National Defence Committee on May 6th, 2026

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Let's move on to the next part.

We were talking about whether there's a proper road map to how we get to 3.5%. Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer, was in the news over the weekend talking about the lack of transparency. We are talking about what the priorities are. We can talk about finally replacing the CF-18s and buying the F-35s. We can talk about finally replacing the Victoria-class submarines. Where's the rest of the kit?

We talk about lethality and capability, but right now, we seem to be building more bureaucracy around things like BOREALIS and the Defence Investment Agency. The whole idea of ITBs just creates more bureaucracy and cost to the taxpayer.

Where's the transparency? Where do we need to go on the road map side to meet the priorities we have on deterrence, continental security and being a reliable ally?

Again, we'll start with Professor Leuprecht.

[Christian Leuprecht]

You'll probably have seen my comments in the national media in recent days. It starts with aligning our policies and our processes. You could give National Defence all the money in the world and we wouldn't have been under the current circumstances. We need to recalibrate the risk calculus. We can't have all the political, financial and reputational risks constantly resting on the Canadian Armed Forces.

We can have all the accountability in the world. I would say we actually have too much accountability for the environment in which we're trying to get things done. It is seriously hampering our ability to deliver.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

Ms. Idlout, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Lori Idlout, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Qujannamiik, Iksivautaq. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've been listening quite intently to the testimony shared with us by all the witnesses.

I'll be asking Heather a question, but before I do that, I just want to acknowledge how grateful I am that while I was back home in Nunavut, during a couple of meetings that I participated in with non-profit organizations—including the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, the Nunavut Economic Developers Association and institutions of public government in Nunavut that are in charge of the environmental assessment process—there was great information shared by CSIS and the Canadian Armed Forces. If I had not heard them share the great systems that Canada has, the way that Canada is sovereign and the way that Canada is protected, I'd be very confused right now in listening to what I'm hearing.

Thankfully, because of the information shared with us, I felt very comfortable sharing with my constituents in Nunavut that we have such an entrenched system within the Canadian Armed Forces that I feel secure in the Arctic and in Canada. We need to maintain that. We need to keep focusing, of course, on strengthening the defence industry and our economy, and making sure that the decisions we are making are based on informed decision-making.

I agree with increasing research in the defence sector. This is quite informative—what we're hearing—and I just want to acknowledge the great work that CSIS and the Canadian Armed Forces are doing to help make sure that we remain a sovereign country—to keep our Arctic secure, anyway.

Heather, when you were talking about one of the gaps that Canada has, you mentioned that one thing that needs to happen is the refining and processing of minerals within Canada. I'm curious to understand, from your point of view, whether you think Canada has the capabilities to do that.

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

That's a great question.

We refine and process quite a bit of minerals, and a lot of this was started during World War I and World War II when we developed these capabilities. I think of the Trail refining complex that Teck uses in B.C.; Vale's refining complex in Sudbury, mostly built on nickel; the aluminum-refining process that Rio Tinto does in Quebec; and what Vale does in Labrador. We have several pockets of globally competitive, globally important refining.

On processing uranium, obviously that's the one where I think there's a single risk of failure. Some of the fabrication and conversion facilities we have in Ontario that serve the entire continent.... We certainly have the research and manufacturing capacity.

Again, the missing piece is that we are becoming increasingly economically uncompetitive with China. China does have cheaper energy, cheaper labour, lower environmental standards, and scale within its own country. Canada will mostly always be exporting these goods. We're only 40 million people, and our manufacturing base is relatively small. China can scale at a rate that Canada can't compete with. We can only compete in conjunction with the United States.

Certainly, we can and should increase, but in some cases, we will need cheaper electricity and more flexible environmental standards to make us competitive in global markets.

[Lori Idlout, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Qujannamiik.

I'm not sure which witness I should ask this next question, but maybe I'll go to Mr. Shimooka on the screen.

With the drone innovation hub that will be established and with the development of drone technologies, we need to make sure there's the creation of a coordinated national ecosystem that connects government, industry, academia and of course the private sector.

Do you think advanced technology can help equip the Canadian Armed Forces in this key area?

[Richard Shimooka]

It's absolutely—

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you very much.

[Richard Shimooka]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

I appreciate that.

Monsieur Savard-Tremblay.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Mr. Shimooka, you said that the industrial strategy was a defence spending strategy, rather than a real defence industrial strategy. You said that a real strategy should be based on threats, needs and the capabilities required to fight. Does the strategy correctly identify these components at this time?

[Richard Shimooka]

I think it does so in a very roundabout sort of way. The fact that you have a defence industrial strategy before you have a national security strategy illustrates that. It talks about some of these areas, such as drones and all of that, and it highlights some of the tasks.

If I can make a comparison, I would look at either the United Kingdom's or the United States' 2024 defence industrial strategy. They make it very clear what tasks need to be done, what industry has to provide and the ways to do so. If you compare those documents to our document, they are very different. A clear identification is made of what those requirements are for the future warfighting effort or the future provision of security.

That's not what this document is. Clearly, this is a first step, to some degree. If you talk to many senior officials, I think they will admit that the future ones may have that, but the current document does not. It does so in a very indirect manner.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

You also criticized the 70% Canadian procurement target. Why did you say that it was arbitrary?

[Richard Shimooka]

Absolutely. As with any other area of advanced economic activity in our country, there's never going to be an autarchy of defence. We're not going to build the full stack, as it's said, of industrial activity to produce some of these goods. We're not going to produce the computer chips in Canada for the most part.

The reality is that hitting 70%, depending on how you do the accounting, is possible. I really don't think in real practice that that's the case, and frankly, I don't think that's a good industrial policy, because if you think about it, wartime production requires producing something at very large, massive scales. You want to have interoperability with your allies. You want to ensure that everybody can utilize this industrial base and that we will have enough capacity. Trying to build very specific Canadian industries that are utilized by only our forces is not a clever wartime policy whatsoever, and it's ahistorical.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Mr. Shimooka.

Thank you, Monsieur Savard-Tremblay.

Mr. Bezan, it's back to you for five minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to continue with the road map of where we should go.

Professor Huebert, you said at the Battle of the Atlantic reception that was held here in Ottawa a few weeks ago that right now, the world is in 1913. It's 1938. You're saying we're on the cusp of war. I think Professor Leuprecht alluded to that as well. We need to build fast and we need to build now.

How much sovereign capability do we need in the defence industrial complex versus what we can get off the shelf, and what we can deliver in kinetic capabilities to the Canadian Armed Forces in a timely manner if that's the timeline we're working on?

[Robert Huebert]

If I was making the decision, I wouldn't be asking how much should be sovereign and how much should be off the shelf. The question I'd be asking is how much we need in conjunction with our friends and allies to deter this 1913 or 1938.... How much do we need if we are forced to fight?

We get away from that number. We get away from this so-called sovereignty, because a war, if it comes, immediately blurs any lines of sovereignty. We will not be doing it by ourselves. We will be doing it in conjunction with those friends and allies we are engaged with, so it becomes a new question. The new questions are, do we have that capability to convince our friends and allies that we are serious, do we have the ability to add to the sum to deter and do we have the capability to then fight? Those become the important questions.

How we get there is a political and economic question. I know it is very important to the government, but it doesn't get to the heart of how we defend Canada.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Professor Leuprecht, if that's the timeline we're working on, the NATO construct—the metric of 2% or 3.5%—means nothing, because we'll be blowing by that as we need to build at lightning speed right now.

[Christian Leuprecht]

We need a common threat perception in this country. It's the job of all parliamentarians to convey to Canadians that we live in a very different and very dangerous world. Look at my three children, who grew up in 30 years of peacetime. We have an entire generation of Canadians who don't think about the dangers of the world that we ultimately face.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

There's no interpretation. Can we check, please?

[Christian Leuprecht]

I can repeat my comments in French, if you like.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

You can continue in the language of your choice. That's your right. I just want to make sure that we have all the information in both languages, of course.

[Christian Leuprecht]

We missed the opportunities. If not from Canada or Australia, where are our allies and partners going to get their critical minerals and their rare earths?

They're by and large not particularly friendly regimes. We are very concerned about their general approaches to the world, their human rights records and so forth, so here's an opportunity to work together and for Canadians and parliamentarians to imagine the world we want to live in five, 10 and 20 years from now.

To that effect, we need to stop talking about defence first and foremost. We need to start talking about deterrence. Ultimately, I don't think we want to defend anything, because Canada, first and foremost, knows the cost of having to defend not just our country but our European allies. Let's invest in preventing the sort of calamity, the sort of whale, that is coming at us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

We have bells ringing. I need unanimous consent around the table to allow us to continue the proceedings before the vote.