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LILLEY: How GardaWorld lobbying could cost thousands of Canadian veterans their jobs

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LILLEY: How GardaWorld lobbying could cost thousands of Canadian veterans their jobs

Montreal-based security firm is using Liberal ties in Canada to screw over our veterans.

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A Montreal-based security firm with ties to Donald Trump, ICE and the infamous Alligator Alcatraz prison is using Liberal ties in Canada to screw over our veterans. Security firm GardaWorld used well-connected Liberal lobbyists to convince the Carney government to end a long-standing agreement with the Commissionaires. 

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Founded in 1925 specifically to provide employment to First World War veterans, the Commissionaires remains the largest employer of veterans in Canada. For years, the not-for-profit organization has had an agreement with the federal government that gives the Commissionaires the first right of refusal for security at federal buildings for government departments. 

LILLEY: How GardaWorld lobbying could cost thousands of Canadian veterans their jobs Back to video

Earlier this year, Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight informed the organization that they would be extending the practice for one more year until March 31. 2027 and then ending it. 

“This extension will ensure a smooth and measured transition to a competitive procurement process for guard services, which will take effect on April 1, 2027,” Minister McKnight wrote. 

How Liberal insiders delivered the kill shot for GardaWorld

The change comes after heavy lobbying by GardaWorld, which hired two Liberals with deep connections to the governing party — Martin-Pierre Pelletier and Bruce Hartley. In dozens of meetings with staff members in the Prime Minister’s Office, at Veterans Affairs, Treasury Board and elsewhere, the lobbyists for GardaWorld were blunt: End this deal with the Commissionaires. 

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“Seeking changes to the policies regarding the Commissionaires Corps first right of refusal on government contracts for security for federal real property,” read filing with the Lobbyist Registry submitted by Pelletier and Hartley. 

It seems that for GardaWorld, getting contracts worth $1 billion with the American government to run ICE detention and removal camps isn’t enough, they need to come after the Commissionaires as well.  

Hundreds of millions at stake, thousands of veterans affected

Michel Charron, the CEO of the Commissionaires, told The Canadian Press last week that he was “surprised and disappointed” when he heard the news that the federal government was taking away the organization’s first right of refusal. The move could cost the Commissionaires up to $330 million and put the employment of thousands of veterans in jeopardy. 

The amount of money the Commissionaires could potentially lose is about the same as the amount of money the Quebec government gave Garda and their CEO Stephan Crétier just a few years ago. The company, founded in Montreal by Crétier in 1995 has grown rapidly through acquisitions and now operates across Canada, the United States, Europe, much of the Middle East and Africa. 

Yet somehow Crétier, the billionaire who lives in Dubai and has a mansion in Palm Beach near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, convinced the Quebec government to give him $300 million to support global expansion. 

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GardaWorld’s American Empire: From ICE detention to Alligator Alcatraz

One of the most lucrative areas for global expansion of late has been Garda’s contracts with the Trump administration and ICE in the United States. Last month, GardaWorld Federal Services LLC, based in Virginia, was granted a contract worth at least $313 million USD, but potentially up to $704 million USD to operate an ICE detention facility in Surprise, Arizona. 

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is currently suing the Trump administration to stop the Surprise facility. Meanwhile groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International have criticized the Alligator Alcatraz facility in Florida with Amnesty issuing a report claiming “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” inside the facility. 

This is who the Carney Liberals decided to listen to; a company associated with all of this rather than a not-for-profit founded to support veterans and that still does 100 years later. 

Despite GardaWorld being a Canadian based company, it doesn’t feel like the Elbows Up, Canada Strong message that Carney has been trying to sell to the country for the last year. This feels like cheap and tawdry insider politics driven by Liberal insiders looking out for a well-connected Montreal firm rather than the men and women who served our country and are now serving in different ways. 

If Mark Carney really believed in the Canada Strong message he pushes, he’d tell his minister to reverse course on this, quickly.

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