Industry Study Says Work Directed to Defence Firms Pays Off For Country

September 24, 2012. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) will release a report Thursday on the economic impact of defence and security Industry in Canada.

CADSI commissioned KPMG to write the report, which will be released at the Economic Club of Canada meeting to be held at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.

According to the industry association, KPMG surveyed CADSI members and “worked with the Statistics Canada input-output model,” used by the federal government. CADSI’s news release lists some of the findings:

“For every $1B of defence & security spend (sic) with Canadian firms:

•         $710M of GDP is created

•         $12.6B Annual Revenue Of Canada Defence &Security Firms

•         $1B of additional export revenue is created.

•         18,000 jobs are created or sustained in Canada

•         $428M of tax revenue is returned into Canada

•         Export and innovation are key to the sector’s competitiveness and, in a global managed market, Government support is essential to achieve our target of export revenue growth from 50% to 75% of a growing total industry revenue over 5 years.”

(The above is taken verbatim from the news release…I have added the sic).

CADSI bills itself as the voice of Canada’s defence and security industries and its membership represents over 900 member companies. According to CADSI those firms employ 109,000 workers and generate over $12.6 billion dollars to the Canadian economy every year.

CADSI members acknowledge they will face one major problem with this study – since it was done for the association, critics will view it as simply propaganda to bolster government spending on military procurement. Association members say they hope that the study will be seen as somewhat credible since KPMG was brought in to do it and the Stats Can model used.

Whether that is the case we will have to wait and see.