![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f10cb76dc3fcf977bf12e2e757f79ccd.jpeg\")
An architectural rendering of the building that could house the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS \/ Rosefellow, Tsatas Group and (mandatory credit). – The Canadian Press \u00b7 The Canadian Press <\/p>\n An architectural rendering of the building that could house the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS \/ Rosefellow, Tsatas Group and (mandatory credit). – The Canadian Press \u00b7 The Canadian Press <\/p>\n
QU\u00c9BEC \u2014 Montreal’s business community is coming together to sweeten the pot in the city’s bid to host a multinational defence bank, offering several floors in a planned downtown tower for the highly sought-after headquarters.<\/p>\n
A consortium of three companies \u2014 Sid Lee Architecture and real estate developers Rosefellow and the Tsatas Group \u2014 hope their idea will give Montreal an edge as it competes with Vancouver, Ottawa, and Toronto for the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank.<\/p>\n
Canada has been selected to host the multinational bank that will provide long-term, low-cost financing for defence projects by NATO members and allies. The federal government, meanwhile, has not yet chosen a host city \u2014 and the Ontario government says it has already secured a location in Toronto for the bank’s headquarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want Montreal to stay in the running,\u201d Martin Leblanc, co-founder at Sid Lee Architecture, said in an interview Thursday. \u201cWe\u2019re going to give (Montreal) one more card to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tower project had already been finalized and was supposed to be a hotel, but if Montreal is named host city, several floors would be repurposed to accommodate the bank. The project is estimated to cost $200 million, with construction to be completed in 36 months.<\/p>\n
It was in Montreal in April that representatives from 18 countries selected Canada to host the bank’s headquarters, and competition between cities \u2014 particularly Montreal and Toronto \u2014 has proven fierce.<\/p>\n
In May, political figures in Quebec denounced allegations, first reported in La Presse, that Toronto officials had brought up the sovereignty movement to scare the federal government from choosing Montreal as the bank’s headquarters.<\/p>\n
Confronted with the allegations, Ontario Premier Doug Ford at the time told reporters he did not believe in attacking rival campaigns, adding that Toronto is the only Canadian city with the resources to successfully host the bank.<\/p>\n
The business consortium proposing the tower in Montreal isn’t the only group trying to entice Ottawa to choose Montreal.<\/p>\n
A group co-ordinated through Finance Montr\u00e9al \u2014 the province\u2019s financial cluster that brings together banks, institutional investors, and industry partners \u2014 has joined several Quebec politicians in lobbying for Montreal, citing its financial strength and international connections.<\/p>\n
Signatories, including public pension fund manager Caisse de d\u00e9p\u00f4t et placement du Qu\u00e9bec, Desjardins, and National Bank, said Montr\u00e9al\u2019s financial sector was ready to offer immediate support for the bid by tapping into the city’s major banks, access to global financial markets, and strong pools of institutional investors and financial experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An architectural rendering of the building that could house the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank in Montreal. THE…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[267412,49,48,2338,238234,267411,944,3302],"class_list":["post-746888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-business-consortium","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal","tag-multinational-bank","tag-sid-lee-architecture","tag-the-canadian-press","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}