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![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GlobalEye_plane_CANSEC_Ottawa_May2026_Justin_Tang_CP176361239_1920x1280-768x510.jpg\")
\t<\/a><\/p>\n\t \n\tBy Over the images, a lilting Tears for Fears synth-pop classic<\/a> played at thundering volume:<\/p>\n All for freedom and for pleasure<\/p>\n No-thing ev-er lasts forever<\/p>\n Every-bo-dy waaants to rule the woooorld\u2026<\/p>\n Shortly, Carney would take the stage beneath the screens to make a flurry<\/a> of Canada\u2019s-back announcements on defence spending, apparently the first sitting prime minister ever to deliver a keynote at the trade show.<\/p>\n \u201cJust six weeks after forming government, we announced our ambitious plan to rebuild, rearm, and reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces,\u201d Carney said. That means spending billions of dollars, and that makes him a popular man (unless you want some of the business and don\u2019t get it<\/a>). After the speech, German reporters mobbed Carney and, later, Canada\u2019s Defence Minister David McGuinty, asking variations of the same question: \u201cWhat will it take for Canada to buy<\/a> German submarines?\u201d<\/p>\n Carney took reporters\u2019 questions in the curtained-off corner of a noisy entryway, as if he were in a foreign capital and making do with whatever space his staff could find.<\/p>\n Ottawa\u2019s Cohere Centre, which opened in 2012 as the biggest trade-show venue in the capital, overflowed. Organizers added a tent annex to make more room and closed the site\u2019s parking lot to accommodate heavy armaments, including Airbus helicopters and an actual Saab Gripen fighter jet.<\/p>\n \t\t \tDefence Minister David McGuinty navigates the crowded floor of the Cansec trade show in Ottawa. Photo: The Canadian Press\/Justin Tang\t<\/p>\n Attendees lined up to sit in the Gripen, which Saab hopes to sell<\/a> to Canada in place of a full fleet of American F-35s<\/a>. A record 21,300 had registered in all, according to organizers, almost 50 per cent more than last year\u2019s record.<\/p>\n Inside, the floor was crammed with so many people on Day 1 that moving around was like making your way through the standing-room floor of a rock concert. Instead of sweaty music fans, though, you\u2019d elbow your way past retired generals and admirals in business suits (ex-chief of the defence staff Wayne Eyre and ex-navy chief Art McDonald, for instance), presidents of divisions of U.S. defence contractors, and smaller-time entrepreneurs looking for partners who might get them into meetings with governments that have turned on the money-hoses.<\/p>\n Here was a Roshel armoured car. There was a mannequin in body armour. MDA Space\u2019s CEO Mike Greenley held court amid an open booth bar. Across the aisle was shipbuilder Seaspan, giving away its own cans<\/a> of citrus-flavoured \u201cSub Soda.\u201d Besides having its name on the building, defence-eager<\/a> AI star Cohere had a relatively subdued presence in the back tent, where the theme was less hardware and more cyber. Cohere and Ottawa tech company Calian announced<\/a> a new partnership timed to the show.<\/p>\n The Logic has told you about many of the companies trying to make names for themselves at Cansec, like Galvion<\/a>, Wuxly<\/a>, Palitronica<\/a>, Volatus<\/a> and Anvil<\/a>, and we\u2019ll report on many more in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n Cansec is the marquee event put on by the established Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), which includes subsidiaries of foreign companies. Cansec is big\u2014so very big\u2014but the nationalistic times have spawned a competing group of upstarts in the Canada-only Association of Canadian Defence Companies (if CADSI\u2019s theme song is \u201cEverybody Wants to Rule the World,\u201d ACDC\u2019s might be \u201cDirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n (Not on the Cansec show floor but on several attendees\u2019 lips: ACDC member Dominion Dynamics<\/a>, whose CEO Eliot Pence is the most prominent defence-sector member of Carney\u2019s Canada-U.S advisory committee<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
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\n\tDavid Reevely and Laura Osman\n\t<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/McGuinty_crowd_Cansec_Ottawa_May2026_Justin_Tang_CP176360967_1920x1280.jpg\")
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