I have had occasion to deal with PGW, and the two guys who run it are first rate. They have brought their rifles out to Shilo on some of the sniper matches and usually win. We are also fortunate to have some very ardent shooters/collectors in the LCMM positions for the weapons these days, and their choices are not arbitrary. It is recognized that the Lapua round will be an oddball cartridge but for the anount of rounds that snipers will fire in ops, it shouldn't be too hard to keep up with the demand.
PGW produces top rated competition firearms and it's nice to see the company get this contract. The only thing I worry about with a contract of this size going to a smaller scale producer is what happens to them after the contract runs out. Too often I have seen a DND contract result in the kiss of death, as a company expands to meet the commitment and then does not find enough work to sustain it afterwards. Also, one second of misfortune on the two primary guys can result in the death of the company, and consequently no long term support for the aquisition.
As to the .50 cal sniper rifles currently in use (in conjunctoin with the old C3) you can't always be dragging around the boheamoth of a 50 cal rifle and it's spare ammo around. The Lapua was destined for this role for a while now.
Prairie gun works was located in St.Boniface (Winnipeg) Manitoba, and I'm not sure what the political affiliation with that area is,but I think they are/have moved to a larger facility.
In the case of PGW, I believe that it is the quality of the firearm that won out over the size of the company, the non-std military cartridge, and any political locations.
They have a website hwere you can see some of their wares:
http://www.pgwdti.com/