An extra $81 billion over five years for updating and ramping up Canada’s defence systems — and holding up Canada’s end for NATO — represents great opportunity for Alberta companies.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan is expected to marry the needs of the Canadian Armed Forces and the capability of Canadian industry for the betterment of the country, former defence minister Peter MacKay in the Harper government told dozens of industry executives Monday in the bleachers at a defence industry roundtable at Edmonton Unlimited.

MacKay called recent promises by Carney’s government “heartening and long overdue,” although he remembered the challenge of manoeuvring through Ottawa bureaucracy and the “massive cross–threaded nature of departments.”

“You had Treasury Board that wanted to go through

See Full Page