The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Latvia’s (CanCham) Procurement Seminar & Luncheon on “How to supply goods and services to the Canadian Armed Forces in Latvia” took place on Thursday, February 27th, 2025 at the Radisson Blu Daugava Hotel, with over 70 participants attending the event.

Canada has made a crucial commitment to Latvia’s security. Op REASSURANCE is currently the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) largest overseas military deployment, through which the CAF contributes to NATO deterrence and defence measures in Central and Eastern Europe. Under this mission, Canada is the Framework nation of the NATO multinational brigade Latvia.

Task Force Latvia (TFL) is the National Command Element that ensures the success of the Canadian contribution to NATO in Latvia. This involves investing in military infrastructure and coordinating various aspects needed to support this effort through local procurement.

The objective of the event was to introduce members of TFL involved in projects and/or procurement to CanCham members and friends, to explain individual parties’ responsibilities and how they operate, to develop personal contacts, and to understand the overall environment that we are working in.

Highly appreciated by all, event participants were given an opportunity to introduce themselves and their organizations individually to help identify potential business partners with whom to network with after the formal presentations.

H.E. Brian Szwarc, Ambassador of Canada to Latvia, provided an overall review of the Canadian contribution to TFL and the continued commitment of Canada to the security in Latvia and the Baltic region.

The CAF was well represented, with two of its members serving as speakers to this event:

• Major Patrick Dornan – Officer Commanding, Canadian Contracts Management Cell (CMC), National Support Element presented “Building Relationships Through Capability: Contracting with the Canadian Armed Forces in Latvia”, which described how Latvian companies can become part of the TFL supplier system and
• Major Joe Nocq-MacRae – Joint Engineer (JEngr) Officer, Task Force Latvia Headquarters presented “TFL Engineer/Future Infrastructure Brief”, which described work that has been done to date and plans for the coming years.

Both emphasized the need to develop close ties to the local Latvian business community who could support the work of TFL and to engage directly with them in order to make the Latvian companies capabilities known to TFL.

These presentations and contact information are made available to event participants.

Ed Kalvins then summarized the workings and set-up of the CanCham, and how CanCham members can be a part of and assist TFL’s efforts, and stated that the CanCham is available to support the effort whenever required.

As always, time was short and many questions remained unanswered, but it was emphasized that this was only the beginning of the cooperation process between CanCham and TFL, and that other events will take place during the year which will supplement this cooperation. We intend to repeat this event on an annual basis.