Ontario Construction News staff writer

The federal government has announced $1.4 billion to expand Canada’s domestic ammunition production, including new facilities in Ontario and Quebec aimed at reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.

The funding flows through the newly launched Canadian Defence Industry Resilience Program, which is intended to increase manufacturing capacity for defence-related materials and address supply chain gaps.

As part of the program, Ottawa will provide up to $305.4 million to IMT Precision to build a facility in Ingersoll, Ont., to produce empty metal shells used in 155mm artillery projectiles. The project is expected to create at least 75 full-time jobs, with employment potentially rising to 400 at full production.

Defence Minister David McGuinty said the funding is “essential to national security” and will lead to new jobs.

“The ability to produce our own ammunition is not optional. It’s essential,” he said at a Wednesday news conference.

Three additional agreements have been signed with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems for projects in Quebec. These include $355.7 million for a nitrocellulose plant, up to $57.9 million for a facility to load and assemble artillery propellant charges, and up to $642 million for a plant to produce 155mm high-explosive projectiles.

The government says the investments are intended to expand domestic production of key ammunition components and improve supply chain reliability. The projects are also expected to support Canada’s role within NATO by contributing to North American supply capacity.

The spending is tied to Ottawa’s broader defence industrial strategy, which calls for increased military investment in the coming years. Budget plans include $6.6 billion over five years to support defence industry growth, supply chains and stockpiles, alongside a longer-term goal of increasing defence spending as a share of the economy.

According to federal figures, Canada’s defence industry contributes about $10 billion annually to GDP and supports more than 81,000 jobs.

The federal money is going in part to production of M795 shells. Canadian manufacturers produce a variant of the 155 mm shell known as the M107, a shorter-range and lower-power shell used for training and enemy harassment.

Spending is tied to Ottawa’s broader defence industrial strategy, which calls for increased military investment in the coming years. Budget plans include $6.6 billion over five years to support defence industry growth, supply chains and stockpiles, alongside a longer-term goal of increasing defence spending as a share of the economy..

The Battle of Ontario will move to Ottawa on Saturday night for the first time this season.

Fresh off a 4-3 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs will make a short stop in Ottawa to play the Senators at Canadian Tire Centre.

The Senators are coming off a comeback win over the New York Islanders on Thursday night, thanks to late-game heroics from Brady Tkachuk. Travis Green told the media on Saturday morning that the same lineup would carry over from that game, including starting netminder Linus Ullmark.

Green shuffled the forward lines down the stretch on Thursday night — like he often does when he’s looking for a spark — but the same four lines that have started the last seven games skated together at morning skate on Saturday.

“I think during the game, going into the game sometimes I have in the back of my mind something I might try, or sometimes during the game just whoever’s going, I’ll make a change if we don’t like the look of something,” explained Green.

“But these lines have been good for a little while, I think it’s obvious that I’m not afraid to change, but we’ve played well with them.”

Meanwhile, the Sens are relying on contributions from defencemen who have stepped up in the absence of Jake Sanderson and Nick Jensen.

Thomas Chabot saw 30:53 time on ice on Thursday on the first pair, the most he’d played in a game that ended in regulation since Nov. 23, 2021. Dennis Gilbert is set to play his fifth game in a row since being called up from Belleville, proving a steady partner for Nikolas Matinpalo on the third pair.

“We’re just trying to be really simple and efficient with the puck,” said Gilbert. “And then just really reliable and strong defensively, and physical. There’s a fine line in our system between being good defensively and running around chasing contact and stuff. So just trying to make sure that I’m underneath my guy, and communicating with my partner and my teammates on the ice.”

The Ontario government’s plan to create a new electronic medical records system for primary care is being met with cautious optimism by some who have long called for better health records in the province to support seamless patient care and track immunizations, among other things.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced a plan to replace the current fragmented and disconnected system with a primary-care medical records system that would be connected and accessible from across the province. The new records system, announced earlier this past week, is part of the province’s plan to connect every Ontario resident with primary care by 2029.

An integrated health records system would mean faster access to patient records for health providers and reduce the need for patients to repeat their histories when moving between health-care providers. I could also help prevent unnecessary medical testing.

It could also go a long way toward closing a gap that leaves Ontario with unreliable data about vaccination rates at a time when vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise, said Dr. Kumanan Wilson, who is CEO and chief scientific officer of the Bruyère Health Research Institute.

Getting it right will be challenging, though, as a previous provincial government learned, and it is crucial that the health data remain in Canada, Wilson said.

“In theory it is a good idea, but the devil is going to be in the details,” he said, adding, “They have tried this before.”

David Caplan, who was the health minister in Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty’s government, was forced to resign in 2009 amid an eHealth agency spending scandal. A damning report from Ontario’s auditor general said the agency had spent $1 billion with little to show for it. A later report put a figure of $8 billion on various electronic health record initiatives by provincial governments.

Today, the vast majority of Ontario family physicians use electronic medical records, but most systems are not fully integrated, making it difficult for doctors and hospitals to easily share records. And parents are still required to transfer information about their children’s immunizations by hand to schools and public health agencies because electronic records systems can’t.

Among the challenges will be the difficulty of building a system centrally and convincing doctors who are already using other systems to switch.

But Wilson sees even greater challenges, especially now.

He is among the voices that have been calling for sovereignty and security of Canadian health data — meaning that electronic health data should be kept in Canada.

In an article published in 2025 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Wilson, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, and Mari Teitelbaum, chief innovation officer at CHEO, warned that Canadian health data could be at risk from foreign surveillance and monetization without adequate protections.

Specifically, U.S. law allows that country’s government to access data held by American companies for national security reasons. More recent legislation allows U.S. law enforcement to access data held by U.S. companies on foreign soil.

In addition to being potentially used for security reasons, Canadian data could be monetized by foreign companies without appropriate consent.

The authors wrote that Canada had to take steps to ensure health data were secure by requiring encryption by default and that federal and provincial privacy laws should require that data be stored in the region from which they come.

Electronic medical records are often stored on cloud servers managed by U.S. providers owned by American tech giants.

Wilson said sovereignty and security had to be key considerations for Ontario in creating a connected primary-care medical records system.

“I think it needs to be a Canadian company. I am not comfortable with U.S. companies hosting Canadian data,” he said. “We can’t give more of our health-care data to U.S. companies.”

Data sovereignty is becoming a big issue globally. Europe is taking steps to ensure its health data remains under the control of European citizens and institutions.

It should also be a priority for Ontario when it is talking to potential vendors for the project, Wilson said.

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OTTAWA — The federal government is pouring $1.4 billion into the munitions industry to build up the domestic supply of heavy artillery shells and reduce Canada’s reliance on foreign suppliers.

Ottawa will put public funds toward new facilities in Ingersoll, Ont., and Repentigny, Que., for producing components used to make heavy artillery shells.

The funding will be split between IMT Precision and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Canada. General Dynamics Ordnance, a subsidiary of the major U.S. defence contractor General Dynamics, will get the lion’s share of the funds.

The goal is to quickly ramp up production of 155-millimetre artillery shells and to start production of nitrocellulose, a compound used as a propellant in artillery shells.

China currently dominates the global nitrocellulose market on which NATO countries rely. Western nations also have sanctioned nitrocellulose firms supplying Russia, further tightening the supply.

National Defence says it’s looking to get production of nitrocellulose up and running in the next three years.

The federal money is going in part to production of M795 shells. Canadian manufacturers produce a variant of the 155 mm shell known as the M107, a shorter-range and lower-power shell used for training and enemy harassment.

Defence Minister David McGuinty said the funding is “essential to national security” and will lead to new jobs.

“The ability to produce our own ammunition is not optional. It’s essential,” he said at a Wednesday news conference.

The industry has been waiting a long time for this.

The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, which represents hundreds of domestic defence firms, has been aggressively pushing the government to restock the Canadian military’s ammunition stores and convert domestic munitions lines.

“It’s something that’s been dangling there for years, since the start of the war in Ukraine, really,” Christyn Cianfarani, the organization’s CEO, said in an email. “So it’s good to see they’re starting to roll this out.”

Canada has struggled with the task of replenishing its munitions stocks and has donated ammunition to shell-hungry Ukraine for use in its war against Russia.

Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University, said this a good start but the federal government is still short a robust, sovereign supply chain that could get it through more than a few days of a shooting war.

“This stuff, we should’ve been doing a long time ago. Everyone wants to talk about drones but this is bread-and-butter stuff that the army desperately needs,” Leuprecht said.

He added that Ottawa needs to stop being squeamish about entering into long-term munitions contracts.

“Canada is notorious for, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll order 3,000 shells this year and the next year we’ll order 5,000.’ If you’re industry, you’re not going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars if you have no idea how much you’re going to be able to sell,” Leuprecht said.

McGuinty unveiled the funding at an IMT plant in Ingersoll, a community still reeling from layoffs at the General Motors’ CAMI Assembly factory. He pledged the new facility will lead to some 400 jobs.

McGuinty did not answer when asked about the prospect of converting the CAMI plant to the manufacture of military vehicles.

But the minister said the federal government is in talks with major car manufacturers about converting auto facilities to defence production and “will have more to say about this in due course.”

The funding breakdown has IMT receiving up to $305 million for a new factory to produce metal casings for 155 mm projectiles.

General Dynamics Canada will get just over $1 billion in funds.

The biggest chunk of that, $642 million, will go toward a plant to make 155 mm high‑explosive projectiles.

A further $355.7 million goes to setting up the nitrocellulose facility, while $57.9 million has been set aside to create Canada’s first plant making the M231 and M232 charges used in 155 mm artillery rounds.

The funding all falls under the new Canadian Defence Industry Resilience program, part of the Liberal government’s new defence industrial strategy aimed at building up domestic military supply chains and production capacity.

The Liberals are seeking to spotlight components of that strategy with a series of funding announcements this week.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2026.

Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — The federal government will spend $228.8 million over the next three years to help Ontario workers in industries hit hard by U.S. tariffs, acquire new skills and adapt to the trade war disruption.

The new Canada-Ontario Workforce Tariff Response will support workers and job seekers in the province’s softwood lumber, steel and automotive industries — areas still facing steep sectoral tariffs from the United States.

“This is really about trying to ensure that the skills training lines up with what the market needs,” federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.

Ottawa estimates the funding will allow 27,000 people to access training or other supports through existing provincial programs and Skills Advance Ontario, a new program aimed at tariff-affected workers.

The federal government announced similar plans last week to spend $70.4 million over three years to support workers in British Columbia facing tariff impacts. Hajdu said the federal government is in the process of signing such agreements with every province and territory.

Ontario already has a standing agreement with the federal government to receive roughly $925 million annually for skills training and other employment supports.

Hajdu said the new funding recognizes the tariff disruption has changed the types of work that are in demand in Ontario.

She said Ontario’s unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent — higher than national level at 6.5 per cent — is a “red flag” for the province’s economy. Both the Ontario and national jobless rates fell in January as Statistics Canada said fewer people were searching for work.

“When a tariff deeply impacts a sector and that company or sector has to pivot quickly to new product or new processes or even new markets which may require different specifications, sometimes workers don’t have those specific skill sets,” Hajdu said.

Hajdu said the federal government is working with Sault-Ste. Marie, Ont.-based Algoma Steel and the union to support workers. Algoma announced in December it would lay off 1,000 people.

Laura Devoni, Algoma Steel vice-president of human resources and corporate affairs, attended Tuesday’s announcement.

She said the 1,000 affected workers have not been laid off yet as Algoma works through a transition that will see it pivot from traditional blast furnaces to a greener form of steelmaking.

Algoma received $500 million in combined support from the federal and Ontario governments in September to help with that transition and to pivot to a business model less reliant on the United States.

Devoni suggested Algoma could hire back some workers affected by the looming layoffs.

“We are looking forward to diversification with the support of Ontario and the federal government. We do have plans to have people re-skilled and rehired in the future,” she said.

On Monday, Hajdu also announced $94.5 million in spending over five years to improve data sharing on job opportunities in key sectors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 10, 2026.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press