Canada's Aerospace Sector Posts $33.1 Billion GDP Contribution as Industry Presses for National Strategy
Why It MattersExport dependence, exposure to US tariffs and decertification threats, and a persistent skilled-labour gap leave Canada's aerospace base large but reliant on trade access and a still-unfinished national industrial strategy.
Canada's aerospace sector contributed $33.1 billion to GDP and provided 218,700 jobs, according to a state of the industry report based on 2025 data from the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) in partnership with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. More than 70 percent of manufacturing revenue, about $28.2 billion in 2025, comes from exports to more than 170 countries.
In May, AirAsia committed to buy 150 Airbus A220-300 aircraft, which Prime Minister Mark Carney called the largest order of Canadian aircraft in history; he spoke at the A220 assembly facility in Mirabel, Que. The aircraft will be built in Canada. The announcement followed Carney's October 2025 visit to Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN Summit, where he met investors including AirAsia's leadership.
The sector operates amid U.S. tariffs and threats: President Donald Trump has twice in 2026 threatened to decertify or ban Bombardier business jets. Skilled labour shortages, especially of aircraft maintenance engineers, remain a persistent problem. Bombardier began construction in January on a $100 million, 126,000-square-foot manufacturing centre in Dorval, Que., after opening a Global manufacturing centre at Toronto Pearson in 2024. A Levaero Aviation report found pre-owned private jet and turboprop sales rose 11.2 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2026.
On the airline side, Air Canada closed a February deal with Airbus for eight A350-1000 aircraft with options for eight more, and expects its first of 14 Boeing 787-10s later this year after receiving the first of 30 A321XLRs in April. WestJet agreed last September to a Boeing order of 60 737-10s (options for 25 more) and seven 787-9s (options for four more).
AIAC president and CEO Mike Mueller said he is very optimistic, but the association continues to press for a national aerospace industrial strategy, a call dating to a June 2022 House committee report. The government released a Defence Industrial Strategy in February 2026, and the Defence Investment Agency was established in October 2025; on Oct. 6 the government introduced Bill C-40 to make it a Crown corporation.
