“Right there we’re at a disadvantage, especially if we insist on having Canadian-made major equipment — and the government, for obvious reasons, often insists on domestic production,” he said.Giroux said there’s definite value in having a domestic defence production capacity — but warned against policies that make Canada overly reliant on local production when more cost-efficient options exist overseas.
“But then that would be in breach of domestic production capacity policy, and that would leave Canada exposed to foreign suppliers in case of a war outbreak that would require significant ramp-up of production,” he said. “It’s one thing to procure major equipment from abroad, but in the case of war, it doesn’t guarantee us that we’ll be first to be served — we’d probably be at the back of the queue.”Article content