October 1, 2026
Winnipeg-area aerospace industry hopes to land federal defence dollars
· CBC News ·
Winnipeg’s aerospace industry — the third-largest among Canadian cities — is working to ensure Manitoba receives its fair share of defence spending.
The federal budget called for Ottawa to spend just over $48 billion on defence during the 2026-27 fiscal year and Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for defence spending increases in the coming years.
Manitoba’s NDP government has launched an effort to ensure more Winnipeg-area companies are able to bid for defence work, while incumbent Winnipeg mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham has made the expansion of the city’s aerospace and defence sectors a plank in his re-election campaign.
The parallel moves suggest the continued growth of Winnipeg’s aerospace sector is an economic development priority for both Gillingham’s office and Wab Kinew’s provincial government.
“We are third in Canada right now. We punch above our weight class already in aerospace,” Waverley MLA David Pankratz, the Military Envoy in the NDP government, said at an aerospace-industry gathering in Winnipeg on Wednesday.
