The Auditor General found that ammunition contracts took almost 19 months from signature to delivery, half of those managed by the federal procurement department were amended to push delivery dates out, and no one consistently recorded why. That is an ammunition story, but the failure pattern is one every capital program owner should recognize, especially as defence and public budgets climb.
What happened
On October 29, the Office of the Auditor General tabled its audit of ammunition for the Canadian Armed Forces, covering April 2024 to March 2026. Its headline finding was that National Defence “did not have reliable information or a comprehensive ammunition management program.”
The procurement detail is what matters for owners. The audit looked at 15 regular-use contracts worth $96 million with deliveries in the period. On average they took almost 19 months from signature to final receipt. Of the 14 managed by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), eight were delivered after their original date: three met later amended dates and five arrived about three months late on average. PSPC amended seven of the 14 to extend delivery dates and did not consistently track or document the reasons. To be fair, the amendments did not add cost: prices moved on seven contracts by a total of $1.5 million, or 1.6%.
Behind that sat thin capacity. Two of four long-term supply agreements had expired more than three years earlier, partly for lack of staff, and the expired ones had no performance metrics. Meanwhile contract awards jumped from about $800 million in 2024–25 to almost $3 billion in 2025–26. Of the $9.2 billion set aside in 2024 to rebuild stockpiles, $695 million was committed in 2025–26, but none of it had been received by March 31, 2026.
View the data
| Outcome | Contracts |
|---|---|
| On time | 6 |
| Late, met amended date | 3 |
| Late (avg. ~3 months) | 5 |
What it means for owners
An extension without a reason is a claim you cannot defend. On a construction program, every time extension granted without a recorded cause makes it harder to tell excusable delay from contractor delay later. That is exactly the evidence you need to enforce liquidated damages or push back on a delay claim.
Committed is not delivered. A board that hears “$695 million committed” may hear progress. Owners should report what has actually been delivered or installed beside what has been committed, or the gap stays invisible until it is a schedule problem.
Budgets can grow faster than the people who manage them. When contract volume roughly quadruples in a year while standing agreements lapse for lack of staff, delays are predictable. Defence and public infrastructure budgets are rising the same way, and project controls capacity rarely rises with them.
Bad data travels. National Defence runs two ammunition systems that it has tried to integrate since 2012; 11% of records disagreed in March 2026. The auditor’s advice, fix the data before you consolidate, applies to any owner moving to a new project management or ERP platform.
View the data
| Fiscal year | Contracts awarded |
|---|---|
| 2024–25 | ~$0.8B |
| 2025–26 | ~$3.0B |
What to do now
- Put a reason code on every change and extension. Owner, contractor, third party or force majeure, with the supporting record, reviewed monthly. Our guide to managing change orders sets out a workable log.
- Report delivered value next to committed value. Use earned value or a simple delivered-versus-planned S-curve in every executive report.
- Write performance metrics into standing agreements. On-time delivery and response times, with renewal dates diarized well before expiry.
- Clean the data before the migration. Reconcile budgets, commitments and change logs before moving to a new system, not after.
- Size the controls team to the program. If your capital budget doubles, check who is administering the extra contracts before the money goes out.
Go deeper: the Dundurn ammunition magazine recapitalization and Defence Construction Canada's project standards.
The bottom line
Most delays are not caused by one dramatic failure. They come from small, undocumented decisions that nobody tracks until they add up. Want a second look at how your program logs changes and reports progress? Book a 30-minute call.
Sources: Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Ammunition for the Canadian Armed Forces (tabled October 29, 2026); Full report (PDF), paragraphs 13–16, 41–51; OAG news release, National Defence did not manage its ammunition inventory to meet its needs (October 29, 2026). Cover graphic: Benjamin R. Consulting, using Office of the Auditor General data.