{"id":9020,"date":"2026-09-04T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/9020\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:38:10","slug":"so-thick-is-ottawa-bureaucracy-even-carneys-hand-picked-defence-man-has-had-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/9020\/","title":{"rendered":"So thick is Ottawa bureaucracy, even Carney\u2019s hand-picked defence man has had enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Doug Guzman, CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, left, with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa in May.Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Eugene Lang is an assistant professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen\u2019s University.<\/p>\n

\u201cTriangle of inertia.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a clever phrase uttered by Doug Guzman, CEO of the federal government\u2019s new Defence Investment Agency, at a CIBC \u201cdefence and resiliency\u201d conference in Toronto in May. He was describing the challenges he faced in his efforts to reform the process of defence<\/a> procurement and accelerate project approvals. <\/p>\n

Mr. Guzman\u2019s triangle seems to refer to the entrenched thinking and ways of doing business within the three departments most responsible for defence procurement \u2013 National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. The Defence Investment Agency was launched to overcome such institutional inertia and in so doing shift the paradigm those three departments have been wedded to for so long.<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail\u2019s Robert Fife reported<\/a> this week that Mr. Guzman, a career banker, former colleague of Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> at Goldman Sachs and hand-picked by Mr. Carney to lead the DIA to prosecute this reform agenda, is expected to leave his job after less than a year. The reason cited by sources in Mr. Fife\u2019s article for Mr. Guzman\u2019s premature departure is that he is \u201cfrustrated by the slow pace of government bureaucracy in getting defence procurement projects moving and approved.\u201d In other words, the triangle of inertia is prevailing.<\/p>\n

Carney\u2019s summit to push Canadian resources, defence and tech to global investors<\/a><\/p>\n

It is not surprising Mr. Guzman has had enough of Ottawa\u2019s bureaucracy. Private-sector executives rarely succeed when they move into the top ranks of the federal public service, with its more \u201ccomplex\u201d environment, where the two Ps \u2013 process and politics \u2013 dominate. <\/p>\n

Business people tend to find the endless processes of the federal bureaucracy, where the objective is often to find the lowest common denominator and maintain the integrity of the decision-making process more than the decision outcome itself, as foreign to their experience. The politics that necessarily arise one way or another in all major government decisions can also be frustrating for the business mind. The public-service executive, in other words, is no place for revolutionaries. <\/p>\n

But all revolutions need revolutionaries. And make no mistake, Mr. Carney\u2019s defence procurement reform agenda and defence industrial policy \u2013 the latter of which aims to diversify suppliers and build up Canada\u2019s defence industrial base through buying Canadian \u201cwhenever possible\u201d\u2013 is revolutionary by Ottawa standards. <\/p>\n

Mr. Guzman was leading that revolution. He was the change agent trying to break through the natural institutional inertia and aversion to risky, big change that afflicts most public-sector organizations. <\/p>\n

One of the worst kept secrets in Ottawa is that many in the public service and military bureaucracy do not share the Carney government\u2019s enthusiasm for fundamental reform to defence procurement or a defence industrial policy aimed at buying Canadian. <\/p>\n

The Sunday Editorial: The hunt for a Liberal defence plan<\/a><\/p>\n

Hit by tariffs, Canadian tool-and-die makers eye opportunities in defence industry<\/a><\/p>\n

But what the Prime Minister and Mr. Guzman seem to recognize that others evidently miss is that the government\u2019s massive, planned defence spending increases \u2013 from 2 per cent of GDP today to 4 per cent by 2030 \u2013 will eventually make contact with the enemy. Namely, funding trade-offs in other areas of government spending, like social programs or federal-provincial transfers, tax increases or perpetually growing deficits, will be needed to finance the defence bill. It is at that point that the defence consensus that exists today \u2013 public opinion surveys show solid support for big increases in defence spending \u2013 will face its first real test. <\/p>\n

The government\u2019s leadership seems to have concluded that busting up the old defence procurement model, expediting military procurements and showing Canadians there are big, tangible domestic job and economic rewards from doing so is the best way to maintain public support for the unprecedented defence funding that is coming down the track and will force those trade-offs. That is the basic political economy of the government\u2019s defence plan<\/a>, which seems lost on some in the public service and military bureaucracy. <\/p>\n

It would be an overstatement to say the government\u2019s defence procurement reform and defence industrial policy agenda is in peril with Mr. Guzman\u2019s departure. Everyone is replaceable. But given the nature of Mr. Guzman\u2019s exit \u2013 less than a year into the job and frustrated by the Ottawa system \u2013 it is unclear who would be qualified and willing to prosecute the revolution he was leading. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Doug Guzman, CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, left, with Prime Minister Mark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1601,1590,1602,227,1580,1603,192,1579,1595,1596,1593,1581,1578,14,168,638,170,46,1588,1614,1582,1583,239,1591,1592,1585,1604,1586,1609,1610,1612,1607,1611,1605,1608,1584,1598,1599,55,1597,1606,1589,596,1600,1594,1587,224,1613],"class_list":["post-9020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-defence-industry","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}