video

Articles

Podcasts

Videos

Find a branch or ATM

Contact our Thought Leadership team—we value your insights!

Have questions or feedback?

Manage your meeting

Need to meet?

Explore the latest insights, reports, and timely topics affecting economic growth at home and around the world.

CIBC Thought Leadership

Connect with us:

Susan Rimmer, SEVP and Group Head, Commercial Banking: Today, we have assembled some of our senior leaders from across the bank to discuss CIBC’s recent Defence and Resiliency Summit. The remarkably strong attendance at the summit reflected Canada&#8217;s renewed focus on sovereignty, national security and economic resiliency. The implementation of Canada&#8217;s Defence Industrial Strategy and associated targets is projected to drive approximately $500 billion in cumulative investment across the country by 2035. The strategy represents the biggest mobilization of capital in our country that we&#8217;ve seen in quite a while, and the opportunities for Canadian businesses are truly significant. Importantly, this will span defence investments, but also dual use investments such as infrastructure, including airports, seaports and critical roads connecting the North, as well as supply chains, advanced manufacturing and other dual use technologies.
This is a pivotal moment in Canada, and at CIBC, we&#8217;re proud to support these efforts by advising clients, helping mobilize capital, and convening conversations that can help move the sector forward. Our Defence and Resiliency Summit took place on May 20th at CIBC Square in Toronto. And to help us recap the day and explain how CIBC is prepared to help our clients meet the moment I now have with me today, Blair Cowan, Executive Vice-President and Head of Commercial Banking; Jaimie Lickers, Senior Vice-President of Indigenous Markets; Priya Radha, Managing Director of Global Markets, Capital Markets; and Paul McKinlay, Senior Vice-President and Head of Innovation Banking.
Priya, let&#8217;s start with you. Can you provide an overview of the summit, particularly for anyone who wasn&#8217;t able to attend? Why now? And what were the objectives?
Priya Radha, Managing Director, Global Markets, Capital Markets: Certainly, Susan. Thank you. Well, as you know, as a client centered bank, we drive everything around our clients. So this was really a demand driven summit. And so what we did was reach out to our relationship managers who are experts in the field, who reached out to their clients and curated an agenda based off of their needs and their wants. And so we ran the entire spectrum of the ecosystem, starting with public sector mobilization of capital to dual use technology and Arctic sovereignty.
We talked about private capital&#8217;s role in defence spending and then, of course, quantum computing and space defence, which is the final frontier, and what it means for national sovereignty.
We then bookended it with two of the biggest powerhouses in public sector government and defence, the Minister of National Defence, the Honorable David McGuinty, and our finale was Doug Guzman, who&#8217;s the CEO of the Defence Investment Agency.
And that really encapsulated the pace with which we have to work on this agenda. The collaboration needed and CIBC to be the call when these initiatives get mobilized.
Susan Rimmer:  Yeah. Thanks, Priya. It was a remarkable agenda. Remarkable content.
So, Blair, let&#8217;s go to you. So what does defence driven push to the economy mean for our clients, particularly in Commercial Banking?
Blair Cowan, Executive Vice-President &amp; Head, Commercial Banking: Thanks, Susan. We&#8217;re at a very important moment in time where the federal government is now making meaningful investments as it relates to Canadian sovereignty. That plan very much includes an alignment of Canada&#8217;s industrial and defence strategies. That recognizes that a strong, vibrant and self-sufficient economy goes hand in hand with an enhanced defence platform.
Building this out will involve the support of small and medium sized businesses right across Canada. Our clients. Our event gives our clients a better appreciation of this meaningful opportunity for them, a better understanding of the ecosystem that is now developing, and a chance for them to meet other participants in this effort, so that conversations and planning can continue well after this event.
Susan Rimmer: That&#8217;s great, Blair. And the feedback we&#8217;ve had from the clients participating was tremendously strong. Really pleased to see that.
So, Jamie, there was significant emphasis on infrastructure. Building on that, what do you see as the greatest opportunities in the Arctic, and how can we best support our clients in this space?
Jaimie Lickers, Senior Vice-President, Indigenous Markets: Thanks, Susan. Canada&#8217;s North represents one of our most significant defence and infrastructure opportunities in the country. Indigenous participation should be understood as a core success factor and not a side consideration.
Recent defence and Arctic policy has stressed that collaboration with Inuit and Northern Indigenous governments and communities must be part of a whole society approach to sovereignty and security. The strongest model for this partnership will be one that delivers local benefits. That means Indigenous participation in planning, procurement, contracting, employment and training, and long-term operations. It also means building infrastructure that leaves lasting civilian value, meaning better connectivity, more reliable energy and telecommunications, improved transportation, and stronger local emergency and logistics capacity.
Procurement and workforce development are major levers as well. Indigenous development corporations, Northern contractors and local organizations are well positioned to contribute through joint ventures, regional service delivery and workforce training. The opportunity is not only to win work, but to help shape a resilient Northern workforce and lasting technical and operational capacity.
And finally, the strategic message is simple. The North will be built most effectively when defence objectives and Indigenous partnership objectives move together. 
The organizations that will stand out are those that can combine technical capability with trusted local relationships, responsible engagement, environmental awareness and a clear commitment to long-term shared value.
If we want these Northern investments to succeed, Indigenous participation has to be built into the project from the start as a foundation for speed, legitimacy, resiliency and long-term impact.
Susan Rimmer: Thank you, Jaimie. Let&#8217;s go to Paul. There is a lot of discussion and some excellent conversation on the use of technology, particularly dual use technology. Tell us what are the opportunities here?
Paul McKinlay, Senior Vice-President &amp; Head, Innovation Banking: The opportunities for the technology sector and the venture sector are really quite remarkable. There&#8217;s a deep history of defence and technology, or I should say it&#8217;s a tenured history, maybe not quite as deep, but particularly in the last decade or so, there&#8217;s been some notable successes. 
And so that&#8217;s gotten the attention of the ecosystem in a big way. When you think about how broad a defence strategy is and all the elements that it covers, a lot of it is very technology forward. When you think about intelligence, talking about quantum computing, you talk about cybersecurity. All of these are very software and technology defined elements to it.
And so there&#8217;s a huge element of where the technology ecosystem can play there. One of the panelists yesterday mentioned, and I&#8217;ll paraphrase this, said: ‘you build for the defence of the future, not the past’. And the startup ecosystem is really good at building for the future. That&#8217;s their whole ethos.
The other component to it is sort of the investor segment, the venture and growth investors that we do business with. They have now seen a history of tenures where there&#8217;s been some notable big exits in the defence ecosystem. Their investors have had a much more openness to investing into the sector, as well.
We&#8217;ve seen that in limited partnership documents that are being changed to allow for investments in defence. And if you looked at the amount of venture and growth investors that we had at the summit, I think if you did that summit five years ago, it would have been a different number. But there was lots and lots and lots and there was a lot of attention, which means, the startups and the technology ecosystem now has the backing of the capital to go and do that from the private sector also.
So, I think it&#8217;s a really exciting moment for the startup industry. And it&#8217;s very much a technology forward defence strategy, which is which is great for the ecosystem.
Susan Rimmer: That&#8217;s great. Thank you.
Okay, Priya, let&#8217;s get back to you. We know what the goals are, and we know there are many opportunities for our clients. What comes next?
Priya Radha: Well, in two words, I would say, ‘thoughtful mobilization’. I think similar to what we talked about in the summit, we know that Canada has to pick its spots in the value chain. Where are we really, really good at and can be best in class, and then focus there.
Similarly, I think what we have to do now is take back all this knowledge transfer that happened at the summit, talk to our clients, and really think about where CIBC can best represent our clients and move in that direction.
So we have to move at pace. We have to move with urgency. Things we talk about all the time. And very true to the CIBC DNA, which is just stay focused on our clients.
Susan Rimmer: Yeah. Well said.
So Blair, Jamie, Priya and Paul, thank you for sharing your insights today. And to our clients, CIBC is and always has been the Bank of Commerce. We&#8217;re fully committed to enabling growth and prosperity for our clients in Canada, in the US and globally.
If you would like to discuss any of these topics covered today, please do reach out to your Relationship Manager and our team of experts will be delighted to support you. Thank you for joining us.

Recapping CIBC’s Defence and Resiliency Summit, and what it means for clients

Recapping CIBC’s Defence and Resiliency Summit, and what it means for clients

Recapping CIBC’s Defence and Resiliency Summit, and what it means for clients

Susan Rimmer

Senior Executive Vice-President and Group Head

Commercial Banking

Priya Radha

Managing Director, Global Markets

Capital Markets

Blair Cowan

Executive Vice-President and Head

CIBC Commercial Banking

Jaimie Lickers

Senior Vice-President, Indigenous Markets

CIBC Commercial Banking

Paul McKinlay

Senior Vice-President and Head

CIBC Innovation Banking