Minister won’t say why Ottawa cancelled Ukraine armoured vehicle contract

Defence Minister David McGuinty was pressed about the contract at the House of Commons national defence committee while speaking on Canada's defence spending and NATO commitments.

The Department of National Defence has quietly cancelled a contract with a Canadian firm to refurbish armoured vehicles to be delivered to Ukraine — but the federal defence minister won’t say why.

Defence Minister David McGuinty was pressed about the contract at the House of Commons national defence committee on Tuesday as part of a general briefing on Canada’s defence spending and NATO commitments.

Conservative defence critic and committee vice-chair James Bezan said the contract with Armatec Survivability in Dorchester, Ont., near London, was for 25 light armoured vehicles to be refurbished by the company, but that none of those vehicles had been delivered to Ukraine and the contract had been “paused or cancelled.”

“A decision has been made to nullify the contract with that company presently, so obviously I can’t go any further in discussing the merits of it,” McGuinty responded. “We’ll see how that evolves in the relationship between the department and the contractor.”

Bezan cut off McGuinty as he tried to detail past armoured vehicle deliveries to Ukraine to note much of that equipment has been destroyed by Russian attacks, and asked why Ottawa would cancel a contract that would provide what the Ukrainians need while supporting Canadian jobs.

The minister responded that he wanted to “give you more insight into the reasoning behind the department’s decision to cancel the contract, but I’m not in a position to do so.”

Efforts to reach representatives for Armatec to comment on McGuinty’s testimony were unsuccessful Tuesday.

Bezan claimed the government had put a “gag order” on the company that prevented it from commenting on the contract.