This article originally appeared in National Review. An excerpt of the article appears below.
By Daniel Dorman and Jamie Tronnes, April 16, 2026
There is something unprincipled and backward about Canada’s new Defense Industrial Strategy (DIS). Namely, its protectionism and not-so-subtle anti-Americanism.
As highlighted in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s press release, a core tenet of the strategy is to “raise the share of defense acquisitions awarded to Canadian firms to 70%” or, as Carney said elsewhere, to significantly reduce “dependency” on the U.S.
This buy-Canadian defense industrial strategy fails in two distinct ways. First, it takes advantage of the U.S. at a time of already strained relations and a forthcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. And second, as our colleague at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute Richard Shimooka explains, it is backward. Instead of starting by defining Canada’s defense needs (the actual requirements of Canada’s military and the capabilities needed to support our allies) and then building an industrial strategy to meet those needs, Canada started with an industrial strategy apparently designed to extract economic benefit from defense investment and which largely fails to consider the actual military needs of the Canadian Armed Forces.
In fairness, the DIS states, “Canada has a long history of working closely with the United States and looks forward to a continued strong Canada-U.S. defence relationship” but this strikes us as lip service — a half-hearted reassurance for American readers — against the broader messaging of “reducing reliance” on the U.S. that Carney highlighted as the strategy was released, and against the actual substance of the policy that Canada “will focus first on building in Canada.”
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Daniel Dorman is the managing editor and director of operations at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa.
Jamie Tronnes is the executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security in Washington, D.C.
