National Defence Committee on May 6th, 2026

[Christian Leuprecht]

It seems that most investments come from the government, so from the Department of National Defence. I'm thinking, for example, of the MINDS program funding. I think that we could do a lot more in the way of collaboration. We need to align the entire research and industrial system with both national objectives and our allies' objectives. We need to defend our democracy and life, security and prosperity, rather than special interests that appeal to professors, researchers or lobby groups.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Dr. Leuprecht.

Mr. Kibble, we'll go over to you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are through you.

Mr. Shimooka, you've written extensively on the gap between defence spending and actual capability output. The government announced in March that Canada had hit the NATO 2% target for the first time in decades—partly from the $9.3-billion injection from the supplementary estimates (A), and partly from the transfer of the unarmed Coast Guard to the Department of National Defence.

NATO has reported that Canada is at 2.01%. However, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the global standard for independent military expenditure reporting, reports Canada is at only 1.6%.

In your view, how much of that supposed 2% reflects actual new capability versus reclassification of pre-existing spending?

[Richard Shimooka]

That's a good question.

I know a significant portion of the increase is related to infrastructure that was desperately needed. A very large component of the Canadian Forces' underlying bases or quarters—which are essential components that ensure the forces are able to operate on a daily basis—required spending. That was highlighted quite close to the end of the reporting period.

There isn't much.... I will say that the potential decision on the Canadian patrol submarine program this year will increase it. The cutting of steel on the River-class destroyer—which, again, has been long planned—will increase it this year, but in the last period, there is not much else that I can think of.

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

That's fair.

DND told Newsweek last August that it “collects data on eligible defence-related spending by [other government departments]”. It reports the consolidated totals to NATO, so DND is the integrator and reporter, with no independent third party verification of what counts.

Is that a problem for Canada's credibility with its allies? Surely, NATO nations and the United States read the SIPRI report, for example.

[Richard Shimooka]

To Dr. Huebert's point earlier, the reality is that some of these metrics don't matter to them as much as what you come to the party with, so to speak, in your capabilities. I've said this line before, and I'll repeat it again. At any one time, the Canadian Armed Forces can only operate around 10 active fighters or fewer, two and a half frigates, maybe a submarine depending on what month it is, 2,200 troops—who are largely within Latvia currently—and our transport fleet.

You saw the comments last week by Department of Defense officials in the United States. I think these comments are made privately by our allies and partners internationally to say that the capabilities we are able to deploy out of the country are very low.

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

That's fair.

In their 2025 statement, the SIPIR singled Canada out by name in saying...misrepresents NATO members' actually acquiring military capability, and it's distorting assessments of the balance of forces. In your view, what does it mean for our credibility when we're, as you're stating, not bringing extra capability to the table? Should that be a concern for us as interpreted by our allies?

[Richard Shimooka]

Yes, and the reality is that it's maybe not misinterpreted; we just didn't spend for 20-plus years. Our capability is so low that our systems.... To take the CF-18s as an example, it's basically going to come up to 50 years by the time they're replaced. It takes inordinate amounts of personnel and resources, all of those sorts of components, to keep them going.

If you look at every single capability set of our forces, that's the reality, except for maybe the army. Even the transport fleets are starting to see the age and wear of really heavy deployments. Compared to our allies, we utilize what we have at a much higher tempo, at a much higher rate, than they do. We deploy expeditionary...and as a result, we run them ragged, and it requires more resources and more capability to keep them going.

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

Thank you.

Dr. Leuprecht, seven days ago, the Under Secretary of War, Mr. Colby, paused the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, which we've used to coordinate our defence with the U.S. since the 1940s.

I have two quick questions for you on that. Mr. Colby's statement specified “gaps between rhetoric and reality” linked directly to the Prime Minister's Davos speech. Is the United States primarily concerned with the dollar level of Canadian defence spending and with the accounting composition of what we report, such as the Coast Guard classification, veterans' benefits and critical minerals, or what it delivers in shared continental defence? In your opinion, did that affect the decision to pause the Permanent Joint Board on Defence?

[Christian Leuprecht]

It reflects a signal from the United States that the United States will act unilaterally. It has for 250 years, in particular when it comes to security in the hemisphere. We can partner with the United States by making the investments necessary to have a sovereign political and economic voice in partnership at eye level with the United States, or we can let our capabilities atrophy, and the United States will do it on its own. It will come at the expense of our sovereignty.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Dr. Leuprecht.

Mr. Kibble, thank you as well.

Mr. Malette, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Leuprecht, further to your observation earlier in your opening statements about the Alabama National Guard, some years ago, I had the opportunity to be at Randolph Air Force Base outside of San Antonio. It's a sprawling Air Force base with acres and acres of nothing but parked military aircraft. It's just spectacular. Some of the Air Force personnel I was with at that time observed that this one parking lot area where we were waiting for a crew bus to come get us....

We had arrived on an H-class C-130 Herc from the Canadian air force, and we were feeling a bit small, if you will, and then in rolled a C-5 Galaxy. It was piloted by the Connecticut Air National Guard. We got on the crew bus and were speaking to the personnel who had “signed it out for the weekend” to fly it down to Texas and enjoy a weekend in San Antonio. They mentioned that they can do that on a weekend. Our air force personnel were looking at them all and then looking at this sprawling.... I said to the chap from the Connecticut Air National Guard, “We in Canada don't have an air force that's this big.” He said, “Right here, we're looking at your national health care system pretty much parked on this runway.” However you look at that, I would think you can take that....

My question for you is, how can the DIS ensure that regions like mine in the Bay of Quinte with strong manufacturing and skilled trades can participate in defence supply chains and benefit from these investments? How can the DIS, in your view, better integrate mid-size regional manufacturers into the defence supply chains rather than concentrating opportunities among large prime contractors?

[Christian Leuprecht]

That's a great question. I think it's a question that many MPs are asking and many Canadians are asking, especially the Canadians who don't have the privilege of living in large, affluent urban centres, as you know. Being from Kingston, I know and appreciate the region well.

There are two take-aways for me here. One is that everything we do needs to have a dual use and outcome, because we need to show Canadians that there's concrete value in these investments for them so that we don't lose them, and we need to make it sustainable, because the environment and technology will change, and we need to have both the defence side and the civilian side.

I want to go back to my opening statement and my idea of having an expert commission that trades off political, fiscal, defence and economic priorities among different regions of this country, especially given what's going on in some of the provinces. The fiscal policies of three of the provinces in particular are going to create huge problems for the federal government. Can we use some of the leverage with defence investments to achieve positive-sum outcomes across the spectrum in Canada?

[Chris Malette, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you very much, Professor.

My next question is for Ms. Exner-Pirot.

How important is resilient local infrastructure, including transportation, electricity and fuel systems, to sustaining operational readiness at bases? I always refer to CFB Trenton, in my riding, but I am asking about other areas as well in light of your observations and comments regarding China, for instance, which is always one step ahead of us in that regard.

[Heather Exner-Pirot]

It's a great question. I'm not sure I'll answer in the way you intended.

If we look at what's been happening in Ukraine and the Middle East, after military facilities, the biggest targets are energy facilities. It's obvious that these are essential to society. If you disrupt them, it has a tremendous economic and civilian cost. They're attractive targets.

I'm delivering a lecture to DND next week, actually, on what the critical mineral- and energy-producing regions and assets are, and not just the mines and basins, but also the processing facilities. Some of them are single points of failure-ish, and we need to think about protecting certain sites. Obviously, it's not something we've had to think about in Canada for 60 years—if ever—but it's certainly something we have to think about now.

To get to your point, cyber-attacks are happening on these facilities and in this infrastructure every single day. Some of that is ransomware and malware, and some of it is state-sponsored. Companies are certainly taking proactive approaches.

Cyber command is taking proactive approaches, but it is very clear that this is another front, and that for Canada in particular, damaging our critical mineral and energy facilities would be a huge boon to our adversaries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you very much to both of you.

Mr. Bezan, we'll go over to you for five minutes, sir.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for coming in. It's great to have this type of expertise at the committee.

I want to try to keep things tight, knowing that I only have five minutes.

This question is for Professor Leuprecht, Professor Huebert and Mr. Shimooka.

When you look at the defence industrial strategy and when we talk about what's happening in other countries, are there other examples we should be following to make sure we have an evergreen policy that's adjusting to the times we're in?

Christian, you can lead off on that. Just keep it as tight as possible.

[Christian Leuprecht]

Let's start with rebuilding the capability we axed 25 years ago in the Department of National Defence so we actually know where everything is—all of the resources and all of the industrial and technological capability we have in the country. That might be a good start. Somewhere between DND and ISED, that needs to be a priority.

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

Are you saying that everything should be coming back under DND?

[Christian Leuprecht]

No, but somebody needs to have the mandate of figuring out what we actually have.

In light of my colleague's point, if we had to scale and had to scale quickly, currently we'd be running around trying to figure out where everything is. We have no national inventory in this country. We made a political decision to axe it. It was part of the cuts, part of many cuts, and here's an opportunity—I think urgently—to at least know what we can deliver.

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

Okay.

Professor Huebert is next.

[Robert Huebert]

To build on Christian's point, we have to return to where we were in terms of having an independent capability of understanding. That goes back to the security and defence forum, which DND also axed at about the same time, because beyond what DND was able to provide in terms of knowing where we were, that is where you create the ability to catch the shortfalls and to make sure that it is evergreen.

I'll give you an example. The only outside process the government has for understanding the defence industry right now is the Triple Helix, which is a three-year MINDS grant within DND. Think about it. Within Canada, we have one grouping of expertise that is looking at it, and they have to get renewed. They have one year to do something meaningful, and then in the third year, they're preparing to get renewed on it. That's it.

If you want that evergreen capability, make sure you are getting the outside people who may be critical of government, be it Liberal or Conservative—to follow what Christian is saying—so we have that information and can look at it and say, “This is where it's right.”

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

Mr. Shimooka.

[Richard Shimooka]

If we look at Canada itself, our policy-making system is poor. We don't have a clear statement of what our national security goals are, what the military strategy is and what our national defence requirements are for a defence industrial base. Because of that, right now we have a defence industrial strategy without a current national security strategy, as the Prime Minister has said in other times.

If you don't have that clear demand signal that creates stuff, as Dr. Leuprecht said, like understanding what's out there in defence, you don't understand the means to the ends, and as a result, you don't have the right outcomes. That makes it really difficult for industry to know what we need to build and what the requirements are, and also for the military to say, “These are the things we want to do. What can go to industry?”

It makes for a very poor policy-making process that doesn't get the required outcomes and doesn't have the continued regeneration of what's necessary within the industrial base.