National Defence Committee on May 27th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

You have 54 seconds.

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

Ms. Lussier, very quickly I'll jump back to my initial question in which I was speaking about allied partnerships to deal with the short term, not the long term.

Do you think we should be doing these potential lend, lease, training, co-development agreements in the short term for the gap, yes or no?

[Mélanie Lussier]

Yes, I think we should do it. It provides that opportunity to include Canadian IP in foreign projects. The U.K. did it terrifically with the F-35s and having BAE Systems as part of the aircraft, and they sold 166 aircraft afterwards.

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

You're waving a hand, Mr. Mueller. Would you agree on the same context there?

[Mike Mueller]

Our industry is built on collaboration, so it's absolutely critical. I think of certain opportunities that are out there, such as sixth-generation GCAP. The earlier you get into these programs, the more opportunity Canadian companies have to contribute and develop IP and to be part of long-term solutions that are going to be serving our allies right around the world.

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

Thank you, Mr. Mueller and Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you to both our witnesses.

Mr. Malette, I'll turn the floor over to you now for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today. I know a lot of you took time to come here from CANSEC. Speaking of that, my first question will be directed to Ms. Lussier.

Today at CANSEC—as I'm sure you're well aware—the Prime Minister announced that Canada is entering negotiations to procure Saab's GlobalEye platform, with major opportunities for Canadian manufacturing, innovation and skilled jobs tied to the project. This is projected to support more than 3,000 jobs.

In your view, how important are initiatives like this in positioning Canada's aerospace and defence sectors for long-term growth while also strengthening Canada's contributions to NATO and continental defence?

[Mélanie Lussier]

These are parts of the good signals that are part of the strategy—that when we can, when we have the capabilities here and when we are willing to do it, we do it. Again, I'm not going to comment on whether it is better to go with that route than the other routes. It's okay. We're going to follow.... Once a decision is made and there's predictability.... Having a focus now is certainly well welcomed by the industry because they know now that we have a project—or a potential project. We welcome more, I would say, the predictability and the previsibility than the announcements themselves—while we're super happy anyway.

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

I'll ask Mr. Mueller the same question, as well, in terms of the signal it sends to the industry.

[Mike Mueller]

Signals are very important. I'm not going to comment on that particular one, just because there's that contract—

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

I'm not asking anybody to say yea or nay on the exact contract.

[Mike Mueller]

The Prime Minister's announcement from this morning on ITBs is very good. Increasing multipliers to drive certain outcomes.... It's the outcomes piece. It's beneficial to the larger companies, as well as the small and medium-sized businesses, to drive those outcomes. As for the strategic partnership framework, I haven't had a chance to digest that fully, but putting these signals out there is absolutely important.

I think there was a previous question, too, about how small and medium-sized companies take advantage of this. We've been dealing a lot with ISED on the concierge service, so there are great opportunities for a lot of these small and medium-sized businesses to determine how they're going to get into some of these supply chains with regard to, maybe, the announcement that the Prime Minister made. There are opportunities in whatever platform is chosen for the supply chain right across Canada.

Again, these are very encouraging signals from the Prime Minister today. We're eager to continue working with him, the government and officials as they're developing these pieces, because the execution is very much what we're looking at.

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

Yes, and I'm happy you mentioned that concierge service for some of the smaller pairings, because right in my riding we had a very smallish contractor who had been running into a brick wall in trying to.... He has just signed on with General Dynamics. I think that's the kind of stimulus we want.

[Mike Mueller]

I think that's—

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

To go back to you as well on that theme, Mr. Mueller, many Canadian defence firms are innovative SMEs, some as small as nine employees, as I've learned from the group I was just referring to. What specific policy tools do you think, aside from this concierge...? Is there anything more we can do to help scale up and participate more effectively in procurement?

[Mike Mueller]

ITB is absolutely critical for the small and medium-sized businesses in order to take advantage of some of the pieces that are there. Again, I'm pleased to see a focus on innovation, because the innovation side of things is what drives the jobs and the further and spillover effects, perhaps to the civil side. We have examples of that with companies.

On the concierge service, I will say that a big focus of mine on that is on the outcomes. It can't be another bureaucratic box-checking exercise. If companies are going to be going to this concierge service, there has to be ownership over the issue they're trying to solve. In a lot of cases, you see everything being bounced around: “Well, that's PSPC. Well, that's Treasury Board. Well, that's defence. You have to go to the CAF. You have to go to ISED.” How do we encourage government to take ownership over some of these pieces?

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you, Mr. Malette and Mr. Mueller.

Mr. Anderson, we're back to you again.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'll start again with Mr. Ziadé.

There was a recent SAHA trade show in Istanbul. Canadians, specifically under the DIA, sent a trade delegation. The purpose of being there was to sell Canadian goods overseas, something that we should have done decades ago, in my opinion. The government should have been behind this.

However, we got there, and I think that, much to their surprise, the Canadian delegation found that they had a mixed message. They are trying to get foreign governments to buy into our industry and buy our wares, but at the same time, they are announcing that we're going to keep 80% of our supply chain Canadian.

It's a mixed message: “Please buy our stuff, but we're not going to buy your stuff.” In your opinion, how should we reconcile that message, and what should we be saying at these overseas trade shows?

[Paul Ziadé]

Thank you for your question.

This is a complex one. Defence procurement is quite complicated.

We're not the only country that looks to onshore a lot of the manufacturing, for example. You see countries like Sweden, and they have Saab. In Norway, they have Kongsberg. These are world-class companies that they have very deliberately supported through various policies.

We can probably reconcile these two things to an extent. These are not mutually exclusive.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

They're not mutually exclusive...?

[Paul Ziadé]

I don't believe so, no.

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Mueller, could you answer the same question?

[Mike Mueller]

I agree. Our government representatives who are travelling around the world should be promoting Canadian aerospace in particular. We've heard the examples from the past in which we had government officials soliciting foreign companies to try to bid on, to give some competition here domestically and—

[Scott Anderson, Conservative, Vernon—Lake Country—Monashee, BC]

What kind of message are we sending, though, if we're saying that we want them to buy our stuff, but we're not going to buy their stuff?