What 23,122 Canadian conversations reveal about who a NATO defence bank is really meant to help
The DSR bank should be celebrated as a strong win for Canada. The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) is a new multilateral lending institution — loosely modelled on the World Bank — built specifically to finance defence, security and resilience projects for NATO members and allied nations. Canada was an early champion, did the diplomatic legwork and won a unanimous vote to have the DSRB headquartered in Canada, with a city to be confirmed soon. It will create 3500 jobs.
But tech startups in the defence community worry this fund will do little to support them – a criticism we see with virtually every government initiative touted to ‘’help business.’’ What they actually do is de-risk projects for large companies that shouldn’t need the help.
An askpolly study of 23,122 Canadian conversations (Aug 2025–Jul 2026) finds a clear pattern emerges when we look at criticism of the DSRB: over half of all drawback-framed conversation centers on small suppliers, more than the next three concerns combined. The recurring worry, drawn largely from speculation rather than documented harm, is that DSR Bank becomes a vehicle to de-risk large financiers — not a channel that helps smaller defence suppliers compete.
This is a familiar theme for Canadian business. SMEs employ 64% of the workforce but are largely left out of government procurement and are left out of government financing of frontier projects. And the belief that these funds ‘’trickle down’’ to small business is a fallacy. What is does is make it impossible for them to compete. This is why a study published by Leaders Fund in September last year found that 50% of Canadian tech founders relocate to the United States to grow their businesses. And those small businesses will someday be big businesses.