Trudeau's defence minister is looking to cash in on Carney's torrent of military spending
Harjit Sajjan is likely the first of many well-connected opportunists looking to profit off of the coming defence spending bonanza.
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When Harjit Sajjan was sworn in as Justin Trudeau’s first defence minister, it was to much fanfare.
“Everyone Thinks Canada’s New Defense Minister Is a ‘Badass’” declared a VICE News headline in characteristically bombastic fashion. “Harjit Sajjan: Canada’s ’bad-ass’ defence minister” intoned a similarly-positive Maclean’s profile.
The press made much of Sajjan’s role as a military intelligence officer in Kandahar and, closer to home, as a member of the Vancouver police anti-gang squad.
But in a cabinet full of chronic under-performers, Sajjan was one of the worst. His false self-description as the “architect” of Operation Medusa, the most celebrated battle in Canada’s War in Afghanistan made him a laughing stock when it was exposed. (Though few questioned the fact that Operation Medusa was itself a debacle, but that’s beside the point). His handling of sexual misconduct claims in the military led him to be censored by the House of Commons. Eventually he was shuffled out of the defence portfolio into a series of less high-profile ministries, where he could do less damage.
Though the Liberals were once again ascendant in 2025, Sajjan didn’t seek re-election. Instead, mere weeks after he vacated his seat in the House of Commons, Sajjan joined the private arms industry.
The former defence minister is listed as the co-founder and executive of Juno Industries, a start-up looking to become a Canadian military contractor. Just last week, Juno Industries secured $12 million in funding and is angling to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange through a reverse-takeover.1
According to press accounts, Juno Industries wants to become the Canadian-version of Anduril Industries, the Silicon Valley military contractor started by Oculur VR founder and Hawaiian shirt enthusiast Palmer Luckey.
And so far, the media coverage around this start-up has been largely laudatory, just like when Sajjan first became a minister.
Whereas I have a lot of questions.
First off, Sajjan was a cabinet minister a year ago. Does no one else think it might be a little inappropriate for a former Liberal cabinet minister to co-found a company seeking to do business almost exclusively with the federal government while his seat in the House of Commons is still warm? In order for Juno Industries to succeed, they will need to get money from ministers who Sajjan sat at the cabinet table with and from bureaucrats who he was only recently overseeing.2
