Kitchener’s Colt Canada wins $32-million contract to replace machine guns for Canadian Armed Forces

A big government contract means big money for a company in Kitchener.

Colt Canada has been awarded a $32-million deal to make machine guns for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Director of Programs at Colt Canada, Alex Payne, says any sort of contract like this in the local area is exciting in terms of job creation and the overall betterment of the community. “It will also make use of a supply base, a lot of it which is in the local area, primarily we will be using our resources in terms of our supply base wherever we possibly can locally.”

The government will be buying more than 11-hundred brand new C6A1 FLEX General Purpose guns.

The C6 machine guns the government has today are 30-years old – some have already been taken out of service because of wear and tear.

Payne says the entire gun has never been produced in Kitchener before. “We have produced parts of it in the past, but we have never delivered a full weapon itself.”

The new guns will be able to be carried by troops, or mounted to a vehicle, and will feature polymer stocks – not wood – with options for optical sighting attachments.

This is going to mean 13 new jobs for Colt Canada and help maintain the other 100 jobs already there.

Colt Canada will start to roll out the weapons in September 2018.

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