{"id":14899,"date":"2026-04-07T17:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/14899\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:27:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:27:06","slug":"a-new-global-defence-bank-will-help-canadas-startups-more-than-its-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/14899\/","title":{"rendered":"A new global defence bank will help Canada’s startups more than its military"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 A new international defence bank might be a big help to Canadian defence startups that have trouble financing expansions but isn\u2019t likely to help the government buy new military gear.<\/p>\n

The proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), backed by public money from its member countries, could lend both to military suppliers seeking to grow and governments looking to buy their products. Any democratic nation is a potential participant.<\/p>\n

Talking Points<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s excellent credit rating means it won\u2019t stand to benefit by borrowing from the proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank that it\u2019s championing
\nMilitary-goods startups, however, could do with its help as the federal government tries to buy from a sector that traditional banks have shied away from<\/p>\n

\u201cDefence lending typically is considered higher-risk for many reasons, and that is why the DSRB is so important to the growth of this sector and to the expansion of our industrial base,\u201d Laura Wood, a Canadian executive at consulting firm PwC who leads its defence work globally, told The Logic.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s defence industrial base is \u201cvery, very stretched\u201d already and companies will have to put money in up front to meet the government\u2019s new demands\u2014to expand facilities, hire workers and buy more raw materials. \u201cThey don\u2019t get paid until the equipment\u2019s delivered,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

If suppliers don\u2019t have money ready on their balance sheets, they\u2019ll need subsidies, venture capital or loans. Through its new defence industrial strategy<\/a> and the Business Development Bank of Canada<\/a>, the federal government is already funding production, but a DSRB or an institution like it would help, said Wood.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know that the credit required to support the expansion of the industrial base will be significant,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s banks have not<\/a> had much involvement in the defence sector lately\u2014partly because lending to weapons manufacturers just hasn\u2019t been big business, and partly because doing so invited criticism from advocates of ethical investing.<\/p>\n

Both conditions have changed since countries began increasing their defence spending on the grounds that liberal democracies need to be able to protect themselves from international predators. Now all of Canada\u2019s biggest banks are backing the DSRB, at least rhetorically. Part of its promise<\/a> is to bring lending expertise tuned for the defence sector to international finance.<\/p>\n

The Canadian government doesn\u2019t expect that the DSRB will finance procurements for the Canadian Armed Forces, however.<\/p>\n

National Defence officials said as much in a briefing note written to prep an associate deputy minister for an October meeting with counterparts from other departments like Finance and Global Affairs. The Logic obtained a copy through an access-to-information request.<\/p>\n

\u201cA key feature of [multilateral development banks] is that they have high credit ratings (AAA) and can borrow from international markets at low rates,\u201d the briefing note said, adding that that\u2019s useful to countries that don\u2019t have such good credit. \u201cHowever, Canada has a AAA rating and thus would not benefit from lower rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other NATO countries might benefit, however, and strengthening allies could be in Canada\u2019s interests. Poland, for instance, had its \u201cA-\u201d rating from Fitch affirmed<\/a> in late February, but with a negative outlook that suggests a downgrade is possible. One problem Fitch has with Poland\u2019s finances is how much it\u2019s spending on defence despite its growing debt.<\/p>\n

The DSRB would take in capital from participating countries and use the money to back low-interest loans to countries wanting to buy weapons, military gear and related equipment.<\/p>\n

In testimony<\/a> to the House of Commons last November, the Canadian who\u2019s president and chief operating officer of the DSRB organizing group, Kevin Reed, suggested Canada might put in $2 billion in direct funding and a further $8 billion in \u201ccallable capital\u201d the bank could draw on if needed.<\/p>\n

The institution would join numerous other \u201cmultilateral development banks\u201d that operate on similar principles, like the World Bank. There\u2019s even a competing effort<\/a> to form a defence-oriented bank focused on European Union and NATO members.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s interest in the DSRB plan culminated in Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne\u2019s public backing<\/a> of the proposal in January. Just how the bank would work has been the subject of long negotiations<\/a> in Montreal among potential member countries\u2019 representatives, with more to come before a charter is agreed on and countries can start deciding whether to commit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 A new international defence bank might be a big help to Canadian defence startups that have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[3223,279,12106,1579,72,1742],"class_list":{"0":"post-14899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-tusk","8":"tag-defence","9":"tag-donald-tusk","10":"tag-dsrb","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-national","13":"tag-procurement"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116364604063925316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}