searching for National Defence to update its shopping list, which can make it hard for some to set their plans.

The last update of Canada’s defence policy happened under the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2024.

Protesters opposed to the arms expo and wish to see it shuttered are set to stage a rally outside the show Thursday morning.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2026.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press