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The Canadian Armed Forces used only 56 per cent of the regular-use ammunition assigned to them over the past three fiscal years. Meanwhile the strategic stockpile, which is reserved for combat, still has what the Auditor General calls significant gaps.
In a new performance audit, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) concludes that National Defence did not manage its ammunition to meet either its day-to-day or its wartime needs.
Why it matters
As of March 2026, DND rated CAF readiness to meet NATO commitments as well below target. Ammunition, especially the strategic stockpile, was one of the shortfalls behind that rating.
Ottawa committed $9.2 billion over 13 years in 2024 to rebuild the stockpile. DND committed $695 million of that money in 2025-26, but no ammunition from it had arrived by March 31, 2026.
February’s Defence Industrial Strategy named ammunition one of 10 areas where Canada must strengthen domestic control. The audit shows the domestic supply program behind that goal is running on expired paperwork.
Too much of some things, not enough of others
Regular-use inventory, the ammunition used for training, exercises and deployments, sat at 131 per cent of target. Guided munitions and bombs were at 293 per cent, miscellaneous items at 221 per cent, and pyrotechnics and smoke at 144 per cent. Medium-calibre (90 per cent) and large-calibre (96 per cent) stocks fell short.
The five largest user groups account for 87 per cent of assigned regular-use ammunition. The Royal Canadian Navy used roughly 40 per cent of its allocation in two of the three years. Canadian Joint Operations Command dropped to about 30 per cent in 2025-26.
The auditors say the requests were overstated and planned activities didn’t happen. Nobody tracked why. DND’s own analysis pointed to tanks and ships often being out of service.
A stockpile drained by training
DND restricted access to the strategic stockpile in 2021 after decades of it being drawn down for routine use. A 2022 baseline analysis of what the stockpile should hold left out ammunition for some aircraft. It also didn’t account for how long replenishment takes.
Of roughly 100 item types in the stockpile, 40 were being procured and eight had been delivered during the audit period. Those deliveries came from $355 million in other funding, not the 2024 envelope.
The books don’t balance
DND runs two IT systems for ammunition and has tried to merge them since 2012. In March 2026, 11 per cent of their records didn’t match.
31 per cent of storage locations missed their mandatory annual count, leaving $656 million in inventory unverified.
The OAG’s financial audit work found an average 13 per cent error rate in sampled ammunition quantities over three years.
The procurement picture
Contract awards jumped from about $800 million in 2024-25 to almost $3 billion in 2025-26. On 15 completed regular-use contracts worth $96 million, it took nearly 19 months on average from signature to final delivery. Eight of the 14 PSPC-managed contracts arrived late, and half were amended to give suppliers more time. PSPC did not consistently record why.
Two of the four Munitions Supply Program strategic source agreements expired more than three years ago and contain no performance metrics. PSPC blamed staffing.
What Ottawa says
Both departments agreed to all recommendations. In a notable admission, DND said available funding historically capped how much ammunition it ordered, rather than actual requirements. It also pushed back on applying a requirements-based model to training ammunition. PSPC says renewal of the expired supply agreements begins this fall. DND’s full ammunition program isn’t due until 2028-29.
Bottom line
The money for the stockpile is now there. The audit suggests the harder problems are knowing what DND has, knowing what it needs and holding suppliers to delivery dates. At the current pace, the OAG says, closing the stockpile gaps will take several years.
