The Canadian government’s $82-billion

defence industrial strategy

has widely been applauded by those in the industry, but some who have scrutinized the plan say a key vulnerability is the uncertainty around whether there are enough

skilled workers

to deliver on the plan.

“

Skills development

is going to be a critical piece” of achieving success, Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the

Centre for International Governance Innovation

, said. “If you don’t have

the workforce

, you can’t achieve any of this defence industrial strategy.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney in February said the plan “ensures Canada remains a sovereign nation, in charge of its own destiny” and that it envisions “pursuing a long-term, whole-of-government approach to strengthening the defence industrial base.”

The plan centred on

deepening workforce development

, indicating the government intends to “pursue a comprehensive Canada Defence Skills Agenda” focused on four core priorities: building the talent pipeline, investing in

defence sector skills

, growing the skilled labour supply and partnering with other levels of government to deliver defence skills.

Wark said the strategy aims to “more than double the current defence workforce, and this is one of many hugely ambitious efforts.”

The skills agenda portion of the strategy calls for a “strong Canadian industrial base” that has the domestic capacity to build equipment the military needs. This, according to the plan, “will require tens of thousands of trained new workers to fill the high-paying skilled jobs that will be created.”

Despite the ambitious workforce goals presented in the strategy, defence policy specialist Philippe Lagassé, a professor with the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, said the plan “underplays just how much of a challenge it’s going to be.”

He said a central aspect of the skills agenda involves “retraining people from one sector to another, and that’s no small feat.”

Due to personal and family considerations that are often involved in deciding whether to relocate for work, Lagassé said the government “can’t just assume that you’re going to be able to uproot people from one community, where there might be unemployment, and move them somewhere else.”

The strategy refers to specific components of the 2025 budget that are dedicated to spurring major expansion in the

domestic defence labour force

.

For example, a new strategic response fund commits $5 billion over six years “to help firms in all sectors and regions impacted by tariffs to adapt, diversify, and grow.”

Another defence workforce budget initiative carves out $383 million over five years to connect employers, unions and industry groups “to work on ways to help businesses and workers succeed in the changing labour market.”

Although the current budget allocates considerable funding to support defence-related employment priorities, Lagassé said the new strategy is “very much focused on the skilled trades” employment sector.

He said the government should also plan for the considerable investment of time and money that will be required to expand the professional workforce as well.

Because colleges and universities are managed by provinces and the defence strategy is a federal initiative, Lagassé said that “orders of government considerations” may complicate execution of the plan.

Even so, he said getting the talent management and employment pipeline aspects of the strategy right will be important for its ultimate success.

“Unless you have the people, none of this works,” he said. “Yet this is an underestimated part of the equation” reflected in the defence industrial strategy.

Another major aspect of Carney’s plan is supporting a “robust Canadian small and mid-sized business sector” for the national defence industrial base. SMBs currently “account for 92 per cent of Canada’s defence industrial base and 40 per cent of its employment,” according to the strategy.

Paul Ziadé, chief executive of Calgary-based North Vector Dynamics, said the defence industry’s SMB sector has so far adopted a “cautiously optimistic posture” to the new strategy.

He said SMB executives generally see the plan as “directionally correct, but we need to see the execution” from the government for the strategy to be implemented successfully.

Last month, Ziadé helped launch the Alliance of Canadian Defence Companies, which seeks to “rebuild Canada’s sovereign defence-industrial base.”

He said a major goal of the new strategy is government support for “Canadian businesses to increase their production capacity for defence-related goods, equipment, services and materials.”

Ziadé said achieving this objective will provide an opportunity for many existing industries to fill gaps identified by the government by pivoting to address defence industrial needs.

For example, he said wood pulp industries can be leveraged to create nitrocellulose, a key input for munitions. The struggling automotive sector’s solid manufacturing base could also pivot to support the strategic priority of deepening the domestic supply chain.

Ziadé pointed to other industries such as mining, artificial intelligence and data centres and petrochemicals that can also be leveraged to help successfully implement the new defence industrial strategy.

He said SMBs “have all the ingredients to make it happen,” so as long as the government provides sufficient guidance to convert the strategy from ambition to reality going forward, “there is a lot of industry appetite to support this defence renaissance in Canada.”

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