Industry and Technology Committee on Nov. 5th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good afternoon, everybody.

We're here to continue our study on Canada's defence industrial strategy.

We have some witnesses here in the room with us today, as well as a few witnesses online. All witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

As a reminder for colleagues and witnesses, if you are using your earpiece and it's plugged in but not on your ear, kindly just place it on the sticker in front of you to protect the health and well-being of our interpreters. If it's not plugged in, that's okay; it can just be beside you.

Here with us today we have Christian Leuprecht, professor, Royal Military College and Queen's University.

From Sentinel Research and Development, we have Katheron Intson, chief executive officer.

Joining us virtually online we have Ben Hendriksen, who is the mayor of the City of Yellowknife, alongside Stephen Van Dine, who is the city manager of the City of Yellowknife.

I thank everybody for joining us.

Witnesses, you'll have up to five minutes for your introductory remarks.

With that, Professor, I will turn the floor over to you.

[Christian Leuprecht, Professor, Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will give my opening remarks in English, but members may ask me questions in the official language of their choice.

I would note that I am speaking to the committee as a professor at the Royal Military College.

The rules-based international order has been the cornerstone of Canada's security, prosperity and democracy. That order is under duress and Canada is under existential threat because Canada has lost the initiative and is increasingly alone among allies and partners. Canada's political and economic sovereignty depends on its ability to take the initiative to shape the terrain. Manifestly, simply reacting has not served us well.

For this reason, the government is investing aggressively in instruments of statecraft, notably the Canadian Armed Forces, and the economic means to sustain that investment. However, the government also seems to understand that the federal civil service and Canada's economic ecosystem, including research and innovation, are not optimized to deliver on that agenda. The government standing up three new agencies in a matter of months is indicative that money is not enough; the government will need a restructure of the civil service, the country's economy and its knowledge infrastructure to deliver on its agenda.

By way of example, for 30 years, governments have put in place policies and procedures to shrink the Canadian Armed Forces and impede spending. The government cannot grow and re-equip the Canadian Armed Forces with policies that were intentionally designed to shrink and constrain it. To deliver on its agenda, the government will have to transform that architecture, which effectively means the government will have to assume greater political, financial and reputational risk. For a quarter of a century, governments have been unwilling to do just that. Instead, they had the CAF assume all the risk. That may have worked in a world where expeditionary military missions were discretionary and instruments of statecraft were dispensable. However, that approach has come at a cost, which is the trust of our allies.

Canada no longer has that luxury. To safeguard its sovereignty, Canada needs an industry that can deliver on defence priorities at speed, scale, mass and class. To that end, the government is confronted with three questions: what to buy, how to buy it and how to pay for it.

What Canada needs to procure is laid out in NATO's 2025 procurement requirements, on which allies currently fall 50% short. We have a lot of catching up to do in a very short time.

On some requirements, Canada and allies can only deliver on a longer timeline, while others, such counter-drone technology, require immediate investments. The European Union, for example, has increased its investments in this area by 400% year over year. If Canada is to be taken seriously in its supposed pivot to Europe, we must show that we are adding actual value to our allies.

The problem is that the shelves are empty. To this end, the Prime Minister touted a defence procurement agency during the election, but has now announced a Defence Investment Agency. Canada needs to invest in what it intends to procure.

An investment in defence is necessarily an investment in innovation and high technology, but Canadian universities, research and development and, to a lesser extent, industry are ill-postured to deliver on defence technology. Political priorities have tended to be on cutting steel and creating jobs. Instead, the priority needs to be on design authorities—that is the code, algorithms and AI that drive the armed forces of the 21st century.

Of course, that is incompatible with cozying up to China. To the contrary, Canada's defence investment strategy requires a research security framework far more robust than what the federal government currently has in place.

How to finance it all is a grand bargain that Canada's European and Indo-Pacific allies have been asking for over the past decade. Allies and partners looking to become less dependent on China have only Canada and Australia as their democratic options to turn to. The same is true for liquefied natural gas exports. Europe has traded energy dependency from Russia for the United States. Europe now procures half of its liquefied natural gas from the United States.

Exporting natural gas and critical minerals is the best way for Canada to be a loyal ally to European and Indo-Pacific allies and partners. The revenue will pay for investments in Canadian defence and industry, pay down the debt, enable new welfare spending and develop technologies to support the green energy transition.

Europe's energy costs are two to four times as high as they are in Canada. Canadian energy exports make Europe more productive, competitive and innovative and reinforce European democratic institutions. Canadians need to realize that failure to export energy to Europe amounts to subsidizing Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine.

For the government's defence industrial strategy to succeed and transform the Canadian economy, and for Canada to take the initiative and regain its standing with allies and respect in the world not only requires only a bold commitment to a multi-year plan; it also requires a multipartisan approach in Parliament. For Canadian sovereignty to prevail, political parties need to forge a broad consensus to pull together on the same side of the rope. Canada's defence industrial strategy is the litmus test to that end.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Professor, that's a significant challenge. I appreciate your putting it forward.

Ms. Intson, we'll give you the floor for the next five minutes.

[Katheron Intson, Chief Executive Officer, Sentinel Research and Development Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the committee for this invitation to speak.

My name is Katheron Intson, and I'm the CEO of Sentinel Research and Development, based in Hamilton, Ontario.

Sentinel is a venture capital-backed composites manufacturing company, and our first product is a vertically integrated, 25-kilogram, fixed-wing, payload-agnostic and attritable UAV designed and built here in Canada.

In 1917, before satellites and sensors and before software-defined battlefields, a Canadian engineer with a talent for physics quietly changed the art of war. At Vimy Ridge, he neutralized the German artillery by knocking out 83% of the enemy's artillery guns before the first wave of infantry left their trenches. Using wire tangles and microphones, Major-General Andrew McNaughton's innovations in sound ranging and flash spotting transformed artillery from blunt instrument into surgical tool. His work not only shaped the allied playbook; it proved that Canada, when called, could punch far above its weight in the high-stakes theatre of war.

Did you know that we also invented long-range artillery and the first robotic system used on crewed spacecraft? Today, we produce some of the best robotics, AI and aerospace engineers in the world, and they are ready to get to work, but the world they are building for is very different from the world we inherited.

Industrial capacity, not just military capability, is now one of the leading indicators of national security. The battlefield is being reshaped by autonomous systems and attritable platforms. UAVs have almost entirely replaced artillery and other tactical norms. They inform reconnaissance, strike targets with precision and scale in numbers that no traditional platform can match. These systems are transforming traditional military roles.

For example, we hold much pride in the proficiency of our Canadian snipers; our global records are only surpassed by the Ukrainians. Now, many functions historically associated with sniper units—long-range target acquisition, precision engagement and covert reconnaissance—are today being performed by low-cost, first-person view drones.

I have every confidence that the CAF will meet this moment. International partners never fail to praise our members as highly competent, capable and collaborative. However, a critical question remains: In the process of this retraining and rearmament on drones, who will Canada choose to enrich? Will we depend on low-cost, imported systems from adversarial states; will we purchase secure but high-cost systems from allied suppliers; or will we choose to support our homegrown, scalable and attritable innovation to build sovereign manufacturing capacity and capability in systems that we can export to NATO and scale into the commercial sector? That is the inflection point we are now standing on.

The government and the public cannot withstand another Avro Arrow-scale failure. Many of my colleagues will tell you that Avro was shuttered because our own administration made a backdoor deal with the American government to suppress Canadian innovation, but the truth is that, firstly, we made a highly sophisticated product that failed to address the transitioning threat from missiles to bombers and, secondly, the company lobbied Ottawa so successfully for funding that the product's international market was never validated. Therefore, in the rush to deploy 2% of our GDP on defence spending, I urge you all to consider the following.

One, government's largest defence investments must go to companies with validated international markets. The CAF alone cannot sustain or scale a modern defence manufacturer. If public dollars only support companies serving Canadian procurement, we are funding industrial dependency, not capability.

Two, governments should also prioritize supporting companies building original Canadian IP, not just those that assemble or produce foreign tech. Canada does not need more assembly lines for foreign-designed systems. We need anchor firms developing new platforms and technologies that Canada owns, controls and exports.

Three, government-backed venture capital must stop excluding defence. Many of the venture funds that receive public money have formal or informal policies against investing in defence even when those companies serve national priorities and have export potential.

To give one example, the MaRS investment accelerator fund, whose capital comes largely from the Government of Ontario, informed Sentinel last week that they decided not to invest because we were a defence-first company. Most of Sentinel's funding has come from U.S. investors who offer founder-friendlier terms and understand the sector. The result is simple: We are exporting ownership of Canadian IP because our own public capital will not invest in it.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

In Winnipeg, we refer to the Mayor as His Worship. I don't what it is Yellowknife. Mr. Hendriksen, I was just there a couple of weeks ago, and it's a warm, welcoming place. I'm guessing that “Ben” is probably what you go by, but I'm going to call you—

[Ben Hendriksen, Mayor, City of Yellowknife]

You know it well, then, already, Chairperson Carr.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I'm going to call you “Mr. Mayor” for now.

I'm going to turn to floor over to you for up to five minutes.

[Ben Hendriksen]

Thanks very much.

Good afternoon, Chairperson Carr and members of the committee. My name is Ben Hendriksen, and I serve as the mayor of Yellowknife, a city that stands at the crossroads of Canada’s northern resilience and sovereignty. We are a city with a long history of welcoming and collaborating with the Canadian Armed Forces, Joint Task Force North, the Canadian reserves and the proud Canadian Rangers.

I join you today from Chief Drygeese territory, which is the traditional land of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the traditional land use area of the Tlicho and the home of the North Slave Métis. It is with respect for this land, the indigenous peoples whose land I call home and all the people I represent as mayor that I offer my remarks.

Due to our geography, Yellowknife is no stranger to the challenges of climate change, geopolitical uncertainty and economic transformation, but our story is not just one of reaction and recovery. It is one of renewal.

In my recent state of the city address, I spoke about the need for a new northern playbook for prosperity, rooted in strategic infrastructure, economic diversification and community resilience. I believe that Canada’s defence industrial strategy must reflect these same principles. As the deputy premier and finance minister of the NWT has said recently and often, “It can't be on the backs of 45,000 Canadians to support Arctic security or to unlock the wealth of the North.”

In December of last year, the Yellowknife city council unanimously supported a resolution welcoming investment in Yellowknife from the Department of National Defence. The Arctic economic and security corridor, which our council also endorsed unanimously by resolution earlier this year, is a nation-building opportunity that aligns defence priorities with climate resilience, indigenous partnership and economic sovereignty. It is a project of national interest that the city is pleased to see on the short list of potential projects for future consideration. As a Yellowknifer, it is great to see the leadership of indigenous governments on this potential project, to see the collaboration across territorial borders with Nunavut and the West Kitikmeot Resources Corp, and to see the sense of urgency from the federal government.

To make this opportunity a reality, the north needs the investments in municipal infrastructure and in dependable, affordable power. Investments that strengthen Yellowknife and other communities across the north for sovereignty are dual-use and really triple-use investments. Infrastructure investments in the north are investments that support sovereignty but also support daily life, including access to water, sewer and traditional ways of life. If done right, they can and should also help to mitigate and adapt the north and Canada against the ever more real and frequent climate threats.

A defence industrial strategy with a northern lens must empower communities to thrive in a changing world. That means prioritizing clean energy, housing and infrastructure because, ultimately, without land that is kept healthy and that balances the needs of today with the needs of the next seven generations, what are we seeking to maintain sovereignty over?

In closing, I ask this committee to recognize the north not as a distant concern but as a central pillar of Canada’s north. With that political lens, I'm going to pass it over to our city manager for the remainder of our joint five minutes.

Go ahead, Stephen.

[Stephen Van Dine, City Manager, City of Yellowknife]

Thank you, Mayor Hendriksen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Canada's new defence industrial strategy is focused on rebuilding, rearming and reinvesting in our armed forces. That means strengthening our ability to operate in the north, because Arctic readiness isn't optional; it's essential.

Yellowknife isn't just remote; it's ready. It offers the most capacity in Canada at its northern position. Today I want to share six reasons that Yellowknife is an ideal location for defence industry development and cold-weather testing and that it must be part of a national strategy that includes the north.

First, Yellowknife has a stable economy, higher than average household incomes and low unemployment. It's already a hub for Arctic logistics and mining and the strategic centre of the Canadian north, which means that the supply chains, expertise and infrastructure are in place. The Northwest Territories is rich in critical minerals—25 of Canada's 34 essential minerals—making it a key player in Canada's green transition and global partnerships. Leveraging these assets for defence makes sense. It strengthens sovereignty, supports innovation and ensures that our forces are ready for northern operations.

Second, Yellowknife is the northern and Arctic logistics hub. It sits on the shores of Great Slave Lake, right in the heart of Canada's north. From here, you have year-round access through a 24-7 airport and all-weather roads. The airport is just five minutes from downtown and connects directly to major cities like Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver. Seasonal ice roads extend the reach even further, providing cost-effective access to remote areas that are perfect for simulating real Arctic deployment conditions. The Northwest Territories is the strategic centre for military operations and satellite communications and houses critical infrastructure like the North Warning System and the only road to the Arctic Ocean. Yellowknife's location supports not only regional but national defence priorities, including sovereignty, cybersecurity and diplomatic outreach with pan-Arctic partners.

Third, when we talk about testing Arctic equipment for Arctic operations, we need real-world conditions. Yellowknife delivers that. Winters here are long, harsh and unforgiving, but beautiful, with extreme temperatures and challenging terrain including taiga and tundra ecosystems. These diverse landscapes provide ideal conditions for testing gear, vehicles and technology in true subarctic and Arctic environments. We should also consider the potential for a dedicated training and testing facility in Yellowknife, one that serves military, allied and industrial research purposes. This would position Yellowknife as a centre of excellence for cold-weather innovation.

Fourth is infrastructure and support services. Yellowknife has built infrastructure and expertise that remote operations demand. The city has reliable power, communications, health care and emergency services. It's home to businesses that specialize in logistics, transportation, engineering and environmental services. These companies are already supporting mining and Arctic operations, and they understand what it takes to move people and equipment safely and efficiently in northern conditions. Strategic investment in dual-use infrastructure, such as runways, satellite stations, roads and energy can simultaneously advance military readiness, community resilience and economic development.

Fifth, the region has over 80 years of mining and exploration experience. This means a workforce that knows how to operate through tough conditions. Aurora College and the NWT Mine Training Society provide specialized training and programs, ensuring a steady supply of skilled labour for technical and logistical roles. Over 800 individuals have been placed in mining jobs through these programs, and that experience translates directly into defence projects.

Finally, Yellowknife is a strong collaborator with indigenous governments and organizations. These partnerships are not just good practice; they're essential for sustainable development that aligns with Canada's reconciliation commitments. Joint ventures like Det'on Cho and Tlicho Investment Corporation show that indigenous participation drives growth and strengthens community ties. Modern treaty and self-government agreements contain rights, jurisdictions and authorities that can be honoured and leveraged to promote economic resilience and sustainable Arctic security.

In closing, when we talk about rebuilding and reinvesting in Canada's defence capabilities, Yellowknife isn't just a good option; it's a strategic asset. While we must think nationally, not just regionally, about our defence industrial strategy, the inclusion of the north is vital. We may not have a homegrown defence sector due to our size, but we can bring industry here. This aligns with federal policies like the Arctic and northern policy framework. What better way is there to exercise sovereignty than to establish an industrial presence and build technical expertise here?

Choosing Yellowknife means shaping Canada's Arctic advantage through innovation, collaboration and strategic investment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

It's a pleasure to hear from you. I think it's very important for us to hear northern voices.

Mr. Mayor, thank you as well.

We're going to get into our line of questioning.

Madame Dancho, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I appreciated your opening remarks.

Mr. Leuprecht, I'll start with yours.

You kicked off with lots of things in your remarks that I wanted to ask you about today. I was listening to you, I believe, in June on The Line Podcast. I encourage others to listen to it. You gave quite a robust assessment of where we're at and where we need to be. I did want to pull out one of the comments you made earlier. I thought it was quite informative. You said that “The Prime Minister is going to have to sell Canadians on a grand new bargain, a new social contract where we're going to build pipelines to export hydrocarbons in particular to our allies—to some extent in Asia but particularly Europe—because effectively we need to explain to Canadians that we've been subsidizing Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine by keeping energy prices high in Europe because we're refusing to export hydrocarbons. And we're going to use that revenue to pay for defence”.

You went on to say other things as well.

Can you elaborate further for the committee? It sounds like you believe having pipeline infrastructure to export to Europe and other places would be key to a defence industrial strategy. Is that a fair assessment of what you said?

[Christian Leuprecht]

We're going to need to pay for it somehow. We've all seen the debt and the structural deficit that we have. If we're not prepared to raise taxes and we're only prepared to make modest concessions on cuts to services.... We want to maintain our triple-A credit rating. I always point out that if Canada joined the European Union it would be the sixth country in the European Union with a triple-A credit rating. These ratings are in high demand among allies. It's in our interest to preserve that so we can borrow at lower rates. Then, this is the way to generate the revenue, and I think we can do this in a way to bring all Canadians on board, because with this revenue, as I say, we can pay for new social services, pay down the debt, pay for the defence and pay for the energy transition.

I think we can all win.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

You made comments about the importance of supporting our allies in Europe, and one of those tools...not only being just what we typically think in defence, but also supporting them with exporting gas to Europe.

Can you comment on the importance of that?

[Christian Leuprecht]

I just spent six months in Brussels and had considerable opportunity to exchange with some of the key leadership including on the commission in the European Parliament. If you go around European capitals, what is the challenge? Energy prices being two to four times as high...are not just undermining Europe's competitiveness, they are fundamentally undermining European democratic institutions, because just like in Canada, but only to a much higher degree, people are frustrated with the prices they are paying. We are not just supporting our European allies in their efforts to keep their economies competitive; we are also protecting their democratic integrity. By being idiosyncratic about our hydrocarbons and our critical minerals, we are undermining our own geostrategic interests, because we are not delivering for this key to European allies. Of course, for decades we have used European allies to counteract the vagaries of U.S. unilateralism. The silence by European partners has been stunning when our sovereignty, political and economic, has been threatened by a U.S. administration. That is because we have not delivered.

I think we can strike a bargain that delivers for us and for our European allies and preserves what has made us safe, prosperous and democratic for the last 75 years.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

I'm just switching gears a little bit.

You had also mentioned on another podcast, theBreaker, that “I think we have learned that China can never be counted on as a trusted partner, and so we will always need to hedge on that relationship.”

Mr. Leuprecht, what do you think of this recent rapprochement between Prime Minister Carney and the Communist Party in Beijing? How do you think that impacts our defence and security policy?

[Christian Leuprecht]

Supposedly, if we're a middle power and we have interests to assert—although I think in terms of our GDP we have not been leveraging our middle-power status internationally—clearly, as a country we will always have to work with China. I think China has shown itself time and again not to be a trustworthy partner and not to be a trustworthy ally. Given our trade relationship with China, I think we have an opportunity to push back and stand up for ourselves. I think other allies such as Australia have done that much more systematically and strategically than Canada has.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

On the defence industrial strategy you also feel, from my assessment of what you're saying, that not only should we be considering energy as part of that, but our foreign policies, obviously should be key when we're thinking about our defence. I think this is obvious, but I think we need that as part of this report. I appreciate your putting this on the record.

Just further to that, you also said that Canada's “instruments of statecraft” have really atrophied. Our “international reputation” has taken a hit. You went on to say that “Canada's government instead embraced a 'values-based' foreign policy. In effect it made foreign policy an extension of domestic policy”. You also said that we've let our allies down on things that matter—energy, security, defence and investments in the defence industry.

You went on to also link that to what you said earlier—that European allies aren't really coming to our defence with the U.S.

In the concluding few seconds, drive home the point of tying this all together and how important this is for our defence strategy.

Thank you.

[Christian Leuprecht]

Canada and allies pay two to four times as much per piece of equipment that we procure than the United States does because we don't have the economies of scale. NATO works by national defence procurement ecosystems, but there are opportunities for collaboration that are not just about the sort of innovation that my colleagues have talked about but also ensuring that we get the best return, the best value for money for the Canadian taxpayer. I think our European colleagues are very much able to underwrite some of the key critical infrastructure and major project investments that we are looking to make in Canada in return for our delivering for them. We can do this with long-term 20-year to 30-year contracts the way other allies have done this, which is in a way that requires relatively little government investing and provides the sort of security for the capital that is being invested that will generate the collective payoffs that we're all looking for.

That's what a strategy is about. What are our ends? What are the ways available, and what are the means to finance that? We need to do this in collaboration in particular with our European partners.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Madam Dancho.

Mr. Bains, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today on this important study.

I'm going to go to Mayor Hendriksen. I will talk a bit about what we've learned from yesterday's budget. It proposes to spend $1 billion over four years, starting this year, with Transport Canada creating an Arctic infrastructure fund. This will invest in major transportation projects. I know you talked a bit about that in your opening statements.

We heard a lot about the dual-use applications for civilian and military use, including airports, seaports, all-season roads and highways. If you can speak a bit to that.... As a representative of Richmond, British Columbia, I would note that major investments have been made that come out of some of the defence capabilities, everything from the Poseidon aircraft, which also has Arctic capabilities, to icebreakers in our Seaspan shipyards in Vancouver and a marine industry that's very important to our province of British Columbia, and of course this country. The SkyGuardian drone also has Arctic capabilities. It's something that's being assembled in partnership with MDA Space, which has geospatial intelligence capabilities, a lot of the AI pieces that Ms. Intson spoke about.

Taking all of those investments that you've heard about plus the recent ones that have been announced, as representatives of Yellowknife, could you talk about specific projects that you think will be helpful to the region and other infrastructure projects you might want to see up there?

[Ben Hendriksen]

Sure. Thanks very much for the opportunity.

We look at it from a northern perspective. It's hard for a lot of southern Canadians if they've never been north. If somebody was born in southern Canada and moved north, it's a mind shift to understand the scope of our landscape in the north.

Taking it back, the last major infrastructure investments in the north were in the 1950s and 1960s, when the federal government was investing heavily in northern infrastructure. That's what we need to see again.

We look at the defence industrial strategy and what that could be. Mr. Van Dine talked about how we are a strategic location. We already have JTFN—Joint Task Force North—headquartered in Yellowknife. We have a strong connection with the military. Many Yellowknifers are members of the military or have family in the military.

When we look at the infrastructure needs of the north from a community perspective and look at the dual use aspect, we see that the Mackenzie Valley Highway is one piece of infrastructure that's been talked about for decades. We have the Arctic economic and security corridor, which is its modern name. It often used to be called the Slave Geological Province Corridor because the critical minerals in our territory are found in that region in vast quantities. One of the challenges of accessing those minerals is a lack of infrastructure, and that also leads to potential opportunities to link in communities that would be along that road.

When we look at look at the diamond mining industry, we see that it is on a planned wind-down at this time, as Mr. Van Dine was noting. Significant populations working in those diamond mines will be looking for new employment opportunities. These are skilled individuals who have the ability to build Canada. These diamond mining companies also have infrastructure that they're leaving behind and looking to divest, and that's an opportunity along the Arctic economic and security corridor: There's potential for the Government of Canada to work with those companies on transferring assets that could be of use to the government from a security standpoint in the Arctic region.

Ultimately, I think it's important to understand that while things can be dual use in southern Canada, often, as I've mentioned, northern infrastructure can be of triple, quadruple or often quintuple use. There are always multiple ways of using infrastructure in the north from a community aspect, from use in mitigation and adaptation to use in environment and climate change to the military purposes that we're discussing here.

Yellowknife has a beautiful, cold climate, in my opinion, and that really does lend itself to cold-weather testing and consistency that is not always available in other places and combined with a city. In Yellowknife, we have the highest disposable incomes in the country and a very educated population that's ready to serve our country in different ways, but we need the investments to make that happen. As a northerner, it's good to see that the government is turning its eyes our way.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Thank you for that.

We had a witness here, Madeleine Redfern, who is a northern director of CanArctic Inuit Networks. She talked about the need to be climate change-proofed, saying, “What we often saw was that the extra 10% in an infrastructure project to climate change-proof was well worth the investment.”

Do you agree with this?

[Ben Hendriksen]

She would have better stats on it than I would. As a former mayor of Iqaluit, she knows these issues very well.

The extra investment in climate change-proofing is incredibly important for our communities. As you know, we evacuated Yellowknife in 2023 due to wildfire threats. We've had several communities evacuate and move again this year as a result of flooding. The biggest fear I always have is what may happen with our infrastructure—especially power generation, if it fails on a -35°C or -40°C day.

Making sure that our infrastructure is climate-proof generally is an extremely important thing. I think those extra investments are always important for the Government of Canada to recognize, because ultimately, not climate-proofing our infrastructure will often cost us more in the long run as we respond to those emergencies, rather than having planned for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome all the witnesses.

My first question is for the mayor, but I'll ask the witnesses in the room to answer it as well.

My question is about the budget that was presented yesterday.

Mr. Mayor, I don't know if you've had the time or the chance to look at it. Announcements were made about defence and the plan for the Arctic, and broader measures were included.

I would like to hear your reactions to the budget.