Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences on the current state of veteran entrepreneurship in Canada. I did 20 years in the Canadian Army, retiring as a lieutenant-colonel. I did three tours to Afghanistan, two of them combat tours to Kandahar.
Other than being a Canadian military veteran, I have two experiences that are relevant to today’s conversation.
One, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I founded and sold a software company for seven figures. I am now co-owner of a multi-million dollar business, 123 Cyber, a veteran majority-owned business with more than 10 employees.
Two, I founded and built the non-profit Veteran Business Network Institute, VBNI, which has 200 veteran business owners. We run quarterly veteran “pitch fests” and annual events. The last pitch fest was in Halifax in September 2025. It was attended by the Veterans Affairs Canada associate deputy minister.
Today I'd like to present three actionable policies that the Canadian government can implement right now. I hope my focused recommendations can add value immediately.
As successful business owner Charlie Munger once said, “Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.” I'll start with the current outcomes of Canadian veteran business owners in the very narrow space of those who sell directly to the Canadian federal government. We don’t know how many Canadian veteran business owners sell to the Canadian federal government, because Canada doesn’t track those numbers. Using data from my non-profit, I would estimate that there are a few dozen businesses. The community is small. Other than a few outliers, their total revenue from the Canadian federal government would be $50 million to $100 million.
When compared with the United States, with 10 times the population, you might expect Canada to be 40 to 50 businesses and the U.S. to be 400 and 500 businesses. That would be incorrect. The U.S. has over 1,000 times more businesses. As of July 2022, there were 43,544 active veteran-owned businesses registered and doing business with U.S. federal agencies, receiving $31.2 billion in federal contracts. It's estimated that those federal contracts account for only 30% to 50% of those companies' total revenue. When including commercial, state and international revenue, it totals $72 billion to $120 billion of revenue a year, with an estimated 650,000 to 900,000 employees and jobs created in the country. These companies are overrepresented in such industries as the defence supply chain, infrastructure, cyber, IT modernization, engineering services, logistics and construction.
Why am I focusing on this small and narrow example, and why today of all days? It's because Canada is announcing generational investments into the Canadian military, and we need all those industries that I just mentioned today. Unfortunately, there is not a sufficient Canadian small business ecosystem to consume the investments, veteran or not veteran; therefore, most of that investment will go to large American and European defence companies. Where are the Canadian business-focused veterans who would build these companies in Canada, you ask? They all work for large international defence companies looking to win the generational investment. There are no paths or incentives for them to build businesses here.
If the United States has better outcomes, what are the incentives that created them? First, their Congress authorized a government-wide procurement goal of awarding at least 3% of federal contract award dollars to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. Like Canada’s indigenous procurement target of 5%, it intended to build a robust veteran business ecosystem, leveraging the decades of government, security and military experience those veterans already have. Further, for every large U.S. defence contract, the large defence primes need to include subcontracting plans with veteran-owned businesses. Lastly, the U.S. has a mature veteran incubation and funding ecosystem, ensuring that those businesses are procurement-ready to work with federal agencies and other government contractors.
“Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.” If you want to build a successful veteran entrepreneurship ecosystem that can deliver on the generational investment that Canada is doing for the Canadian military today, that can expand and sell commercially and internationally, building jobs and building the Canadian economy, you need to change the incentives.
I have three policy and funding recommendations today to enact immediately. First, follow Canada’s indigenous procurement target of 5% and build a 3% target for veteran small and medium businesses that matches the U.S. policy. Use this moment of a once-in-a-generation defence investment to build a veteran business ecosystem for all the industries we need. Second, adjust Canada’s industrial and technological benefits policy to include incentives and multipliers for large defence companies to work with Canadian veteran-owned small and medium businesses. Third, look to fund the University of Ottawa's mission entrepreneur program to build a sustainable mentorship and entrepreneurship program immediately focused on the Canadian defence and government space.
These policy actions could be implemented quickly and could fundamentally change the incentive structure for Canadian veterans, incentivizing them to build successful businesses here. These incentives would open up partnerships, funding and larger effort in this space.
Thank you for your time.