The cities of Ottawa and Gatineau have unveiled a task force aimed at turning the region into a national defence innovation hub with the goal of generating billions of dollars in economic activity fuelled by increased military spending. Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Gatineau Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette announced the new task force after the Mayor’s […]
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The cities of Ottawa and Gatineau have unveiled a task force aimed at turning the region into a national defence innovation hub with the goal of generating billions of dollars in economic activity fuelled by increased military spending.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Gatineau Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette announced the new task force after the Mayor’s Breakfast on Friday morning at City Hall, where the guest speaker was retired Gen. Rick Hillier, who will serve as honorary chair of the new committee.
Sutcliffe and Marquis-Bissonnette will co-chair the 33-person task force. In a news release Friday, Invest Ottawa – which is leading the task force along with the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau – said members will include “defence decision-makers, investors, innovators, industry leaders, veterans, diplomatic champions, economic development changemakers and policy experts from both sides” of the Ottawa River.
The announcement follows Ottawa-Gatineau’s launch of a new strategy last fall to attract more investment to the region’s defence technology sector, which Sutcliffe said includes more than 330 companies.
The task force will help attract domestic and foreign investors to the local defence sector in an effort to capitalize on rising military spending in Canada and other countries. Sutcliffe said the task force aims to unlock up to $3 billion in new investment and economic activity in Ottawa-Gatineau.
“This is a huge opportunity for our region and we are well-positioned to capitalize on it,” Sutcliffe said.
The defence innovation strategy is good news for the local economy at a time when the federal government, the region’s largest employer, is cutting thousands of jobs, the mayor added.
“If we’re seeing billions of dollars of investment in this area, that’s going to have a very positive impact on our regional economy at a time when we could really use it,” he said.
While the Liberal government is trimming the budgets of many federal departments, defence isn’t one of them. The feds expect to pump more than $80 billion into rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces over the next five years as part of a pledge to push defence spending from two per cent of Canada’s GDP this year to five per cent by 2035.
Friday’s news conference also comes just days before the Liberal government is expected to announce its Defence Industrial Strategy, laying out how Canada will spend its defence funding.
The feds have committed $6 billion over five years to boost Canada’s defence industry by identifying areas where homegrown firms can provide innovative solutions to the Canadian Armed Forces.
Sutcliffe said the new money will create a “stronger Department of National Defence,” leading to new jobs and a more robust local defence sector.
“We’re going to build on that,” he said. “Those companies are going to grow. They’re going to benefit from investment. They’re going to benefit from government contracts as the government increases its spending on defence. We’re going to see new companies starting in our region as well. So all of that has an extraordinary economic impact on the National Capital Region at a time when we could benefit from that kind of impact.”
Ottawa Board of Trade president and CEO Sueling Ching, who is part of the task force, said the boost in defence spending presents an “exciting but complex” opportunity for Ottawa-Gatineau businesses.
“We’ve already started to see some momentum bundling in terms of procurements, in terms of building our brand as the Ottawa innovation hub and putting those pieces in place,” Ching said. “It gives me great confidence that that momentum will continue to grow.”
In addition to Hillier, Sutcliffe, Marquis-Bissonnette and Ching, members of the task force include Invest Ottawa president and CEO Sonya Shorey; defence industry veteran David Luxton; Chris Pogue, the head of Calian Group’s space and defence division; Dominion Dynamics chief operating officer Mitch Carkner; Kanata North Business Association executive director Kelly Daize; and Kanata MP Jenna Sudds, who also serves as parliamentary secretary to federal procurement minister Joel Lightbound.
Shorey said streamlining federal procurement processes for defence-tech SMEs will be a major focus of the task force.
“If you ask startups and scaleups, would they prefer a grant or a customer in our government, every single time, they need that first customer,” she said, adding she expects some “major procurements” for local defence firms to be announced in the coming weeks.
The task force will also be involved in Ottawa-Gatineau’s campaign to become the headquarters for the proposed global Defence, Security and Resilience Bank.
The bank, spearheaded by NATO countries, is meant to reduce borrowing costs for military spending by pooling credit strength. Canada's Big Six banks have all put their support behind the proposed institution, and several major Canadian cities – including Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – are vying to host the bank and the estimated 3,500 jobs that would come with it.
Sutcliffe said the National Capital Region, as the home of the Department of National Defence and hundreds of foreign embassies and missions, is “uniquely positioned” to host the bank.
“I respect the fact that it’s a federal government decision and there are still several milestones along the way before a decision gets made,” he added. “There are still steps in the process before we even know that the bank will be in Canada. But if it is in Canada, I can’t think of a better place to have the bank than here in Ottawa-Gatineau.”
– With files from The Canadian Press
