Western Standard - Canada’s defense industry praises Mark Carney

00:00:00.000 I'm Willie Temtem with the Western Standard here in Ottawa at the Kanzik National Security

00:00:08.280 Conference where I am speaking to the industry leaders and former and current politicians on

00:00:12.720 how they feel on national defense prospects under Mark Carney versus that of previous

00:00:18.560 Liberal government Justin Trudeau. I spoke to former Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole and

00:00:22.680 he gave me a lot of optimistic thoughts. Here's what he had to say. Thank you for speaking with

00:00:27.900 Aaron, what do you make of Carney's government approach on defense as difference to Trudeau?

00:00:34.460 Well, the Trudeau government had no defense plan and certainly almost didn't like defense as an

00:00:40.140 issue. So Carney is a sea change. Many of the things that we advocated for as conservatives

00:00:47.820 are now being pushed. You better pay for our troops, better equipment, a stronger role within

00:00:54.140 nato the two percent target so i i have to give compliments to the government on making those

00:00:59.500 commitments i say that more as a veteran than i do even as a former politician but the key thing

00:01:05.500 will be whether all the good words and positive rhetoric turn into concrete action that remains

00:01:12.860 to be seen the defense industrial strategy looks good but we have to support a lot of the canadian

00:01:18.780 businesses that right now say they can't get a contract in canada well look given what's

00:01:23.900 happening with president trump i i think we need to be more self-reliant we have to depend on

00:01:29.340 ourselves more and what's crazy as a former aviator on sea kings as a navigator and then

00:01:35.740 i've worked in industry as a lawyer for defense companies we can actually do a lot more ourselves

00:01:41.180 we got a bit lazy relying on the us for too much so now we're still going to buy a lot of great

00:01:45.900 kit from the United States. I want us to eventually buy the F-35. I think that's the best aircraft

00:01:51.600 as a fifth generation fighter. But the AWACS plane that yesterday was Saab and Bombardier,

00:01:58.220 that actually, their product is great too. So I do think there's an ability for us to do more

00:02:03.360 with other NATO allies, not just the U.S. But we will also develop Canadian solutions

00:02:08.580 so that you're still going to see a lot of U.S. defense equipment in the Canadian Armed Forces,

00:02:13.500 no question but we need to do more ourselves and we need to look at other partners because the u.s

00:02:19.500 isn't as reliable as they used to be so in terms of your platform not to be too political here but

00:02:25.420 how close is mark carney to what a conservative government under you would have looked like

00:02:29.420 you're going to get me into trouble with that look on on nato two percent spending on the arctic

00:02:36.140 on better pay for our men and women in uniform on a strong and robust fiscal policy really a foreign

00:02:42.940 policy where canada is a leader amongst middle nations all of that stuff conservatives talked

00:02:48.840 about both under stephen harper and certainly under me i you know was a veteran so defense

00:02:54.460 issues and military families remain a top priority for me mark carney's doing a pretty good job in

00:03:00.280 those areas i think the conservatives need to hold him to account because i think the challenge with

00:03:06.220 the liberals is they like great announcements they love the glowing words mr trudeau was very

00:03:12.380 good at that stuff, but almost zero follow through. So that will be the test of the Prime

00:03:16.320 Minister is whether some of the early moves can be backed up with a long term sustainable

00:03:21.040 plan. We have to be able to stand by our allies, like Ukraine, like Israel, and use our influence

00:03:29.360 behind the scenes. If we think they're making a move that's inappropriate, we make that

00:03:35.960 decision based on our national interest and our values, not based on what's trending on

00:03:40.040 TikTok or on Twitter. We have to realize that a lot of those things that are trending on those

00:03:44.500 platforms are foreign oriented and they're meant to cause pressure and cause a breakdown in social

00:03:51.580 cohesion in Canada. So I think if we keep our interests, our economic and our security interests

00:03:57.160 along with our values, our respect for human rights, for free speech, fundamental principles,

00:04:02.740 I think we can carve a foreign policy that reflects Canada and its diversity, but our

00:04:09.020 core interests and values. Well I also spoke to industry leaders including Saab,

00:04:13.520 the Swedish company that successfully won the bidding war yesterday. Mark Carney

00:04:17.760 announced that they would be buying some surveillance aircraft technology and

00:04:21.280 that they'll be applying it to Bombardieri aircrafts. I spoke to an

00:04:24.020 expert and spokesperson from Saab, Robert Hewson. Here's what he had to say

00:04:27.740 about the device and their prospects working with the government of Canada. I

00:04:31.400 think yesterday's announcement was a remarkable dramatic step forward in the

00:04:37.400 strategic relationship between sweden and canada that was already a pretty strong relationship

00:04:43.880 for example we have cooperated on this aircraft program the global eye for many many years it's

00:04:50.760 built on a canadian aircraft and what we saw yesterday was an extension of that

00:04:57.480 to the degree that canada will now buy and operate that aircraft itself and together we will move the

00:05:04.680 production and development and maintenance and sustainment of that aircraft, the Global Eye,

00:05:10.440 into Canada. So there will be a new production line from which Canada will take its aircraft

00:05:16.120 and the objective is to make Canada a manufacturing hub for future exports of the Global Eye.

00:05:24.360 What will happen for the new Canadian programme is that work will be transferred to Canada,

00:05:30.680 so there will be a new production line in canada that will service the canadian order and will

00:05:36.520 support the canadian aircraft but after that it will become part of the global production capacity

00:05:44.600 that we have for this aircraft there is a big export market for globalize uh possibly more

00:05:50.120 than saab can handle on its own at the moment which is great news for canada because that

00:05:55.000 means that canada will have a pivotal role in building these aircraft for the international

00:05:59.880 market for years to come i also spoke to british company babcock that has a presence in canada for

00:06:05.480 about 20 or odd years almost and they share their thoughts on how they feel about canada's elbows

00:06:11.000 up approach and how that could possibly benefit their prospects along with their view on the

00:06:15.080 changing regimes in canada on national defense and what we're here to do is continue to grow

00:06:21.400 the industrial capability that we have on those contracts but also leveraging our global

00:06:26.520 expertise to continue to support the military other government departments and defense security space

00:06:32.680 given the fact that the current government's rhetoric is speaking about a transition from

00:06:37.560 u.s reliance to other countries and other allies given the trade issues that our countries are

00:06:42.680 experiencing right now how does lockheed martin feel about that in terms of defense procurement

00:06:46.280 prospects in canada so lockheed martin canada has a really long history in canada that goes

00:06:52.360 back probably 80 plus years and i personally have been a user of lockheed martin systems

00:06:58.280 when i served in the royal canadian navy for 30 plus years and it's a great privilege now to serve

00:07:03.160 in lockheed martin canada where we take some of that technology that belongs to canada we have

00:07:07.560 the intellectual property in canada with shared with the government of canada and we're now

00:07:12.360 exporting that to other navies that see what our navy has been has been successful with doing and

00:07:16.680 and managing their very complex cerebral process systems that aid decision-making with the Royal Canadian Navy.

00:07:23.420 Now, I also interestingly caught up with the former chief of the MI6, that's the British CIA, the British Intelligence Service.

00:07:30.220 I asked him a question about his belief on the risks and concerns around Western countries

00:07:36.960 and their ability to recruit from their largely diverse and immigrant-filled populations,

00:07:41.900 specifically on the issues of immigration, sectarianism, tribalism, religiously inspired

00:07:48.160 ideology. I tried my best to get him to say something on the record, of course, and he gave

00:07:52.860 me a little bit of time. So here's a bit about that to wrap up the video. Good afternoon, Willie

00:07:57.400 Tam Tam with the Western Standard. How important do you think it is for defense, national security,

00:08:03.440 and intelligence institutions in considering in their recruitment strategy, religiously inspired

00:08:09.860 ideology, sectarian and ethnic hatred. So I think primarily for security services that are having

00:08:20.280 to deal with threats, you don't make a judgment in terms of what ideology is driving a desire to

00:08:30.180 commit acts of terrorism. You just identify people within your society who are determined

00:08:36.440 on committing acts of terrorism and you do your best to investigate them and disrupt that activity

00:08:42.420 so it's pretty agnostic of the the drivers behind it it's about keeping people safe so you know

00:08:50.120 those threats and the threats of terrorism take a variety of forms in different places in my own

00:08:55.160 country there's a real mix of clearly radical islamist terrorism there's also far-right

00:09:04.500 extremism which tips over into terrorism from time to time and you also increasingly the head

00:09:11.160 of mi5 has made this point most of the threat to life activity which has been disrupted by mi5 in

00:09:19.420 the last few years in the uk has come out of iranian backed activity so all of them are

00:09:25.780 terrorism you just deal with them in a way that is consistent with legal norms and you try and

00:09:33.240 your people safe outside of the terrorism aspect specifically when it comes to recruitment of

00:09:38.840 personnel for security institutions in a multicultural diverse society i see what you

00:09:43.720 mean yeah how do you manage that how i see what you mean so you're you're talking about the people

00:09:49.000 who join mi6 or join csis all kinds of security national security and intelligence and military

00:09:56.200 institutions that deal with these threats yes scrutinize their recruitment and protecting

00:10:01.640 their integrity of being oh i see what you mean so it's it's a very rigorous process to join one

00:10:07.240 of these organizations you have to go through a lot of checks to make sure that you are a democrat

00:10:13.960 that you believe in the rule of law and that you have the right type of you know ethics and

00:10:19.240 personality to do this work successfully we work really hard on that it's also really important

00:10:25.000 that your security and intelligence organizations represent the country they serve and i spent a lot

00:10:31.160 of time when i was in my job trying to make sure that we in our recruitment strategies we reached

00:10:37.000 out and touched those communities and made clear to them that mi6 would be a place for them and

00:10:42.600 they would feel included and at home in those organizations well there you have it folks it

00:10:47.400 was a very interesting action-packed day a lot of interesting voices on the ground here in ottawa

00:10:52.120 and of course a lot of optimism now it could be cautious optimism from some stakeholders but from

00:10:57.000 others it seems like the days up ahead are better than the ones before if you guys enjoyed the video

00:11:02.680 enjoy this kind of reporting please support us by giving a like sharing the video subscribing

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Western Standard - June 01, 2026

Canada’s defense industry praises Mark Carney

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