Canada awarded its first drone contracts through a new supplier marketplace on 10 September, up to C$50 million across six companies, on the day Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed what both governments call a 100-year partnership in Calgary.
The marketplace is the Defence Drone Initiative, launched on 23 July and modelled on Ukraine’s Brave1 platform. It has qualified nearly 400 suppliers. The first awards are two contracts of up to C$25 million each, one for low-cost tactical drones and one for uncrewed ground vehicles, at a unit price for surveillance drones of C$5,000 or less. An initial 100 units are due by 1 March, and up to 4,900 more can be ordered once the forces have tested them. Lt. Col. Nick Verreault, who heads the Canadian Armed Forces’ Joint Uncrewed Systems Office, said the arrangement means the forces get “an immediate solution” while “Canadian industry gets to learn how to manufacture.”
The six are AVSS of Fredericton with the Drone D1, Volatus Aerospace with the Huntsman X6, Draganfly of Saskatoon with the Astiia, Objexis AI of Oakville with the MAQ-C, and two ground-vehicle makers, Twenty20 Insight of Ottawa with the XRC Rhino and Beonyx of Saguenay with the VTSE-TC. Canadian infantry units hold about 2,000 drones today. Carney said that “in the years to come, we will need millions,” and the government has spoken of a national capacity of two million a year without putting a date on it.
The Ukraine half
The partnership agreement covers joint production of uncrewed systems, counter-drone technology and munitions, with Ukrainian designs built in Canada. Kyiv says 30% of the drones produced under the programme will go to Ukraine’s forces. General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada signed a cooperation agreement with the Ukrainian firm Green Tech Harvest to develop and produce drones, following a letter of intent on co-production signed in Kyiv on 24 August 2025.
Canada also committed about C$350 million to air defence interceptors for Ukraine through the JUMPSTART programme. Zelenskyy said the package will “strengthen our air defense — both our Patriots and our combat aircraft.”
FlightBrief analysis: C$50 million buys a few thousand C$5,000 drones. What Canada has copied is the Ukrainian procurement model — qualify hundreds of vendors, buy small lots fast, reorder what works — and is applying it to its own forces at the same time as it opens a production line for Ukrainian designs. The 30% share sends part of the Canadian-built output back to the country whose combat data shaped the designs. Canada was lead nation at Poland’s MSPO show the same week, the first from outside Europe to hold the slot, with 82 companies in its pavilion; this is what it was there to sell.
The first 100 units are due on 1 March 2027.
