Canada’s defence budget has never been larger. The federal government has committed $63 billion for defence since last June — the largest year-over-year increase in generations. A further $50 billion will be allocated over the next year.

Alongside those numbers sits a policy commitment that is, on its own, unremarkable: at least five per cent of federal contracts should go to Indigenous businesses.

What is remarkable is how rarely anyone asks what that actually means.

I run LaFlesche, an advanced manufacturer on Kahnawà:ke Mohawk territory near Montreal. We are one of the few privately owned First Nations defence companies operating on-territory in this country. When I hear politicians and procurement officials talk about Indigenous business targets, I often wonder whether they are picturing a company like ours.

We have seen it enough times now that we recognize the look. A procurement official or defence contractor walks through our doors for the first time, expecting a startup operating out of a converted garage, or a cottage-industry supplier better suited to a gift-shop shelf than a defence supply chain. Then, somewhere between the reception area and the shop floor, their expression shifts. The conversation changes.

They came expecting to check a box. What they find instead is 22,000 square feet of meticulously maintained advanced-manufacturing facilities: five-axis machining centres, injection molding lines, mold-making capabilities, and a team of skilled tradespeople who hold their work to tolerances that would satisfy any aerospace or defence contract.

By the time the tour is over, the conversation is no longer about Indigenous procurement targets. It’s about capacity, lead times, and what we can build together.

We love watching this transformation. But these assumptions are costly. Not just to procurement teams. But to Canada. We are creating jobs and developing precision-manufacturing skills in our community. More than a dozen Kanien’kehá:ka interns have trained with us on the land their families have lived on for generations. This is not incidental to what we do. It is the point.

If the federal government is........

© IRPP - Policy Options