Research primer / Canadian Defense
Canada’s defense billions, and the long road from budget to cash flow.
Canada reached NATO’s 2% target in 2025 and has signed up for 5% by 2035. That is tens of billions of dollars of new procurement.
Strategy, supply chains & procurement
Canadian Defense
Following the path from national priorities to funded programs, supplier contracts and cash generation.
NATO’s March 2026 figures put Canada at the alliance’s 2%-of-GDP guideline for 2025 — more than C$60 billion, up from 1.47% in 2024 — and the government has signed on to the new 5% target by 2035 [1]. A spending commitment is not a supplier contract. This theme follows the money from budget to backlog to cash.
Research in this theme
Research brief / Canadian Defense
Backlog is not revenue, and in defense it may not be funded.
CAE's C$19.3 billion adjusted backlog includes C$1.7 billion of unfunded orders and options; MDA Space's order book shrank C$320 million in…
Relevant company profiles
Flight simulation and training (civil aviation and defense) / Operating · transformation plan under way
CAE Inc.
TSXCAENasdaqCAE
CAE builds full-flight simulators and sells training, in two segments: Civil Aviation, which trains airline and business-jet pilots in its own…
- Revenue (latest quarter)
- C$1,173.4MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
- Operating income (latest quarter)
- C$86.8MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
- Net income (latest quarter)
- C$31.0MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
All figures are in Canadian dollars, CAE's reporting currency, under IFRS. The fiscal year ends March 31; the quarter ended June 30, 2026 is the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Adjusted backlog, adjusted order intake, adjusted segment operating income, adjusted EPS, free cash flow and net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA are management's non-IFRS or supplementary measures as the MD&A defines them. Blank means not yet verified, never zero.
Saint-Laurent (Montreal), Quebec
Read profile
Satellites, space robotics and geointelligence / Operating · factory ramp and two pending acquisitions
MDA Space
TSXMDANYSEMDA
MDA Space builds satellites, space robotics and Earth-observation services from Canada.
- Revenue (latest quarter)
- C$498.6MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
- Adjusted EBITDA (latest quarter)
- C$96.3MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
- Net income (latest quarter)
- C$27.9MQuarter ended Jun 30, 2026
All figures are in Canadian dollars, MDA Space's reporting currency, unless marked US$ or €. Quarterly figures are for the three months ended June 30, 2026 from the August 7, 2026 release, and for the three months ended March 31, 2026 from the May 7, 2026 release. Adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, free cash flow and net cash are management's non-IFRS measures as the company defines them. Blank means not yet verified, never zero.
Brampton, Ontario
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The record
Desk notes in this theme
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Results / Canadian Defense
CAE's first-quarter revenue rises 6.8% as Defense orders lag sales
Revenue of C$1,173.4 million and C$104.0 million of free cash flow for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, against operating income cut to C$86.8 million by C$48.3 million of restructuring; adjusted backlog was C$19,192.3 million, with C$1,657.7 million of it unfunded orders and options.
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Results / Canadian Defense
MDA Space lifts Q2 2026 revenue 34% while free cash flow turns negative
Revenue of C$498.6 million and C$808.9 million of bookings lifted backlog to C$4.0 billion, up C$310 million from March but down C$565 million from a year earlier; operating cash flow was an outflow of C$93.4 million and guidance was narrowed upward.
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Policy / Canadian Defense
Canada awards a C$2.3 billion Arctic satellite communications contract; MDA Space builds the satellites
The Defence Investment Agency gave Telesat an initial contract of about C$2.3 billion for military Ka-band capacity on Lightspeed, with 69 more satellites to be built by MDA in Montréal; MDA's own release values its follow-on Telesat order at C$474 million.
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Deal / Canadian Defense
MDA Space sells 23,000,000 shares at US$35.60 to fund its CLS purchase
Six days after making a firm offer of about €567 million for 70% of France's CLS, MDA closed an upsized bought deal of 23,000,000 common shares for gross proceeds of about US$819 million, its second equity raise of 2026.
Data & documents
Go to the primary source.
Use the current releases linked below. We do not display live market data, and a source directory is never a verified data snapshot.
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1
Canada hits NATO defence spending target of 2 per cent
Reports NATO’s annual spending figures and the 5%-by-2035 pledge.
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2
Defence equipment purchases and upgrades
Program-by-program procurement status. The directory makes no claim about contract values.