National Defence Committee on June 3rd, 2026

[Philip Earle, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I'm good.

[The Chair, Liberal, Charles Sousa]

All right. With that, Mr. Bezan, you have five minutes.

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

Secretary, when we were talking about SMEs earlier, you said that there's a one-stop shop phone number. What is that number?

I know from my conversations with SMEs that they'd love to know how to get hold of DIA.

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

I'll check to see if there is a phone number. There certainly is an email address, and if there's a phone number, I will pass it on to the committee.

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

I think it's something that....

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

I'm not too hard to get hold of.

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

I won't be passing out your number. I can tell you that.

Anyway, with the Defence Investment Agency as it relates to the defence industrial strategy, what's the priority? Is it to meet the statement of requirements for each piece of kit that you're buying for the Canadian Armed Forces, or is it for the ITBs that you're coursing out of industry?

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

They're mutually reinforcing. We can do both.

Here's a great example. We just bought HIMARS from the U.S. In this particular case, for that procurement, that was the quickest way to get the kit the military needed. We just went and did it.

It's tough to answer that question, because every single circumstance is different.

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

The HIMARS is a Lockheed Martin product. Have you talked to them about building some of the renewables for that, such as the rockets themselves, using Canadian companies?

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

That's certainly something we could talk about.

HIMARS is pretty mature. This is going back to another committee appearance that I had. Many—

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

It's also about surge capacity, is it not? Everybody is using HIMARS. It's not just the States and not just us. Most of the NATO allies are using them. Ukraine's using them.

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

Ammo in general is an issue. Whether it's for HIMARS, 155 millimetre, small arms or 120 millimetre, all of that's an issue. That's something Canada is very serious about getting into, not only for our own war stocks but to help out our neighbours—

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

I know that the government was slow in signing the contracts for the 155-millimetre artillery shells. We got that done only in the last few months, even though we knew for the last four years that we were undersupplied and underproducing. The increase that happened in the Canadian industry in 155 millimetre all happened through contracts signed with the United States. We did it in February.

What about on the rocket side? We have rocket companies like Magellan—

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

I think you hit the nail on the head. With rockets now, it seemed like that was old technology as we went to different higher-end systems, but we can't throw million-dollar missiles at $20,000 drones. That is not a sustainable position to be in. I think the Brits have a laser-guided rocket. It's a fairly effective way to do it.

I tend to agree with you, in that Magellan used to build a CRV7 for Canada. They still have that capability in cold storage. I'm going to be raising that with my colleagues to see if there's a need for us to get back into that business.

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

Well, there were 80,000-some CRV7s that were donated to Ukraine.

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

Yes. Those are Canadian ones that we wrote off—

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

Yes. They were all made in Manitoba, by the way.

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

Yes, they were, 100%.

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

Going through division 16 of the BIA, subdivision B, when you look at the changes that would be made to the Defence Production Act, you see there are changes in the definitions in clause 307—

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

I used to chair this committee as well. I think everyone's been generous, but if you want me to come back on this—

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

You don't want to answer questions about the agency that you're currently—

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

I want to answer questions on the subject for which I was called to the committee, which is the DIS. If you want to have me back, I'm happy to come back.

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

We aren't going to get a chance to do this, because this is being done through the finance committee.

It's just explanations as to why the definitions now go beyond. “Residential communities” means more than military communities. Why do defence services and defence procurement go to just anything and don't necessarily refer to defence at all?

Then you tie that in with financial assistance. The minister will have the power to give up to $1 billion to make “loans to any person”, to “make advance payments to any persons”, to “guarantee the repayment”, to “provide loan insurance or credit insurance” and to “make grants and contributions to any person”, which also means corporations.

Is this just another scandal in the making, where there won't be—

[Stephen Fuhr, Liberal, Kelowna, BC]

No—

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

—any accountability and we're again talking about a green slush fund, ad scam or arrive scam?