Ottawa's sluggish bureaucracy leaves critical gaps in Canadian military ammo supply: AG
A new audit reveals Canada's strategic ammunition stockpile cannot support war readiness or NATO commitments. The report blames Public Services and Procurement Canada for slow restocking, alongside National Defence for failing to manage regular inventory. Despite a $9.2-billion funding pledge, fixing these critical capability gaps will take several years.
Auditor general slams defence, procurement departments over shortage
Murray Brewster · CBC News
·
Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
A new report by the auditor general takes shots at both the Department of National Defence and Public Services and Procurement Canada over their handling of the Canadian military's strategic stockpile of ammunition.
Karen Hogan's latest report, tabled on Thursday, concluded that the Defence Department does not manage its ammunition to meet its regular use and strategic stockpile needs and the federal procurement agency was slow in efforts to restock ammunition.
Her analysis found that the strategic stockpile, which the military needs in case of war, did not contain "all the types and quantities of ammunition required" and there were significant gaps.
More importantly, perhaps, Hogan noted that the problem is affecting Canada's international commitments.
WATCH | AG on munitions shortfall:
Auditor general says Canada's military stockpile has 'critical gaps'
3 hours ago|
Duration
1:40
Auditor General Karen Hogan says when it comes to managing its ammunition inventory, Canada's military has 'lots of weaknesses.'"As at March 2026, National Defence determined that the Canadian Armed Forces' readiness level to meet North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commitments was well below target, and ammunition was one of the contributing capability shortfalls, especially for the strategic stockpile," said the audit.
The scathing assessment was released on the same day federal officials released the country's new national security strategy, which warned Canada needed to "prepare for all contingencies up to and including war."
The auditor's report noted that in 2024, the federal government dedicated $9.2 billion over 13 years to support strategic stockpile replenishment, and some contracts have been awarded. But at the current pace, it will take several years to close the gaps.
When it comes to buying ammunition, the auditor looked at 15 regular‑use ammunition contracts and found it took an average of almost 19 months from contract signature to final delivery.
In addition, Public Services and Procurement Canada "did not consistently track and document why contracts were changed to extend delivery dates."
The audit also pointed out how the military — when it had ammunition — only used about half of what was allocated.
Hogan suggested that "limited or cancelled" training activities were likely to blame, but the Defence Department did not track or explain the reasons.
"For example, National Defence's analysis as at March 2026 noted that equipment, such as tanks and ships, was often out of service, which limited their availability for use in training and military exercises," said the audit.
"Other factors, such as a lack of personnel or poor environmental conditions, might have also prevented these activities."
Defence minister embraces recommendations
Defence Minister David McGuinty said increasing the military's supply of ammunition is among the government's top defence priorities.
"The entire auditor general report on ammunition tells us that we have progress to make, and we're making it," McGuinty told reporters after the report was tabled.
"We accept and embrace all of those recommendations. In fact, we're acting on most of them already."
Canada's former top military commander sounded the alarm three years ago about the critical state of the military's ammunition supply.
The report says the munitions shortfall will take years to resolve. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
Retired general Wayne Eyre, the former chief of the defence staff, also criticized lack of industrial capacity for military ammunition.
Appearing before a House of Commons committee, he warned that if the Canadian military consumed ammunition at the same rate as seen in the war in Ukraine, Canada would exhaust much of its ammunition stock within days.
Eyre also pointed out that — at the time — no new production lines had been opened to address the shortage.
He said that when Canada started providing military aid to Ukraine, it did so from "pretty empty" shelves, noting that domestic industrial capacity to regenerate artillery pieces, rockets and ammunition was largely non-existent.
The Conservative Opposition said the situation is critical and cannot be allowed to continue.
"The Liberals must act immediately to rectify the unacceptable state of Canada's ammunition stockpiles: both inventory and accounting," said defence critic James Bezan. "This is not an insurmountable problem. It is a question of political will."
In addition to the money committed in 2024, the federal government in March of this year released a $1.4-billion framework to rapidly scale up domestic munitions production.
The plan includes a $305-million investment IMT Precision, in Ingersoll, Ont., and nearly $1 billion to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Quebec for artillery round production.
Among other things, there are also plans to construct a domestic nitrocellulose production facility, which critically supports the supply of ammunition.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Murray Brewster is the senior defence writer for CBC News, based in Ottawa. He has covered the Canadian military and foreign policy from Parliament Hill for over a decade. Among other assignments, he spent a total of 15 months on the ground covering the Afghan war for The Canadian Press. Prior to that, he covered defence issues and politics for CP in Nova Scotia for 11 years and was bureau chief for Standard Broadcast News in Ottawa.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.