“I oppose this bill. Our military needs better equipment, but this bill just creates a secret new Crown corporation. It lets the government spend up to $1 billion without any oversight from Parliament. The Prime Minister is also paying his friend nearly $900,000 to run it instead of hiring a military expert.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today simply to object to Bill C‑40. Before going further, I first want to say that I have always supported the idea of finding a way to fix our military procurement system. I was a soldier myself for a time. Later on, and since my election, I have seen the full extent of the ineffective management plaguing Canada’s defence procurement. Yes, that needs to change. We have models to guide us. Other countries, like Australia, for example, or Great Britain, have different ways of doing things. Today, unfortunately, the government is heading in a completely different direction. In presenting the bill as a way to speed up defence procurement, the government is prevaricating. In reality, this is not a plan to provide the Canadian Armed forces with equipment. It is a blatant attempt to create a secretive bureaucratic structure. The government is asking for a $1-billion blank cheque to circumvent parliamentary oversight and line the pockets of Liberal insiders. The facts are clear. I am not making this up; the information comes directly from official Department of National Defence reports. In 2026, we have warships that are rusting away, military equipment that is worn out and fighter jets that are obsolete. More than 40% of our core naval fleet is unfit for training or operational missions. Half of our core army vehicles are out of service. The situation is even worse in the air, where 57% of the fleet is unusable. Why are we in this situation? The answer is not complicated. The government has systematically underinvested in national procurement, allowed personnel to become exhausted and accumulated nearly $10 billion in allocated defence funding that was never spent. My colleagues heard that correctly: $10 billion earmarked for defence—that is, defence investments—has not been spent and has not been used. It has sat idle, gathering dust on a shelf in the Liberal bureaucracy. The situation has gotten so bad that, last May, members of the Canadian Armed Forces were asked to return basic gear like rucksacks and tactical vests because of a severe shortage of equipment. That is serious. We are being forced to tell soldiers to bring back their rucksacks either because we do not have enough for new arrivals or because soldiers are deploying somewhere and there is not enough equipment. Members are also being asked to return their tactical vests. As I said, I served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 22 years. Of course, we have already lived through what is known as the decade of darkness, under Jean Chrétien. It was terrible. That is why seeing this sort of thing happen again in defence management is almost like post-traumatic shock. This is a national disgrace. While soldiers are short on flak jackets and rucksacks, what are the Liberals doing? They are creating ministerial positions, adding more administrative structures and appointing their friends in high finance to positions with huge salaries. What is more, Bill C-40 also establishes the Canadian corporation for defence investment. This is the third time. It is the third time in a year that the Liberals have changed their minds about the structure of the agency. First, it was supposed to be an agency within Public Services and Procurement Canada. Then, four months later, the Liberals introduced Bill C-31. They decided to make this body an independent agency. Now, with Bill C-40, it is becoming a Crown corporation with unprecedented powers under the responsibility of an associate minister of national defence. When we ask the Liberals why they have done this once, twice and now a third time, we get no answer. They cannot explain it, but we understand. We understand perfectly well what they are trying to do. By turning the agency into a Crown corporation, the Liberals are freeing themselves from Treasury Board procurement rules. It is deliberate. Crown corporations have their own rules. By creating a Crown corporation, the government is no longer accountable to Parliament. It is no longer accountable to anyone. It is not subject to the same rules. Bill C‑40 would create a Crown corporation that would allow the person in charge to spend up to $1 billion at a time without any accountability. I repeat, it is $1 billion, not $1 million. This is taxpayers’ money that can be spent without any accountability. The rules are not the same. It does not work the same way. There will be no accountability or transparency to Parliament. I am not making this up. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made this clear in her report dated October 20. She said that the government’s extensive and growing reliance on Crown corporations since 2016 amounts to creative accounting designed to conceal the government’s true debt picture and obscure the country’s fiscal sustainability. This is just another Liberal scheme. It is nothing new; it dates back to 2016. The Liberals think that if they create this organization or that Crown corporation, they can do things behind closed doors and keep everything hidden. When it comes to defence, rather than having transparency, proper equipment and investments like we want, the Liberals are going to hide all that in a Crown corporation. That is why we oppose this approach. What is more, who did they choose to head up this body that will spend public funds in a non-transparent manner? They did not choose a retired general, a recognized military procurement expert or someone who knows the needs on the ground. No, instead they chose Doug Guzman. Who is he? Doug Guzman is a very close friend of the Prime Minister. Their friendship dates back to when he was working at Goldman Sachs. This person told the Prime Minister that he would really like to have a sweet government job, and the Prime Minister told him that he would appoint him to be the CEO of a Crown corporation for defence procurement and that that would be the best thing that he could do for him. We, on this side of the House, spoke out against that. The Conservatives questioned this approach that involved appointing a guy from Goldman Sachs to be the CEO of a Crown corporation. What is more, he will be able to do what he wants. He will be able to spend however he wants and he will be paid very handsomely to do so. I heard my Bloc Québécois colleague ask this same question earlier. This person will be paid a salary of $679,000 a year and, even worse, he will receive bonuses. As we know, even when people in government are not doing a good job, they still get bonuses. We see it all the time. People are getting bonus after bonus even when they are losing money. With bonuses, this CEO could be earning up to $900,000 a year. That is the highest paying job in the Government of Canada. By way of comparison, the Prime Minister of Canada, who is responsible for the whole country, earns $435,000 a year. The chief of defence staff, who leads the entire Canadian Armed Forces, who is ultimately responsible for the lives of our soldiers and the security of our country, earns a maximum of $329,000. Once again, some well-connected Liberal insider figures that his friend the Prime Minister might be able to land him a sweet job in this new outfit, so they put him there on a salary of $600,000 a year, plus bonuses, and put him in charge of billions of dollars. He will be able to do whatever he wants. No one will ask him any questions. Who would not want a job like that? Once again, this shows exactly where things are headed: a very Liberal way of doing things, opaque and unaccountable, with someone who has no known qualifications for the job being paid an enormous salary. Speaking of pay and compensation, CEO-8 is the highest executive classification in Canada. There are people in some of the most senior positions in the country, with extensive expertise and experience, who do not earn that much. Once again, we are dealing with a bill that began with a good idea: changing the way things are done in Canada. Unfortunately, the Liberal agenda has once again taken hold. This will, once again, ensure that Liberal cronies make money. We do not know where the money will go. There is a glaring lack of oversight. Will operational requirements be met? Will the real needs of the armed forces be met, given that we have already seen announcements like the one about the GlobalEye? To everyone’s surprise, an aircraft was announced that, from a tactical and technical standpoint, does not meet those requirements. Unfortunately, we have not seen the last of this.”

“I question the government's choice to lead this new military buying corporation. The person chosen does not have military supply experience, gets paid too much, and seems to only have the job because he is a friend of the Prime Minister.”

“Mr. Speaker, I was clear when I spoke about the skills required for the job. Was what Mr. Guzman did at Goldman Sachs a good thing? It probably was. However, is he the right person to run an opaque Crown corporation responsible for military procurement and for meeting operational requirements? That is what we are questioning. We are also questioning the fact that he is receiving an astronomical salary. As I mentioned in my speech, if the government had appointed someone with military procurement and supply expertise to a key position, that would be entirely appropriate. However, if someone turns up out of the blue and the only criterion they meet is being a friend of the Prime Minister, it is reasonable to ask questions.”

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“This bill hides too much. It creates a defence agency run by someone from Goldman Sachs, but the public will not be able to see what it does. The Liberals have also changed their plans for this three times without explaining why.”

“Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned a few times in my speech, that is the problem: It is the lack of transparency. When something is opaque, it means we cannot see what is going on. We are left in the dark. That is the main danger posed by Bill C-40, which would establish a defence procurement Crown corporation headed by someone coming from Goldman Sachs. Everything is closed off. Everything is opaque. We know nothing, and we will know nothing. That is precisely what should not be happening. That also explains why the Liberals have changed the way they have presented this file not once, not twice, but three times. It is also why they cannot answer the simple question of why they have changed course three separate times.”

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“The last Conservative government bought military gear without open bidding to help soldiers in Afghanistan, and Parliament still watched over the process. Why does the member think the Liberals want to avoid that kind of oversight?”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his many years of service in the armed forces. As he knows, the previous Conservative government successfully implemented single-source procurement projects to support our soldiers in Afghanistan, without disregarding parliamentary oversight. Why does he think the Liberals want to avoid transparency and parliamentary oversight?”

“The previous Conservative government ran the military well. This Liberal government is taking us backward. It is bringing back an era of secrecy instead of being open with soldiers, Parliament, and Canadians.”

“Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank my colleague for his 20 years of service in the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He experienced first-hand, on the ground, the impact of ministerial decisions regarding urgently needed equipment. At the time, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government handled those matters exceptionally well. What we are seeing today is a return to the dark ages of Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. I lived through it myself as a member of the military. It was complete chaos. Once again, we are heading back to an era of opacity and secrecy, instead of transparency for our military personnel, for Parliament and for Canadians.”

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“I oppose this bill. Our military has grown weaker under the Liberals because of cuts to training and equipment. Creating a new Crown corporation will not fix this. It will only hide military spending and contracts from Parliament's oversight.”

“Mr. Speaker, CFB Wainwright is no longer front and centre in the news, but many of our service personnel are still in a critical situation from injuries and burns. We also think of the four who lost their lives at this time. It is a reflection of the dangerous work that our military, the navy, the army and the air force do, whether in combat or during training exercises. Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the families and friends of these four soldiers and those who knew them, as well as with the numerous personnel. This strikes close to home because I did my basic training at CFB Wainwright and was involved in other military exercises afterward. That was decades ago. I have lived a full life since then. I want to live longer, but it has been decades. These young men had their lives cut short, and as we approach Remembrance Day, we reflect on the tens of thousands of Canadians who died on the battlefield, who drowned in the North Atlantic after their ships were torpedoed and who suffered unimaginable horrors as prisoners of war in internment camps under the Japanese or as slave labourers. It was terrible. About a decade ago, my wife and I had the privilege of going to Normandy and visiting Juno Beach, where the first Canadian Army landed, and around town. If members have not had a chance to see it, I would encourage them to the site at some point in their life, and other places in France and throughout Europe, such as Vimy Ridge. There are pictures of Canadians moving throughout the town under the hail of machine gunfire. Hundreds were killed and wounded. Lest we forget. Canadians are peace-loving. We have a tradition of peacekeeping. My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 36 years and was based across Canada, in Germany and with the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Ismailia, Egypt and the Golan Heights. Growing up in a military home and having served in the military, I can say the Canadian military has always been on my mind and in my heart. I remember growing up during the years that Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the Liberal prime minister of Canada. I know that those were difficult days for the Canadian military. There were numerous base closures. Our troop strength was slashed and in many ways crippled. We went from having the third- or fourth-largest navy and air force to now being way down on the list, and it is dropping. Our ranking, as far as our military capacity goes, is dropping year by year, it seems. Our overall ranking is now 28th in the world. Our air force is 30th. Our navy is 45th. It has steadily dropped under the Liberals. I am not talking about our personnel. They are excellent. They are dedicated, loyal and professional, and I think they are admired wherever they are. I am talking about how under the Liberals, we have seen an ongoing decline and erosion of our military capacity in spite of the increased dangers we are facing. I understand that after the iron curtain came down, there was a peace dividend and people thought there would be no more war, but things have changed. Humanity has not changed, though. We were not prepared for previous world wars. We were not prepared for the First World War or the Second World War. One cannot just be ready at the call of a bugle. It takes training. It takes equipment. It takes investment. It takes enough personnel, too, and enough training. As for the Liberals, we are hearing a lot of talk but seeing little concrete action. I did not say “no concrete action”, because they will point to this expenditure or that expenditure, like the building of a new bureaucracy. The Liberals are very crafty. They will say they are on track to meet NATO’s defence obligations, but a lot of it is a sleight of hand. For example, they have the Coast Guard now as part of their defence calculations, which was not there beforehand. There are other things that were never part of the defence calculations but now are. The percentage is going up, but actually, in reality, it is going down. As a matter of fact, it is not just staying the same; the investments we are seeing are going down. It is getting worse. I talk with service personnel. The training budget and operating budget have been slashed year after year. This year it was another 10%. The operating budget is already low. It is tough. The infantry, for example, needs to be able to shoot ammo, but a lot of times, even ammo is at a premium. It is really tough. As recently as 2024-25, 40% of maritime key fleets were not serviceable for training and operations, as well as 50% of key army vehicles and 57% of aircraft. Those figures are actually getting worse. We then have the retirement of the Snowbirds. They are part of the military. They are a symbol of Canada, a very important symbol. The Liberals said they were going to bring a replacement aircraft, that they were going to close this down and replace these jets in the 2030s, forgetting that they just modernized these aircraft in 2021 for $29 million. Modernizing the aircraft is not the reason. We are living in a dangerous world, and the Liberals are just traipsing along. Think of what is happening in the battlefields in Ukraine and Russia right now. We have to be much more nimble and ready for hostilities. The Conservatives believe in equipping our forces quickly but also in being sensitive to the Canadian taxpayers, who foot the bill. Under the Harper Conservatives, we bought 650 new LAVs, light armoured vehicles; 500 tactical armoured vehicles; and 100 Leopard tanks. The previous government, under Chrétien, was actually disposing of them. We bought two main battle tanks, 82 armoured heavy support vehicle systems, 50 Nyala armoured vehicles and 37 M777 howitzers. For the air force, we bought five brand new CC-177 tactical Globemasters so we can move equipment around. We bought 21 Chinook helicopters and 17 new CC-130J Hercules models. We upgraded our CF-188s and made the decision to buy the F-35. We got things done. We did not need another bureaucracy under the Defence Investment Agency, which has been in operation for 10 years and has not had any purchases, nothing. The Liberals now want to make it a Crown corporation that is at arm’s length. Well, that is fine. It is not at arm’s length, because under the terms, contrary to all other Crown agencies, it must do what the minister requires it to do. It has much less accountability to Parliament. It can move things around, have contracts and do sole-source contracts that are in its interest, not accountable to Parliament. This is a travesty.”

“The Liberals are spinning the numbers on military recruitment and spending. Just because people apply to the military does not mean they are accepted and trained. We are not paying to train them. The military is falling apart, and the Liberals are to blame.”

“Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot from this member. He seems to be the only person the Liberals put forward, and he is a fine doctor of spinning. With recruitment, the number of people who apply does not mean the number of additional personnel who have been accepted and trained. We need to train these people. We are not paying for a training budget. Everything is falling apart, and we can place that on the Liberals. The Liberals talk about the percentage. As I mentioned, a lot of what they are doing is budgetary hocus-pocus.”

“I oppose this bill. The government is avoiding its responsibilities, and we do not know how it plans to spend this money. Parliament must oversee and control all government spending.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his comments. I agree with him. I think this is yet another way for the government to shirk its responsibilities. We do not know what it intends to do about expenditures. Often, when we see other expenditures, such as those related to the green fund or other initiatives in which the Liberals’ friends are heavily involved, it becomes a serious problem. That is why we really want all of this to be carried out under the scrutiny and control of parliamentarians.”

“The Coast Guard does not count as military spending under NATO rules. Generals should run the new defence agency, not a banker picked by the Prime Minister. This bill gives one minister too much unchecked power over that agency, and that is dangerous.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech and for pointing out the accounting issue with the Coast Guard. The member opposite knows full well that the Coast Guard spending clearly does not meet NATO’s own definition, which requires it to be trained, deployable and operating as a military. In committee, I was interviewing three generals who, in my opinion, should be the ones running the Defence Investment Agency, not a banker buddy of the Prime Minister. Bill C-40 would give the newly created associate minister the direction that the DIA must follow his directions, not “may” but “must”, with little written accountability to this House. Do you agree that this would give, as has been pointed out by many people, unprecedented levels of power to one person? Is that a dangerous thing?”

“This bill gives a new defence agency too much power without enough oversight. It lets the agency buy military gear and invest public money in private companies at the same time, which creates big conflicts of interest. The bill risks letting private investors get rich while taxpayers take all the financial risk. Parliament must fix this bill to add independent board members, strict conflict of interest rules, and clear financial limits.”

“Mr. Speaker, we all support better defence procurement in equipping our military. Today I would like to use my time to suggest a number of protections Parliament should put in place as regards Bill C-40 before we grant sweeping financial and procurement powers to the Defence Investment Agency through this bill. As currently drafted, there are still some important and, as of yet, unanswered questions about governance that I believe we need to address if we are to do the best we can for those who risk their lives on a daily basis for our freedoms. Bill C-40 is the Liberals’ third incarnation of the Defence Investment Agency in just one year. In May, the DIA was to be an agency under direct ministerial management. Five months later, it has been reimagined as an independent Crown corporation. DIA investments will be supported by public capital, also known to Canadians as “our money”. Government purchasing power and regulatory decisions will be used to de-risk private investments. I submit that Canadians providing the money and assuming the risk inherent in de-risking deserve to know that our military, not private investors, is going to reap the rewards. Let us consider one scenario that could happen under Bill C-40. Let us say the DIA acquires shares in an American manufacturer with the finance minister’s approval, because there are no actual “invest Canadian” requirements in this bill. Private equity funds and pension funds may also own shares. The agency then awards that manufacturer a substantial defence contract, perhaps even without a competitive bidding process, where an applicable exception permits it through the bill. Now suppose a competing Canadian manufacturer develops a better product at a lower price. The DIA will have a choice. It can award the contract to the competitor, potentially reducing the value of its own investment, or it can continue supporting the company in which it has a financial interest. This creates the potential for conflicting incentives within the same institution, and there are no provisions in the bill to ensure that the objective of equipping our military with the most appropriate option at the best possible price would supersede the competing objective of growing the DIA investment portfolio. That is why Parliament should insist that procurement decisions and investment decisions be made independently, with additional scrutiny when the DIA proposes awarding a contract to a company in which it holds an ownership interest. It should also establish clear financial rules governing those investments. The government should not be able to take on disproportionate financial risk while private investors enjoy most of the upside. Independent valuations, limits on financial exposure and a requirement to demonstrate that ordinary Canadians are receiving a fair return for the support they provide should all be enshrined in this bill. From a governance perspective, the DIA can have a board of as few as three directors, including the executive chairperson, the CEO and the deputy minister. There is no guarantee of any independent directors, let alone an independent majority. While ordinary audit requirements apply, there is no mandatory audit, investment or risk committee. More remarkably, the transition provisions allow the first executive chairperson to exercise all the powers of the board alone until such time as additional directors may be appointed. Especially in light of the competing investment objectives I identified earlier, Parliament should amend this bill to provide for independent directors, mandatory financial risk oversight and a prohibition on major investment decisions until that governance structure is in place. Executive compensation is another area that should also be examined closely. Cabinet determines base remuneration, but the bill does not establish how executive performance will be assessed. Compensation incentives can produce very different decisions. Will bonuses reward the amount of capital investment, the financial performance of the portfolio or the delivery of equipment to our military? Parliament should be able to ensure that the DIA is primarily focused on serving our military and protecting Canadians. That brings me back to the Prime Minister’s initial decision to appoint an investment banker rather than someone with a defence procurement background to lead this corporation, because it tells us something about the government’s ambitions for this institution. The government would not simply be creating an organization to buy military equipment. It would be creating an institution that could also finance the businesses and industrial capacity behind that equipment. The inherent competition between those objectives makes conflict of interest rules especially important here. The DIA would interact with banks, investment funds and companies whose executives may have long-standing professional relationships with its leadership. Enforceable and transparent disclosure and recusal procedures, including rules for transactions involving former employees, clients and business associates, should apply to everyone making investment and procurement decisions. We have already seen what can happen when government financing organizations operate without effective conflict of interest controls. In 2024, the Auditor General identified 90 cases at Sustainable Development Technology Canada in which conflict of interest policies were not followed, involving decisions on nearly $76 million of funding. Parliament should have learned something from that experience. Bill C-40 contains very broad exceptions to competitive procurement, including contracts intended to support strategically important Canadian industries and products previously supported by government research funding. There is no question that some exceptions are necessary in defence procurement where national security or urgent operational requirements can impact the calculus. However, Parliament should ensure that the normal governance safeguards are put in place: requiring written justification, offering the possibility of independent review and appropriate reporting when competition is bypassed. We also need to address ministerial directions. Section 9 would allow the minister, or the assistant minister and associate minister in this case, to direct the corporation’s activities and require the corporation to comply, yet there would be no equivalent express requirement to table those directions in Parliament. That would create an uncomfortable arrangement where the corporation is supposed to have commercial independence but ministers retain substantial influence without the transparency normally associated with formal directions to Crown corporations. All material ministerial directions should be documented and disclosed, subject to legitimate national security restrictions. The same principle applies to the corporation’s finances. Bill C-40 would provide a revolving $1-billion payment authority for the corporation, a separate $1-billion authority for ministerial activities, and the possibility of loans from the Minister of Finance. Those provisions would not establish a single overall limit on the corporation’s financial exposure. The bill should provide for a complete accounting of the available funding mechanisms, the limits on borrowing and guarantees, and the source of funding for equity acquisitions. Parliament should receive regular reports showing how much money has been invested, who has received it, the value of outstanding guarantees, the losses incurred and the returns earned. Canadians should be able to understand what has happened to their money. Bill C-31 provided for a legislative review within three years. Bill C-40 would extend that period to five years. With that, the government would be creating a more complicated financial institution, while waiting longer to see whether it is working. That should be corrected. Canada needs a more effective defence procurement system. We need our military to be properly equipped, and we should be developing Canadian industrial capacity wherever it makes strategic and economic sense, but the priority must remain the defence of Canada and the interests of Canadian taxpayers. Governance matters. Many of the provisions I have spoken about today may be quite dry, but they are very important. It is not just conflicts of interest that matter. It is also the appearance of those conflicts. When government acts as investor, lender, guarantor and customer, the opportunities for private profit can be substantial, and so can the opportunities for financial losses, poor procurement decisions and preferential treatment. The government has decided it wants to use these powers. The responsibility of Parliament now is to ensure that they are exercised under rules that protect the public interest. The Defence Investment Agency should not become a place where private investors get the financial rewards of government decisions while ordinary Canadians are left paying the bills. I submit that we have opportunities to improve the governance provisions in these bills and that we ought to do exactly that.”