Ottawa-Gatineau is positioning itself as the ideal home for a proposed international defence bank, but it faces competition from Montreal and Toronto as the federal government prepares to decide which city it will formally put forward as its bid. “We have a very strong defense sector here. We’re connected to all of the embassies from around the world, this is going to be an international institution all the foreign ministers are here in Ottawa,” said Mayor Mark Sutcliff. This week, mayors from across the country are in the capital for the Big City Mayors’ Conference. Montreal’s mayor says they are also making a bid for the headquarters. “We are one of the rare places in the world that can actually assemble a place from A to Z,” said Montreal’s Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada. “The position of Ontario is saying we want to build the future of defense, we have the defense industry right now, we don’t need to build it.” The institution would help finance defence and security projects among allied countries, and leaders say the headquarters could bring long-term investment and thousands of jobs. “That would be a big boost for our economy, and it would offset some of the jobs we might be losing in the federal public service,” said Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. Supporters of the bid say the industry the bank would serve is already growing in the capital region. Telesat is preparing its largest project ever, a plan to launch nearly 200 satellites into orbit, as part of the largest space program in the country. “Whether you’re a ship in the middle of the ocean, a plane in the high Arctic or a base here in Ottawa, all that connectivity needs to speak to each other, and that’s what we’re going to enable,” said Stephen Hampton, Telesat’s head of government relations and strategic initiatives. At the same time, momentum is building for Ottawa to position itself as the country’s defence innovation hub. That effort is anchored by Area X.O, a test facility for robotics, drones and autonomous vehicles. “We harness here a combination of strengths that don’t exist anywhere else in the country from our 330 companies that are anchored in defense to the Bank of Canada and all the sovereign financial institutions federally,” said Invest Ottawa president, Sonya Shorey. “This is the first global defence multilateral bank of its kind anywhere in the world. When you think about these types of multilateral banks, they are anchored in capital cities for a reason because it brings together the sovereign finance, the diplomatic community as well as the companies that are going to benefit from it directly.” But in the end, it won’t be the cities that have the final say, that job will go to the federal government to decide which city is best suited to put forward as a bid.
