A Ukrainian serviceman controls the Vampire drone during a training flight in the Kharkiv region.Marko Djurica/Reuters

Eliot Pence is the founder of Tofino Capital and the former head of international growth for Anduril Industries.

Canada’s Department of Munitions and Supply was established during the Second World War to secure a reliable domestic source of ammunition and other critical defence supplies, ensuring the country could support both Allied forces and its own military needs.

In the 1970s, the department’s successor, the Munitions Supply Program (MSP), sustained continuous domestic production capacity through long-term contracts with private industry, stabilizing employment and supply chain resilience while maintaining military readiness.

Over the decades, the program expanded to cover a broad range of munitions, from small arms ammunition to artillery shells, and became a key component of Canada’s defence industrial base, supporting both peacetime operations and contingency mobilizations.

But now, the way we fight wars has changed. And Canada has no equivalent program for the modern equivalent of ammo: cheap, armed drones.

Their power was evident on Sunday, when a cheaply made Ukrainian fleet destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow’s........

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