National Defence Committee on June 1st, 2026

[France Hébert]

For us, I think that teaming is integral because we're not a platform manufacturer. We actually provide training and simulation, and we work with all of the platform providers—be it in the air, land or sea domain—to train the men and women in uniform. For us, it's integral from that perspective.

As well, we cannot do it alone. We rely on our supply chain of over 400 companies to get the work done, and we also partner with our allies and forces.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I have one minute left. For the space people in the room, here's your opportunity to market-pitch to us. What differentiates the three of you?

[Hugh Kolias]

I can start. I can probably do it in 10 seconds.

We're focused on a larger vehicle—quite frankly, it's about 12,500 kilograms—in sun-synchronous orbit, and that's enough to get Telesat Lightspeed up to orbit. That is, I'd say, our key differentiator there.

[Mike Greenley]

What differentiates us is 57 years of experience and world leadership positions in earth observation, robotics, rovers and communications satellites.

[Rahul Goel]

For NordSpace, we're a vertically integrated company. We're the only one in Canada that develops space launch vehicles, a spaceport and satellite capabilities. The integrated capability allows us to maximize our capture of the value chain.

[Bachar Elzein]

For us at Reaction Dynamics, we're focusing on storable propellants, which means offering more flexibility to the end-user, customer and government operators alike.

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Groleau. It's over to you for five minutes.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is my first time speaking at the Standing Committee on National Defence. Before I begin, I'd like to thank the brave women and men who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Coast Guard. I thank them for protecting us.

Mr. Pyun, I hope you're doing well. I'm very pleased to welcome a representative from Bombardier, which is a source of Canadian, international and Quebec pride.

Over the past decade, the Liberal government hasn't focused on defence building in Canada. Do you think the country left well-paying jobs and economic growth on the table?

[Pierre Seïn Pyun]

Thank you for your comments and your question.

We're quite focused on the future. We've seen this in recent years with Canada, which has adopted a defence industrial strategy for the first time. Over the past few years, we've been the lawyers who, alongside other players in the Canadian industry or economy, argued for more investment in defence.

As I said earlier, it isn't a zero‑sum game. We can strengthen our relationships with our current partners, in particular the United States. I said earlier that we have considerable investments with the United States. We actually have some major defence projects in the United States, in particular with the American air force and army, involving surveillance and communications aircraft.

However, we can also further invest in our sovereign capabilities and diversify our partnerships, including with Europe. There was a question earlier about partnerships. I think that this is absolutely the key to success for the industry. It's our model too. We focus on platforms, which in our case are aircraft. We work with system integrators all over the world.

We're really focused on the future. Some good benchmarks have been set. I agree that one of our priorities will be to set this in stone and ensure that these changes become permanent.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

You build some of the best aircraft in the world, right here in Quebec.

Let's talk about the defence procurement process. Do you find that Canadian companies are given sufficient priority to innovate or continue development, or are we turning more often to foreign markets?

[Pierre Seïn Pyun]

We've recently seen some encouraging signs when it comes to developing sovereign capabilities or leveraging Canada's aerospace industry. As I said earlier, we're one of the few countries with this complete capability, from service design to production and from aircraft design to certification and maintenance. It's a strategic capability.

I also noted something earlier. We think that it's encouraging to see the defence industrial strategy include the important pillar of research and development. However, work remains to be done. Programs and initiatives have been launched, including BOREALIS. These are encouraging signs. We need to roll out these programs on a larger scale.

We also need to focus on creating partnerships in innovation, which requires a different approach. We're talking about innovation procurement and about having structures, processes and channels in place in order to embark on development programs with our own government in the areas of its choice. This means areas where we want to develop sovereign capabilities. This calls for engagement with the industry at a much earlier stage, even before the tendering process. This also calls for security infrastructure. Both the government and the industry must work hard on this in order to create a framework for this type of discussion.

[Jason Groleau, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you for your response.

Ms. Hébert, you spoke about the need for Canada to have a sovereign training capability. Yet the Liberals cancelled fighter pilot training. This training is being transferred abroad. How does this government mismanagement, such as the replacement of fighter jets and the end of the Snowbirds aerobatic team, directly affect your capacity and expertise?

[France Hébert]

At CAE, we're leaders in training around the world, and here in Canada as well. We're currently training a number of Canadian Armed Forces members across Canada. As I said, we have operations at a number of sites across Canada. We see a great deal of potential in the future pilot training program. We're managing the program ourselves. We have a strategic partnership for the future fighter lead‑in training program. Through this strategic partnership, together with the Government of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces, we're trying to speed up this program so that we can properly train future fighter pilots.

In terms of the Snowbirds, when we obtain the new aircraft, we're really looking forward to continuing to train pilots on them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Thank you both.

We're going to have bells soon. I would ask the committee for unanimous consent to sit through the bells until the vote.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

Ms. Idlout, I'll turn the floor over to you now for five minutes.

[Lori Idlout, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Ulaakut. Good day.

Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today, and thank you to the chair for acknowledging that today is the first day of National Indigenous History Month.

Having said that, I have just one question for France and Mike to respond to.

Also, thanks to Hugh for acknowledging that we're on Algonquin Anishinabe territory.

I think we all know that given Canada's history towards indigenous people, we've tended to see that we have an under-representation of indigenous people—our first nations, Métis and Inuit—in this field.

France and Mike, I wonder if you can respond to this question: What does the federal government need to do to help increase and have sustained engagement of indigenous people in this field?

[France Hébert]

I can start.

We have seen changes in recent time with respect to reconciliation and working with indigenous people. As part of one of the programs that we currently work on, the future aircrew training program, there are requirements to work with indigenous people and indigenous businesses. It's a process that we're all learning through. With that, we are committed to work with indigenous businesses to also work at skills development, as well as at finding ways that we can better collaborate for the future.

I think there are a lot of opportunities there. It was mentioned earlier from a labour perspective that in the world of aerospace, a lot of our pilots and aircraft maintenance technicians.... We do have an aging population. We are really focusing now on skills development with indigenous people because we need more skilled workers. There are a lot of opportunities, so that's what we're working on.

[Mike Greenley]

I agree with France.

The requirements are in the procurements increasingly, and it does affect our behaviour, for sure. It's a part of every major project activity now to determine where we can engage with the community and include more.

[Lori Idlout, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you.

I do see that I have some time left. Maybe the other witnesses could respond if they're interested.

[Hugh Kolias]

I'd also echo both Mike and France.

I think Pierre mentioned that there's a shortage of workers and talent, and it's also up to the companies to work with aboriginal communities and companies. We work with Eagle Flight Network, and there is a lot of opportunity to incorporate across the value chain of test qualification flight.

[Rahul Goel]

I'd like to comment on some very tangible examples of what we can do at the SME level as well.

Two examples come to mind. One is that, just last week, we announced an $8-million project in advanced manufacturing, a consortium led by NordSpace and with NGen support. One of the key contributors is Bear Paw Manufacturing in Ontario, which is developing specialized metal superalloy powders that go into our 3-D printers that develop our rocket engines. We've been very intentional about pursuing that.

As mentioned, it also comes down to the talent in the workforce. We're very proud of our lead structures engineer, who worked at SpaceX, worked on the Raptor engines and is of indigenous origin. He's from Alberta. He came back to Canada because he saw that we are developing rockets here in Canada and that he could leave the United States and come back home. We're constantly trying to develop that sort of talent here in Canada. It's abundant. Again, we just have to be intentional about it.

[Bachar Elzein]

I would mirror Rahul's comments. We're pretty much similar. We've been very intentional in our decisions to partner with some companies, notably on the southern shore of Montreal in Kahnawake. In fact, some parts that will be flying on our propulsion systems and rockets have been manufactured there. It is our intention to expand that partnership. We are currently in discussion. It is something that is led by my chief operating officer, Maxime. He's spearheading that effort to see how we can incorporate more manufacturing. We're very sensitive to the cost.

[Pierre Seïn Pyun]

Maybe I can reinforce the point about skills development that was made by my colleagues. To give you an example, according to the Quebec sector council, CAMAQ, there's a need for 65,000 new positions to be filled in the coming 10 years in Quebec alone. That's in the aviation industry writ large. That includes services and airlines but also the manufacturing sector. It is a huge issue, the bottleneck, and it includes schools' capacity. The key schools in Quebec are actually full. When you look at the future, between anticipated retirement and also supporting the growth, the need is very substantial. There's a concern around the capacity of the school system to meet that demand. We believe this will create opportunities, and we should explore those opportunities to work with first nations to address this skills challenge.

From a supply chain point of view, at Bombardier we have an established supply chain for our aircraft that serves as a base for defence applications with modifications. However, as I mentioned, until recently our success in defence was mostly outside of Canada. This is now changing here in Canada, and I think it creates opportunities for us. We are exploring supply chain opportunities, especially on the defence side, here in Canada. That should provide some opportunities for first nations businesses.