Disruptions to Canada's digital infrastructure could cut off the ability to communicate, do business and access critical services.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Curtis McCord, PhD, is a policy analyst with the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP) and a former national security and technology researcher for the federal government.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to an important and inconvenient truth: Canada is too reliant on the U.S. when it comes to defence and national security.
With Washington becoming an increasingly unreliable ally, Mr. Carney is right to look for ways to diversify away from the U.S. But if Canada wants to maintain its sovereignty and be responsible for its national security, this desire to diversify must extend to the U.S. domination of Canada’s digital infrastructure.
Digital infrastructure has many layers. There are networks of cables that connect our houses to the internet and the data centres that run the systems we rely on. This infrastructure is global, highly integrated and highly concentrated. Cloud computing infrastructure, for example, is dominated by large U.S. firms such as Microsoft and Amazon. These entities control the data centres that support the services and businesses Canadians rely on every day to connect with family and friends, to work and run their businesses and purchase goods.
While this level of concentration was already a risk from a stability standpoint, today this risk extends to the future of Canada’s national security. When so much of our digital economy is dependent on U.S. firms, the risk that a U.S. administration might try to use this infrastructure as leverage is a chilling thought. Prolonged outages of cloud computing services such as Google Suite, Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS would cripple Canada’s economy, bring government work to a halt and leave Canadians at the mercy of those controlling the switch.
Changing U.S. relationship has thrust Canada’s data sovereignty into the spotlight
Resilience, the ability of a system to withstand external shocks, is crucial for security. Disruptions to digital infrastructure could be catastrophic for the everyday lives of Canadians, cutting off our means of communicating, doing business and accessing critical services. Our infrastructure markets will be more resilient, and more secure, if the switches that control our access are in more hands and closer to home.
The Prime Minister’s spending commitments have directly addressed the importance of digital infrastructure to national security, pledging more than half a billion dollars to the military’s cyber capacities and to the Communications Security Establishment. Canada’s new strategy on cyberdefence must make the CSE’s role in protecting Canadian infrastructure clearer, but it also needs to come to grips with how privately owned digital infrastructure poses a risk to Canadian sovereignty.
The importance of national and domestic control of key digital infrastructure and services is not a new insight. In Ukraine, the cyber front is a key battleground. Their intelligence and private-sector cybersecurity firms are constantly defending their communications and energy infrastructure from Russian attack, and the country tangled with Elon Musk to maintain access to Starlink’s satellite communications network.
In Canada, the federal government barred Chinese firm Huawei from entry into our 5G market on the grounds of national security and banned TikTok from government devices for fear of surveillance. The government made these decisions because it did not feel our data or infrastructure were secure because the firms that operated them were not sufficiently trustworthy. Today, our dependence on the United States should warrant the same skepticism, given the stakes.
Mr. Carney’s announcement about moving away from U.S. military industrial contractors for our national defence procurement reflects this skepticism. Just months ago, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that purchasers of American-made fighter jets might receive "toned-down versions … because someday maybe they’re not our allies, right?" By doing this, he made clear his willingness to pressure U.S. firms to advance his goals. We should not expect the monopolists that gatekeep digital infrastructure and services to be more insulated from this than defence contractors.
To remedy this situation, Mr. Carney’s expansion of Canada’s defence capacity must include spurring investment in reliable, Canadian digital infrastructure alternatives. While motivated by a national security context, these could have positive outcomes for our peacetime economy as well, paving the way for diverse and resilient digital services and infrastructure in Canada.
Recognizing that Canadians depend on digital infrastructure, the Carney government must show it understands this infrastructure as critical to national defence. There is a clear connection between national and digital sovereignty, and protecting our autonomy means ensuring these systems are resilient, secure and not in the hands of unreliable allies.