With new digital hub, N.B. expected to play key role in Canada's cyber defences

An international technology company says work done at its new digital centre in Fredericton will increase Canada's cyber defences. 

The National Digital Excellence Centre will handle cybersecurity for some of the country's industries and critical infrastructure, according to Chris Pogue, CEO of Thales Canada.  

Pogue, who is also the managing director of the company's defence and security business, said the centre's opening comes at a time of growing tension between Canada and the United States.

"I couldn't have imagined six weeks ago the chaotic world we're living in … and that chaos and change is going to make cyber resilience increasingly necessary," Pogue said. 

Threats unexpected and increasing

He was referring to the trade war threatened by President Donald Trump and his rhetoric about annexing Canada, which have led to worries about sovereignty. There are also concerns that Canada's position in Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing network that includes the U.S. and several other countries, may be at risk.

"There are increasing threats coming from angles that we wouldn't have expected," Pogue said. "We are seeing an increasing pace of cyber threats from ransomware, increasing malicious state and non-state actors that we know are trying to influence what goes on in Canada and even around the world."

Thales specializes in defence, aerospace and cyber and digital sectors on five continents, and its centre at Knowledge Park in Fredericton is its first first location in Atlantic Canada.

The company provides digital identity and security for things such as driver's licences and transactions made on the internet, Pogue said, as well as cybersecurity of operational systems, such as power plants, manufacturing machinery, warehouses, naval vessels and transportation systems.

Pogue said he would like to see "all of our industry, particularly critical infrastructure having robust cybersecurity built into it, not added on, but built into the very design of the way we operate."

The new centre was established in partnership with the McKenna Institute at the University of New Brunswick and the city development agency Ignite. It has received funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Opportunities New Brunswick, and Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour.

Hard to interpret the president

Frank McKenna, the deputy chair at TD Securities, said cybersecurity is "a major preoccupation of just about every industry, every business that I'm involved in."

"I think … New Brunswick is going to have a really important role to play in equipping all of Canada with cyber defences so that we can protect our democracy and protect our critical infrastructure," said McKenna, who attended the opening by video and spoke in an interview afterwards.

As a former New Brunswick premier, and a one-time ambassador to the United States, McKenna has seen his share of challenges to Canada's sovereignty, including negotiations for the original free trade agreement, and the proposed Constitutional Amendments that came under the failed Meech Lake Accord.

But he said he hasn't seen anything quite like the current souring of international relations with the United States.

"I've never seen the country feel there's a greater existential threat to its existence," McKenna said. "It's hard to interpret the president and … it's just hard to get into a fact-based conversation with the [Trump] administration."

He said Canadians are getting whiplash from the constantly changing messaging from Washington, and Trump's goading about making Canada the 51st state, which McKenna said is making Canadians "viscerally angry." 

"The efforts he's using [with] tariffs to try to squeeze us into being more closely integrated with the United States ….  are driving us further apart. It's bizarro land," he said.

"We're not part of their problem. And yet we provide them with oil, we provide them with aluminum and steel and potash and uranium, all of the things they need. The backbone of the US economy comes from Canada.

Although it's "disconcerting," McKenna said he expects Canada will be successful in the end.

'Security battlefield' a massive challenge

Peter MacKay, who was minister of national defence and foreign affairs under the former Stephen Harper government, said he knows first hand what types of security threats the country deals with behind the scenes. 

The Thales digital hub is "the front line against cyber attacks, which can cripple an economy, can collapse our communication systems, [and] our critical infrastructure," said MacKay, who attended the opening of the centre.

"I say this having had the very real advantageous viewpoint of having worked at National Defence and we have incredible people … on the front lines of that security battlefield, which is a massive, massive challenge given the pernicious and persistent nature of cyber attacks … trying to break into our system of government for information theft, intellectual property theft, for businesses, for banks."

This is a volatile time, which has "people full of uncertainty and anxiety," MacKay said, because of the changing course taken by a country that has been Canada's friend and partner in security.

But he said he believes security institutions like NATO and NORAD and Five Eyes will hold.

"There are other voices within that circle of influence that matter as well, not just the United States."

Pogue said people are now paying attention to cybersecurity, given recent events in the U.S.

"Whether that attention is desirable or not, that attention causes us to often take action, sometimes actions that we should have taken before," he said.

"At the end of the day, if any sort of disruption in what we call the global world order causes Canadians to realize how important cybersecurity is, how important defence is, how important their investment in those things are to the way of life that Canadians enjoy, the better we'll be in the long run."