Earlier this month at the NATO summit in Ankara, both the U.K. and Canada unveiled the initial membership of their separate funding mechanisms for partners’ defense industries. Rachel Reeves, removed as chancellor by Burnham this week, had resisted Britain’s membership of Canada’s scheme.
The DSRB aims to raise £100 billion by providing loans to governments and defense firms and was backed by nine countries. Britain has partnered with the Netherlands, Finland and Poland on its own Multilateral Defence Mechanism — which is more geared towards joint procurement than to lending AAA-rated capital.
McGuinty said he doesn’t see “any reason why creative negotiation and smart thinking” cannot pull the work of the two schemes together.
He added: “Personally, I don’t think it’s as productive having two separate mechanisms, and I think this is a wonderful opportunity for the U.K. and Canada to align on this front. So, I’m hopeful.”
“Using Canadian language: I think it’s smart hockey,” he said, “using public finance and triple-A ratings and government-backed capital in order to be able to fund your SMEs who are having a hard time dislodging capital from commercial banks and other sources, and creating an international one in order to be able to foment greater investments in defense.”
Streeting to reopen the case for joining
On Wednesday, the new U.K. Defense Secretary Wes Streeting set out a positive case for Britain joining the DSRB as he spoke to journalists at the Farnborough International Airshow.