Canada wants 70 per cent of its defence needs met by Canadian companies. One of the country's largest defence firms says it isn't ready, and that the way Ottawa is buying today could make things worse.

"If we had to do that tomorrow morning, we would really struggle, because we haven't necessarily built the infrastructure to achieve that," Chris Pogue, president of Calian's Defence & Space group, told the DEFSEC Atlantic conference in Halifax.

Pogue's sharpest warning was about the foreign platforms Ottawa has announced over the past six to eight months. He called those purchases necessary, but said the in-service support contracts attached to them will run for decades. Unless those contracts let Canadian firms inject new capability over time, he said, the country will end up with equipment it can't upgrade.

"If we don't create those contracting platforms and those vehicles, and if we don't enable Canadian industry to engage in it, we will have purchased obsolescence," he said.