Barrie: 1)Barrie looks to strengthen defence investment readiness with new mayoral direction; 2)Trade diversification is working for some Canadian cities … Barrie isn’t one of them.

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Julius Hern, May 28, 2026

The City of Barrie is trying to position itself to attract more investment in Canada’s growing defence and advanced manufacturing sectors.

Mayor Alex Nuttall announced a new mayoral direction at the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CANSEC) conference on Thursday, aimed at making Barrie more competitive for defence-related business development and job creation.

“In Barrie, we understand that success in the sector comes down to one thing: move at the speed of business,” Nuttall said during the announcement in Ottawa, speaking to a crowd of defence entrepreneurs.

As part of the direction, Barrie plans to update zoning bylaws so defence industries and “sovereign-aligned uses” are clearly defined and permitted within the city. The initiative also includes an initial $50 million incentive package aimed at attracting investment and accelerating development.

The city says the initiative is part of a broader “Team Ontario” effort to support Canada’s military capabilities and expand domestic defence manufacturing.

CANSEC is Canada’s largest defence and security trade show, bringing together companies from across Canada and around the world to showcase military and emerging technologies.

Officials also plan to introduce financial incentives aimed at attracting defence-related investment, including a proposed sovereign defence industry program under the city’s Employment Development Community Improvement Plan. The program would reduce development charges for eligible defence industries.

The city also intends to create a dedicated concierge model designed to move projects through municipal processes more quickly.

“We find ourselves at the precipice of a generational opportunity and only the jurisdictions who move with urgency, nimbleness, and intent will stand to benefit,” said Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade.

Nuttall said Barrie’s location, available employment lands, skilled workforce, and proximity to Canadian Forces Base Borden position the city well for growth in the defence, aerospace, and dual-use technology sectors.

“Barrie is the easy button for companies looking to invest, expand and grow,” he said.

The city also pointed to investments through the Sandbox Regional Innovation Centre, along with support for Lakehead University’s soon-to-open engineering and STEM hub, as part of its efforts to support defence technology advancement.

Nuttall also announced an additional $2.5 million to support the training of Canadian Armed Forces members at Georgian College’s Barrie campus.

At the conference, the mayor says he and eight of 11 city councillors have been working the floor to build relationships and talk about why Barrie is the right place for them and talk about why the city is the right place in order to find that skilled labour.

“We’ve been able to meet with a number of companies that are considering Barrie. I think we have nine local manufacturing businesses working the floor,” said Nuttal. “Some of them have defence capability already and are supporting defence projects in other places by creating small pieces of them.”

A public meeting on proposed updates to the Employment Lands Development Community Improvement Plan is scheduled for June 17 during the city’s affordability committee meeting. Residents wishing to provide comments must register with the city clerk’s office before noon that day.

Nuttall’s announcement coincided with the Ontario government unveiling its framework for the Ontario Defence Industrial Strategy, which aims to create up to 43,000 jobs in the sector and add $6 billion to the provincial economy.

“With our manufacturing know-how, our cutting-edge research ecosystem and reliable supply chain, Ontario is uniquely positioned to expand our defence and security footprint, secure Canada’s sovereignty, support allies around the world and grow our economy for generations to come,” Premier Doug Ford said.

The urgency in adding more defence industry in Ontario comes after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced in June that Canada was committing to meet NATO’s defence spending target of 5 per cent of its GDP by 2035.

2) Trade diversification is working for some Canadian cities … Barrie isn’t one of them.

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Logan Miller, May 28, 2026

The Barrie region carries real trade risk, even as some Canadian cities make meaningful progress on cutting their dependence on the United States.

That’s the takeaway for local businesses from a new report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which found that export diversification in 2025 was largely driven by a handful of cities while much of the country, especially Ontario’s manufacturing belt, fell behind.

Barrie wasn’t included in the report’s city rankings, but Paul Markle, executive director of the Barrie Chamber of Commerce, says the region is not insulated from the broader trend.

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“While not as exposed as automotive-heavy centres like Windsor or Oshawa, there is still significant industrial activity tied to those supply chains, leaving the area with a fair degree of trade vulnerability,” Markle told Barrie 360.

A handful of cities are driving Canada’s gains

The report found that Calgary, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, Saskatoon, and Kelowna led the country in growing exports outside the U.S. last year.

Calgary and Ottawa-Gatineau posted the biggest jumps, with non-U.S. exports rising 64.67 per cent and 64.04 per cent, respectively, between 2024 and 2025. Toronto followed at 32.82 per cent, Saskatoon at 32.04 per cent, and Kelowna at 28.63 per cent.

Nationally, non-U.S. exports grew 16.8 per cent.

The chamber says that small group of cities accounts for a disproportionate share of Canada’s recent diversification gains, “reinforcing how uneven the country’s trade adjustment remains across regions.”

Ontario’s manufacturing cities are struggling

For cities built around manufacturing, the picture is considerably worse.

The report flags Oshawa, London, and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo as showing “some of the clearest signs of trade-related economic stress.” These cities remain heavily tied to the U.S. market, and growth in exports elsewhere hasn’t been enough to offset the broader strain on their local economies.

The chamber describes a “growing divergence” between cities successfully breaking into global markets and those still leaning heavily on American demand.

Local businesses are in a wait-and-see mode

Markle says Barrie-area manufacturers are caught between wanting to expand and waiting for some stability before they move.

“A key issue is uncertainty around trade policy and a general wait-and-see approach, particularly as businesses look for clarity on whether federal action will further reduce interprovincial trade barriers and make domestic business easier,” he said.

He also notes that breaking into overseas markets isn’t cheap. For most local firms, the U.S. remains a secondary but important market, and the focus right now is on making the most of existing trade relationships while working within current tariff rules.

That lines up with what the national data shows. Statistics Canada figures cited in the report suggest most Canadian businesses are “adapting cautiously” rather than making fundamental changes. Firms are more likely to raise prices, source more domestically, or delay expansion than to actively pursue new markets outside North America.

The number of Canadian exporters selling to non-U.S. markets grew by just six per cent year over year. Most of the export growth came from companies that were already selling abroad, not new players entering the game.

The stakes are getting higher

Canada’s federal government wants to double non-U.S. exports over the next decade. The spring economic update reported that non-U.S. goods and services exports rose by $33 billion in 2025 compared to 2024, a meaningful number but still concentrated in a small portion of the country.

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Trump’s sector-specific tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles, and cabinetry continue to squeeze Canadian exporters. The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement is due for review this year, but the broader trade environment is widely expected to stay volatile.

About 90 per cent of non-exporting Canadian businesses still describe their operations as local, according to the report, which warns that firms may be underinvesting in long-term diversification “at precisely the moment when resilience and market expansion are becoming more important to competitiveness and growth.”

Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, put it plainly.

“Some Canadian cities are adapting quickly to this era of repeated global economic shocks, while others remain highly exposed to U.S. policy and demand uncertainty,” she said. “Canada does not just need more trade, it needs more traders.”

*With files from CP