Veterans Affairs Committee on April 13th, 2026

[William Steed]

Attention to detail was a big one, as well as always looking to adapt to any sort of roadblock that would come up, being quick to think on my feet—which is something that I attribute to the military for sure—and looking for ways around things.

Failure to adapt in the military is a failure. You have to adapt to equipment issues, personnel issues, environmental issues and things like that. That really gave me a head start in business, because things are coming at you five times a day that you may not expect, so you have to be able to adapt to them.

Those were the key things that I took away from the military that have helped me in business.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

That's wonderful. Thank you for that.

It's interesting to read about your business and blacksmithing and that you feel it helps veterans maintain focus and concentration. I'm thinking there's probably a very meditative aspect to working with steel.

Would you say that the hands-on aspect of blacksmithing helps veterans with managing their stress or their mental health challenges? We know that the physical and mental connection within the body is so great.

[William Steed]

Absolutely, 100%, and we've had some real success stories over the years with various programs we've put on.

I can give an example. One case we had was a very hardened special operator who spent years in the forces and suffered pretty badly from PTSD symptoms. When he took our two-day workshop at The Veterans Ranch in B.C., CBC came up and did interviews. He wanted to say his bit in front of the camera and CBC, and he actually broke down and said that this was the best he'd felt in years.

You're exactly right. We have a very meditative process. You're focused 100% on what you're doing, so your mind is clear. That seems to be an issue with a lot of vets suffering from mental health issues: Their minds are going a million times a minute. However, when you're blacksmithing, you have to focus on what you're doing. Otherwise, you get hurt, and pain is a great motivator for focus.

Luckily, I've taught thousands of people and we've never had an incident, and I want to keep it that way. We're very safety-conscious, but it always has to be in the back of the mind. I think that does help.

Also, creating something with your hands is very good for people. I think everyone should have some sort of creative outlet. We've introduced so many people to this, both civilians and veterans, throughout the years.

[Alana Hirtle, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

That's great. Thank you.

I'm going to switch to Dr. Blanchard for a brief moment.

My colleague MP d'Entremont and I are both from Nova Scotia, so I was interested to hear from you. Can you expand very briefly on the partnership with StFX and the Coady Institute?

[Joseph Blanchard]

The opportunity I've been working on for the past year and a half is to put out the proof of concept and test it. The Coady Institute has all of the education and training, including the one-week boot camp. We used to do this with the POE, or Prince's Operation Entrepreneur, which is now the King's Trust. They don't do this anymore.

The Nova Scotia government is very interested in being able to fill this gap. They identified it as a gap in Nova Scotia for veterans. From that point of view, they've said, “Let's engage; let's start talking.”

I've talked with ACOA, and they're very interested, not just from a Nova Scotian perspective but from an Atlantic perspective. We have the capability at StFX to run with the entrepreneurship training, and we're good to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I'm so sorry, Dr. Blanchard. I'm looking at my colleagues with a very strong turn. It's my third time interrupting you, so I sincerely apologize.

Madame Gaudreau will have six minutes.

She will speak to you in French. Please put your earpiece in and make sure you can hear the interpretation clearly.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Right off the bat, I said how pleased I was to see success stories like yours. So thank you. This will truly help us to make sound recommendations.

My first question is quite simple and it's for both Mr. Steed and Mr. Grewal.

Had you ever heard of the Veterans Entrepreneurship Hub, or Vet‑Hub, before today?

[William Steed]

No. I've taken the information down, and I will be researching it.

[Arjun Grewal]

Joe and I know each other and have crossed paths a number of times, so yes, I've heard of it.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Excellent.

Now, my questions will be for Mr. Blanchard.

Since you have proof that a service like yours, which is potentially available to everyone but not everywhere in all provinces and in Quebec, what do you think about conducting a census of all organizations that provide support? Let's face it: Peer support is much more beneficial than general support.

Do you agree with me that it would be a good thing to start out with a comprehensive tool kit to provide support to veterans who are at the end of their career and are curious about business, or who want to start a business?

[Joseph Blanchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

Right now, there are many different organizations in Canada offering the same services. Many people are unaware of them, whether in British Columbia, Quebec or Nova Scotia. They know there are programs available to them, but that's it. In Canada, there is an opportunity to centralize all these efforts so that everyone can go to one place and find everything.

I've spoken with a few companies in Sherbrooke and an association that, like Invest Ottawa, helps people in the tech sector. However, it's pockets like that that are scattered all over the place. There's no centralized body.

My efforts, and the efforts of my new board of directors and my team, are aimed at centralizing everything and reaching out to veterans to let them know that there are educational and mentoring opportunities, and people who can help them, such as CEOs, CFOs and so on. Also, we're going to have money to help them start their business. It's not just for high-tech companies. It could also be a home business, a small carpentry business or something like that. In addition, we are a support unit in marketing, human resources, and so on.

In my field, I've seen this all across Canada. Now I want to know more about all the different things out there, such as the Veteran Business Network Institute, founded by Caleb Walker, who is a member of our board. We want to centralize it for everyone and communicate the information to everyone, not just on military bases, stations or shipyards, but also in rural regions, such as northern Quebec, Rouyn‑Noranda or places like that.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Excellent.

Mr. Blanchard, you talked about a percentage of entrepreneurs who will, first of all, go through a lot or even not succeed in business, unfortunately.

Do we have the percentage of veterans who fail when they start a business?

[Joseph Blanchard]

Today, no. I'm striving to secure us more money to conduct studies. I have a Ph.D. in business administration. My specialty is entrepreneurship. I started another non-profit organization, an institute for research on veterans. We need more information in Canada about businesses. The Prince's Operation Entrepreneur has seen more than 6,100 people participate in its week-long training camps at various universities across Canada. However, there isn't any data on the successes and failures. There are no statistics for that.

I would like Canada to start having statistics so that it's possible to know how many of the 6,000 participants succeeded in the first year, and whether, for example, 50% of participants failed in the first year because they lacked money, education or mentorship from an experienced business owner.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Absolutely.

One of our recommendations will focus on traceability, but we will also have to get figures so that we can identify the gaps and address them. You have put us on the right track. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Gaudreau, I very much appreciate the fact that I didn't have to interrupt Mr. Blanchard this time.

Starting our second round is Mr. Viersen for five minutes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank our witnesses for their service and for being here today.

My questions are for Mr. Grewal.

I was just reading a press release from March 26 about the government's plans to spend half a trillion dollars on defence procurement over the next decade. I'm interested in a couple of things. First, are you seeing a shift in defence procurement? Are you seeing that money coming out in your direction?

Second, you talked about this northern camp where you do training for us and our allies. I anticipate that you interact with soldiers from other countries. Which country is doing a good job of that, and how do we get our veterans...? I assume our veterans have a talent pool, battlefield instincts and all this kind of stuff.

Warfare is changing. We can't necessarily just write it out on paper. For some of this stuff, a soldier is going to see something and say, “We need this.” Coming to the committee and telling us about this takes a long time, so having veterans embedded in this whole process would seem to allow us to have some of that instinct.

Can you address those three areas?

[Arjun Grewal]

Absolutely. Thanks for the question.

The short answer is, yes, we are starting to see the investment. Those dollars flow down the hill into everything from start-ups to enterprises, through avenues such as BDC, which does such a good job of supporting start-ups writ large, with entrepreneurship across the citizenry, not only for veterans. That money is being deployed and it's starting to move.

On the veteran context and buy Canada, we would love to see “buy veteran”. To show and prove some incentives for working with companies that are veteran-run, veteran-owned and sovereign would be a boon for that economic development question. We often work hand in hand. Frankly, we fought in the same wars and we do the same training, and we commiserate and hang out after service as well, with all of our Five Eyes and allied friends and our former colleagues.

A number of countries have invested in this space, which goes to my earlier point about this being equally an economic policy and a veteran policy. Our friends and partners down in the U.S. have the SBA, the U.S. Small Business Administration. That has a very dedicated avenue and some pathways for veterans. Capital support is immediate through their economic development agency, not through their veterans affairs. Even military spouses have familial avenues for starting businesses and supporting businesses. That's one highlight that I think we can learn a lot from and implement quickly.

As for numbers for my preparation for this meeting, $1.6 billion has been deployed through that program over the last 20 years. They see a return on investment of almost $1 trillion of economic impact a year from that. It's a return on investment for the Canadian population, which puts a lot of money, time and effort into training soldiers, who can then come out and leverage those learnings, that knowledge and that risk-taking, which is a large part of entrepreneurship.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I followed with interest the war in Ukraine and saw how quickly the tactics of war have changed. In some ways, it's the very high tech versus the very low tech. It has been interesting to see the drone warfare and how we bring back netting and things like that. That's the battlefield instinct that I was talking about.

Part of it is about developing that through experience, and then you enter the private sector and have an idea for a business, but some of that can take years to develop. That's more like an R and D area.

The Americans have DARPA. They put out a lot of research investment through that. Do you see anything like that happening in Canada, or do you have a recommendation for something like that?

[Arjun Grewal]

We do. DRDC is a premier global organization under DND. Could they be more visible? Absolutely. Could they do more to integrate with soldiers—who still maintain the attributes of service after they leave service—to serve Canada? I would count myself in that. Many of my colleagues who have served also amplify and echo that.

DRDC, DND, ideas, minds...there are a number of avenues to them. They're clunky. They're slow. Today's conversation isn't necessarily about them, but I think Canada is moving in the right direction in that space, and building businesses from the end-user lens is going to be an enabler.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Grewal.

For five minutes, we have Mr. d'Entremont.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I always take home some interesting points when we have these presenters.

What I'm finding super interesting is the things that we make. An entrepreneur can do a whole bunch of different things, but I like it when people make things. Today, we've had T-shirts, blacksmithing and respiratory protection as we go around, and I'm really interested in how someone gets from a career in the armed forces to looking at entrepreneurship and then building something.

My first question is for Mr. Steed. Quickly, where does blacksmithing come from? What kinds of products for sale are you making? Thank you for the program you're doing with other veterans to get them into the business of blacksmithing.

[William Steed]

That's a great question.

While I was in the military, I was sent to technical school—fleet school, basically—in Halifax. I did an 18-month course there on engineering. There was a machining component. There were hydraulics components. We basically did second-year engineering. I was at the TQ5 level, but it was an excellent program. It was 18 months long, and I got a lot out of it.

When I left the military, I used that training for an apprenticeship in millwrighting. I was credited with three years towards that apprenticeship because of my military experience and training, so that was super helpful. They've changed that program for my MOC, and they do not offer quite the level that I received when I was in, which is unfortunate, but going forward, the military has its reasons for that.

I worked with metal. I worked with steel. I worked in manufacturing for different companies and really like to see things being built. I started blacksmithing as a hobby and started making small items for people.

Now what we do in our shop is decorative gates, decorative railings, art pieces and things like that, and a few small items as well, but we've transitioned more to architectural blacksmithing. Some of the stuff we've done could be larger projects, usually for businesses or individuals and home-based projects. We're creating what I like to call functional art. I like to make my pieces beautiful when they go out and have the customer very happy.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

The next time you come out east, I have a couple of blacksmith spots. Le Village historique acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse would love to have you come spend some time showing them how to do some of their work.

I'll go to Mr. Grewal for a few moments.

You're building some cool products too. As a retired firefighter, putting on a BA is probably not the most fun thing to do in the world. What kind of products are you finding yourself building or at least accessing, or being able bring to the military and first responders?

[Arjun Grewal]

It's great to know that you have some end-user experience on that as well.

Gas masks and SCBAs are great pieces of equipment, but we use them for everything. There are very unique conditions and environmental and operational scenarios where those are overkill. The respiratory protection piece is important. The work I do with BurnPits360 in the U.S. is important, and bringing that advocacy up here is part of it.

The reason I add that context is I think that's why we build things: to innovate, get better and continue to serve soldiers of the future who are going to benefit from the lessons we've learned. You see a lot of the veteran groups and business owners working in that direction.

We also, as part of IMT Group, build Canada's arsenal of 155-millimetre munitions. We're very proud of that. We work closely with other partners to commercialize those and get them into the supply chain for the Canadian Armed Forces and our allies. Building them is pretty exciting as well. Being an end-user who's been downrange receiving fires and executing fires and then being part of the supply chain to build them is something, to other committee members' points about building.... That's a driver.