Ottawa makes multibillion-dollar defence investment for armoured vehicles

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This is a CBC Podcast. The federal government makes another multi-billion dollar defense investment. The U.S. says the big concessions Canada has made in trade talks haven't really meant much. And U.S. President Donald Trump is set to give a major prime time address.

It's Thursday, July 16th. I'm David Cochran. The Power and Politics Podcast starts now. In London, Ontario today, the Prime Minister announced a new defence procurement deal. This partnership with General Dynamics Land Systems Canada will see the federal government spend nearly $2 billion over four years. And that price gets Canada 190 brand new armoured combat support vehicles to expand the Canadian Armed Forces fleet.

Now, the government says this purchase will create or sustain 6,000 jobs per year over the next eight years. Stephen Fuhrer is the Secretary of State for Defense Procurement, and he joins me now. Stephen Fuhrer, good to see you again, sir. Thank you for your time. Nice to see you again.

General Dynamics has been picked as a strategic partner under the defense policy that you've rolled out. They already make these LAVs, these light armored vehicles. So what fundamentally changes for General Dynamics with this designation? A couple of things. First of all, it'll allow them to deliver things faster.

There's greater certainty with regard to the future. There's better communications with the government moving forward. And there's better value for the taxpayer. The faster we can move, the less we're waiting to get things out the door, typically the cheaper they are.

Technology is changing very, very quickly. We need to have good communications with our suppliers to make sure that what we send people out the door with is going to be effective. If we've learned anything from Ukraine, that is an absolute must. So better comms, better certainty, businesses like certainty and better value.

I think this is a big win for everybody. Help me understand how they can deliver things faster because, you know, it takes as long as it takes to build something. Is this because they have better access to communicate with the government? They can be brought into the planning cycle earlier so they can start work.

Is that what you're talking about? 100%. I mean, if you think I used to run a business, I mean, I'm not going to go out and buy and stock parts and things that I need to build stuff. If I don't know if there's a bunch of uncertainty, whether I'm going to get it or not.

So this provides that certainty for them to to get out there and, you know, long lead items, all sorts of things that they're going to need. Now that they have certainty of what's coming down the pipeline, they can react to it much, much better. The other thing I want to add is that this interesting, I think, very interesting, is these vehicles primarily were sourced with steel out of the U.S. One of the many good parts of this story is this steel is now being sourced for Canada.

Think about the primary material used in these vehicles is steel. And now the steel is coming from Canada. So, you know, job opportunities for people, a supply chain that stretches right across the country. certainty. This is the vehicle that the Canadian Armed Forces wanted. I mean, this is exactly what

we want to do moving forward. Okay, just help me understand a little bit there on the steel procurement, because this is an order for 190 of these vehicles, bringing the total CAF fleet up to 550. There was an earlier purchase of 360 vehicles, which I think was approved in 2019, if I remember correctly. That's very good. Right. Were those 360 made primarily with American steel,

and now the next 190 will use Canadian steel? Is that the shift here? That's my understanding is that the steel is primarily being sourced out of the U.S. And this is no longer the case.

We've had tariffs on steel for a number of months now, probably in the better part of a year. And we just didn't have the type of steel that was needed or the way the contract. There's a number of things that were driving that.

But I'm being told now that the steel that we are making, that GDLS is using to make vehicles moving forward is being sourced from Canada. Yes. Yeah. So that was that was stated by the prime minister today. I guess I'm wondering, Minister, is is that shift in the procurement? Is that a condition of this purchase or is this just a consequence of the trade uncertainty the U.S. has created and the counterterrorists and other things just causing sort of a cost push that maybe made the Canadian option more attractive?

No, I think that it's a it's a combination of a whole bunch of factors. I mean, we're putting significant pressure on our primes to Canadianize the supply chains, to give other companies opportunities to participate in the spend. I mean, this is the only way that we're going to maximize the value for Canadian companies. It isn't just giving money to primes, but it's making sure that that money rolls down to other suppliers, small to medium-sized enterprises right across the country.

And where we can, whether it be GDLS or Bombardier or any of the major shipyards, these are the conversations we're having with them a lot to make sure that they do this where they can. And they've all been very cooperative. And I'm quite happy to say that they're doing the best they can, which is great. OK, so on this, there's a number of several thousand jobs that the prime minister talked about that are attached to this.