National Defence Committee on May 6th, 2026

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

On the contrary, Mr. Kibble, these 10 sovereign capabilities were drawn from conversations and outreach with 2,000 Canadian companies and an evaluation of 17 other like-minded countries.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

You're confirming, then, that the DIS is designed for the prekinetic threat picture of, say, coercive trade, foreign interference, supply chain weaponization—

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Absolutely. It's designed for both.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Will you be able to provide us some examples of that from within the DIS? I don't see that in there. I see just a shopping list of stuff to buy.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

We're talking about quantum, digital systems, AI, cryptography, foreign interference, organized—

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

It does talk about foreign interference. I will look forward to that. Thank you.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

There is a whole series of areas where we're strong. We didn't choose these randomly. They were chosen on the basis of Canada's core capabilities.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Minister, when I go to the grocery store, I do it one of two ways. Either I go with a list based on meals I plan to make and an inventory of what's in my fridge, or I do it the more dangerous way, which is with my appetite. One feeds a family. The other costs a lot of money and blows your budget.

Would you accept that the DIS, as drafted, looks more like a procurement framework than a strategy, and that it's a shopping list without an inventory of the full threat picture? How can we address those capability gaps?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'll be honest with you, Mr. Kibble. I didn't understand your question.

[Jeff Kibble, Conservative, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I'm seeing it more as—

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

You're going to have to understand it later. I'm sorry.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm sorry. I'd like to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Our next member is Mr. Earle.

It's over to you, sir.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you for being here, Minister.

Thanks to your full team for being here.

As I read about the defence industrial strategy, I see us wanting to do more at home and buy locally in Canada. We're going to raise the share of acquisition of supply from Canadian firms to 70%. We're forecasting that we're going to create 125,000 good defence jobs in Canada. We're also going to export some of what we develop and build here.

Using a boilerplate of a question, how important is it for us to have this defence industrial strategy in our country at this time?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

It's more than timely, Mr. Earle. It is now a requirement. It's essential for us going forward. That's why we put so much effort in the front end, designing what it might look like by drawing on comparative experience. Other countries have done this. Other countries are updating their own industrial strategies, so this is what we've done.

That's why we came to ground on a build-partner-buy framework. We build where we can build it, and we partner with like-minded countries when we need to. Only after building or partnering would we buy from a third party. We're very careful now about from whom we buy, and we specify from whom we would prefer to buy.

For example, we bought a very expensive and important over-the-horizon radar system in partnership with the Australians. Phase one is now being implemented. Phase two is under negotiation. We've been very cautious and, if I dare say it, small-c conservative about some of the target outcomes, like 125,000 high-paying jobs, growing defence exports by 50% and growing our Canadian defence industry revenues by 240%.

We looked at this from top to bottom. We really dug down deep and wide on Canada's core areas of expertise, including shipbuilding—we started building 18 years ago—aerospace, space, land systems, communications, digital systems and ammunition.

We just invested $1.4 billion in nitrocellulose plants. We just purchased rifles from Colt, as I mentioned earlier. We're investing in shell casings at IMT. We're investing in all sorts of areas, including aerospace and service support, personnel protection, and uncrewed and autonomous systems. We've pulled together a plan that allows us to go forward and draw on that Canadian capability while fostering more research, more development and more risk-taking.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

In your opening comments, which I quite enjoyed listening to, you talked about the importance of builders, innovators and finance in building a modern defence sector. How important is it to have those three pillars, if I can refer to them as such?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

They are absolutely essential. The Canadian Armed Forces, the department, the government, the Prime Minister and, I think, we all recognize that we need to make sure we enhance this sector. We're not starting from zero. We have 600 companies, 82,000 full-time employees and over 200,000 part-time employees in this space. This is what we're building on. It's going to be very important to give rise to expanding the companies that are there and to creating new companies. We're seeing more of them all the time.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I have one minute left.

I'm listening to your answer, and I appreciate that. As we see those three pillars intersected or layered to get to where we need to be, how important do you believe indigenous inclusion is in that particular formula?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

It's indispensable. We can't move forward unless we are working with Canadians. Indigenous Canadians have a capacity, a participation level and a commitment—everything—with respect to our sovereignty, our presence and our presence in the Arctic in particular. It is essential. The Coast Guard has done an incredible job, over the last 10 years or 20 years, of involving our indigenous neighbours and bringing them in to help, basically, with that work. We'll continue to do that.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Rowe. You have up to five minutes, sir.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Thank you.

It's great to have you, Minister. It's good to have a Minister of Defence here today. I have to say that I'm very impressed by your quick answers. I hope that continues in my line of questioning as well.

In my riding in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have a lot of infrastructure. One of the biggest challenges in terms of building naval and other pieces of equipment is getting that infrastructure. We have billions' worth of it sitting idle. We have the Marystown Cow Head facility, the Bull Arm facility and the Port of Argentia.

Are you familiar with those facilities? Have you visited any of those?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I haven't visited them yet, but I'm familiar with one of them because you and I chatted about it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Exactly. It's very important to get to all of those facilities, especially the Port of Argentia, which, as you know, is a former U.S. naval base that was shut down in the mid-1990s. They even built an oil rig there recently, with a runway and everything.

I'm just curious. Have you been able to speak with Kiewit, the Port of Argentia and the Bull Arm facility about possibly landing contracts there for construction?