Canada’s new dollar-a-year man (and why he’s worth every penny)
Defence lobbyists love a good Second World War analogy. You can’t get through a defence procurement conference without someone invoking the Battle of the Atlantic or the arsenal of democracy. So let’s lean right in. If Canada’s new Defence Investment Agency is a rerun of the 1940s, then Stephen Fuhr is our C.D. Howe and Doug Guzman is our dollar-a-year man.
C.D. Howe was the Minister of Munitions and Supply who turned Canada into one of the great workshops of the Allied war effort. He recruited dozens of private sector leaders, the “dollar-a-year men,” who stepped out of their boardrooms and into Ottawa to run factories, shipyards, and supply chains. Canada built thousands of planes, ships, and vehicles in record time. It worked because Howe had full cabinet authority and because those industry leaders were empowered to act.
Fast forward to 2025. Canada has promised to raise defence spending to two percent of GDP this year and five percent by 2035. The Canadian Armed Forces need destroyers, submarines, drones, icebreakers, artillery, and air defence systems today, not two decades from now. Our Arctic sovereignty depends on ports and infrastructure that don’t yet exist. Our industrial base has to scale, compete globally, and integrate with allies. The old procurement system cannot deliver at that pace.
That’s why the Carney government created the Defence Investment Agency. Its mandate is to cut through red tape, accelerate timelines, and tie defence spending directly to Canadian jobs and industrial growth. To run it, Ottawa has turned to two figures who mirror that wartime partnership.
Stephen Fuhr, a former fighter pilot and MP, has been named Secretary of State for Defence Procurement. Doug Guzman, until recently the Deputy Chair of RBC, is the Agency’s first CEO. Together, they are meant to make the system work. Guzman is today’s dollar-a-year man, bringing decades of experience in banking, capital allocation, and large-scale execution. He has left Bay Street for Ottawa because bureaucracy alone cannot meet the scale of the challenge. I don’t know what his salary is, but I hope it is competitive. It should be. Ottawa cannot expect leaders of this calibre to work for a civil service pay scale. If we want leadership that can break inertia and deliver, we have to be willing to pay for it. Frankly, it is worth every penny.
That leaves Fuhr in the C.D. Howe role. He is the political lead tasked with mobilizing industry and forcing change. But unlike Howe, he is not a full minister. He does not yet have the standing to be the “Minister of Everything.” That can change, but only if the Prime Minister continues to make it clear that Fuhr is in charge. Without that authority, he risks being boxed in by the very system he has been asked to reform.
The structure itself works against him. Defence procurement involves three full ministers, not to mention Treasury Board. If Fuhr has been given the authorities of a cabinet minister, why not just make him a cabinet minister? It seems like Ottawa has chosen to make things unnecessarily difficult for the man. It is like asking the running back to lead the team while the quarterback and head coach are standing on the sidelines. He can move the ball, but without their buy-in he can’t call the plays.
The Prime Minister says Fuhr has his confidence. But Howe’s power came not just from confidence expressed, but from authority granted. Without that same clarity, Fuhr risks being boxed in by the very structure he’s been asked to change.