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LILLEY: Carney hands tax office security to U.S. firm tied to Trump’s deportation machine

Commissionaires, Canada’s largest employer of veterans, lose CRA contract over an $80,000 bid gap

Published Oct 19, 2026  •  Last updated 13 hours ago  •  4 minute read

The Commissionaires - Cape Breton District office on Prince Street in Sydney, N.S. Photo by Jakob Postlewaite /Jakob Postlewaite

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An American security company with ties to Trump’s deportation machine is about to start guarding Canada’s tax office — and it beat out a Canadian veterans’ institution by just $80,000. Allied Universal, a firm making tens of millions off ICE and other U.S. agencies, will soon take over security at the Canada Revenue Agency.

In a true Elbows Up move, the Carney government awarded the contract, worth close to $12 million, to Allied Universal rather than the Commissionaires.

It all appears to be part of a pattern of the Carney government saying one thing and doing another. A recent review of federal contracts awarded between March 2025, when Prime Minister Mark Carney was sworn in, and the end of July 2026 showed that lucrative contracts going to American companies increased.

The Toronto Star examined $25 billion worth of contracts awarded in Carney’s first 16 months and found 31% went to American-controlled companies. That was up from 20% of the $36 billion in contracts handed out in the 16 months before Carney was sworn in.

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This security contract for the Canada Revenue Agency fits that pattern. It takes the security services contract for the federal tax office away from a Canadian institution and hands it to an American-based company.

The Commissionaires is based in Ottawa and remains the largest employer of veterans in the country. They lost out on the contract in June when Allied Universal, headquartered in Pennsylvania, underbid them by just over $80,000.

The loss of the contract hits the Commissionaires hard. They’ve been providing security services for the CRA since 2012. Now many of their employees may need to take a pay cut to stay on with Allied Universal or find work elsewhere.

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So far in 2026, Allied Universal has received contracts worth more than US$290 million through the American Department of Homeland Security. Its subsidiary, G4S Security has received contracts worth US$83 million from ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that has been central to Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

The fact that the Carney government gave this $12-million security contract to an American firm flies in the face of the PM’s rhetoric and his own government’s Buy Canadian policy.

Announced in December 2025, the government’s stated policy is that Canadian companies should get preferential treatment, especially on contracts worth more than $5 million.

“By implementing the Buy Canadian Policy today, the federal government is putting Canadian workers and industries first and becoming Canada’s best customer,” Joël Lightbound, Carney’s minister for government procurement, said at the time.

It’s hard to believe all the rhetoric coming out of the Carney government on looking out for Canadian workers, building our sovereignty or building Canada strong when an American company beats a Canadian institution over a roughly $80,000 difference.

Conservative MP and veterans critic Michael Barrett says this contract doesn’t pass the smell test.

“Awarding a nearly $12-million federal security contract to an American-owned company over a price difference of less than 1% raises serious questions about the government’s priorities,” Barrett said Friday.

“Supporting Canadian veterans, protecting Canadian jobs and keeping those dollars in Canada should count for something.”

The Commissionaires was founded in 1925 to provide meaningful employment to veterans. For the past century, they have had a special relationship with the federal government, which included, for decades, a right of first refusal to provide security services at federal departments and buildings.

Earlier this year, the Carney government signalled it would end that relationship after years of lobbying from Montreal-based GardaWorld. The global security giant, whose CEO Stephan Crétier lives in Dubai, where there is zero income tax, spent years hiring Liberal-friendly lobbyists to end the deal for the Commissionaires.

GardaWorld, like Allied Universal, has many lucrative contracts with Trump’s Department of Homeland Security and was front and centre in running the Alligator Alcatraz deportation centre in Florida until it closed earlier this year.

In March, after the expensive and sustained lobbying of the Liberal government, Garda got its wish. Carney’s veterans minister, Jill McKnight, announced the government would end the right of first refusal arrangement by the end of March 2027.

That decision is currently being challenged in court.

What both of these episodes with the Commissionaires show is that Carney’s Elbows Up rhetoric is just that — rhetoric and nothing else.

For a century, the Commissionaires have stood guard for Ottawa. Under Carney, they’ve been shown the door — and an ICE contractor is taking their post. Elbows Up? Not under Mark Carney.

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