QUESTION PERIOD — National Defence
Military Procurement
May 6, 2026
Government leader, Conservatives want to save this economy from your bad judgment, but that is another story.
In your response to Senator Wells yesterday, you went on with enthusiasm and pride about the announcement of defence spending. However, you would have to agree that there is a fundamental distinction between announcements, budgetary projections and actual dollars spent.
For decades, Canada’s defence procurement system has been mired in red tape and inefficiency, leaving our Armed Forces badly under-equipped and completely overstretched. Leader, beyond the fancy announcements, what concrete, actionable plan does your government have to ensure that promised investments translate into real capabilities for our Armed Forces, not just empty PR promises?
When we invest $81.8 billion over five years into upgrading our tanks and light-armoured vehicle fleet, acquiring new long-range missile capabilities, modernizing our artillery capabilities, increasing recruitment retention with $2.6 billion, repairing and developing key infrastructure with $844 million, upgrading the military technological infrastructure and increasing munition supply, those are concrete investments. Those are concrete facts.
Government leader, those are aspirational. Those are promises. Those are line items. We’ve heard this for 30 years now from three successive governments. You have to agree: The procurement process at National Defence hasn’t delivered on any of them, even the small, minute promises that were made in the past, including by this Liberal government over the last decade.
How will you make this ambitious list actually work in the next 36 months, for example?
We will do it by doing what the government does best: working every day to provide new jobs for Canadians, making sure that our economy is growing stronger, forming alliances all over the world, diversifying our economy and working every day toward Canadian prosperity.
