Bid for defence bank part of city’s plan to offset public service job cuts: Ottawa mayor
Officials claim the DSRB could potentially create 3,500 new jobs
By Ben Andrews, Ottawa Citizen
Published May 14, 2026 | Last updated 53 minutes ago
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe says Ottawa’s bid to host a proposed multinational defence investment bank is “absolutely” part of a broader plan to mitigate the economic impact of federal public service job cuts.
“It’s a huge opportunity to do that, as is our broader defence strategy,” Sutcliffe said in an interview on May 12.
“It’s not all or nothing on the bank … We have a broader strategy that is about attracting investment and creating jobs in Ottawa, and the bank is one component of that.”
Major cities across Canada are pitching themselves as the ideal host for the proposed multinational bank that would finance defence projects for NATO allies and partners.
In a news release following multilateral negotiations in Montreal in April, the federal government said the institution would “provide long-term, low-cost financing for defence, security, and resilience initiatives” and that Canada would serve as the host country for the future headquarters.
Further details about the bank, dubbed the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), are scarce.
But a lack of concrete information hasn’t stopped politicians representing Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver from throwing their hats in the ring as officials have said the DSRB could potentially create 3,500 new jobs.
On May 12, Premier Doug Ford told reporters Toronto was the ‘only city’ capable of hosting the bank, pointing to the city’s financial district and Ontario’s industrial capacity.
In Quebec, an open letter signed by key players in that province’s financial sector endorsed Montreal’s bid.
And in the National Capital Region, Sutcliffe and Gatineau Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette wrote their own open letter arguing the bank would be best served by a close connection to the national defence establishment and the concentration of embassies located in Ottawa-Gatineau.
“This is, we think, the best place for the bank to be located,” Sutcliffe said on May 12.
The federal government is looking to shed about 30,000 jobs from the public service over several years. The National Capital Region, which was home to about 150,000 public servants as of 2025, is expected to bear the brunt of those cuts.
Dane Rowlands, an international affairs professor at Carleton University, said the DSRB appeared to be an effort to help NATO countries ramp up defence spending with a relatively low government outlay of money.
The multinational bank, he said, would likely co-ordinate defence procurement and help smaller, less credit-worthy NATO members finance their defence spending at a lower price than they otherwise could.
In that way, he said, the financing model could function similarly to multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank.
As for the 3,500 potential new jobs expected to come with hosting the headquarters, Rowlands said the estimate seemed high, given that much of the employment for regional development banks often came from other member countries.
With the federal government shedding public service jobs, he said any job creation could help the labour market in Ottawa-Gatineau, but he wouldn’t expect to see “huge multiplier effects.”
Much of the potential impact depends on details that aren’t currently known, Rowlands added, such as the capital size of the bank.
“It’s really just an idea, an idea that has got some supporters in principle behind it,” he said. “We haven’t really seen anybody signing on the dotted line and putting money into it, so I think when we see that, we’ll have a better sense of how big this will be.”
Whatever the economic benefits, Rowlands said he thought Ottawa had a good shot of capitalizing on them.
He expects much of the “outward-looking” work of the bank will likely be co-ordinating procurement and dealing with other countries on loans.
“I get the impression that this is going to be a bank that will have to work closely with governments, and so that would put Ottawa, I think, a little bit ahead,” he said.
If the bank does come to fruition, the final decision on which city will host the headquarters falls with the federal government.
Sutcliffe said a formal bidding process hadn’t yet opened, but municipal officials and the city’s economic development organization Invest Ottawa were preparing for when it did.
“We’ve heard that, when things happen, they could happen fast,” he said.
https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/defence-investment-bank-ottawa-mark-sutcliffe-job-cuts
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