Mr. Yurdiga.
Evidence of meeting #80 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was parliamentarians.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #80 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was parliamentarians.
A recording is available from Parliament.
February 8th, 2018 / 9:50 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank our guests here this morning. We've been talking a lot about the ballistic missile threat and we have NORAD protecting us with early detection of missiles coming in, but in reality a lot of people believe that cyberwarfare is a bigger threat.
Mr. Fergusson, or anyone else who wants to speak to this, are we doing just as much to protect ourselves against cyberwarfare as we are doing with ballistic missiles?
9:50 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
In terms of military forces, I don't think there's any question that we're doing a great deal to protect those key cyber links, if you will. In many cases military forces and, of course, military communication systems, are isolated from the broad world. There are people who crack into more of the public links into them, but by and large on the military side, I don't think that's a major issue. It's with civilian critical infrastructure that you have the issue, and this becomes a very difficult question not only for governments to protect their own communication and electronic systems, but also for the private sector particularly, because most of these areas you think of on the North American energy grid are privately owned. The question then becomes, what is the private sector doing to protect their potential problems of hacking, both for malicious purposes or to steal secrets, or economic purposes. That's a dialogue that has to happen between government—not just the Canadian government—and its private sector. Because of the North American grids, if you will, the networks, it's a discussion that needs to take place between both.
I know, for example, that NORAD and NATO are also concerned about these things. I know, for example, that NORAD is part of the evolution of a North American defence study under way, which was blessed by the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, and is looking directly at cyber. But in my view, a lot of serious issues that emerge when you start to think about the military taking over to provide, or play the key role in, cybersecurity for the commercial side, and civil or civilian sectors. I don't think that's a path we want to go down.
9:55 a.m.
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Cyber will be one of the subjects of one of our reports this year. Absolutely, cyber isn't a pending threat. In terms of cyber, even in my organization we have to deal—I won't say daily, but a lot—with people trying to break in and hack. NATO is extremely active and, by the way, co-operates very well with the European Union on that. The other thing we will be looking at is also the dark web and the way the Internet is being used to organize terrorist operations and to radicalize people. We're focusing a lot, if you like, on the cyber world as an organization. You're absolutely right that it's there now, that this isn't something that we need to worry about in the future, but need to deal with it now.
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I would just add very briefly that I think there's a lot more going on in terms of investments being made in the cyber world than we know of the public domain, and for logical reasons you don't want to talk about these things in the public domain. To get a real answer on that, I think you would need to get a classified briefing.
9:55 a.m.
Senator, New Brunswick, Lib.
Our colleagues from Estonia explained to us how devastating a cyber-attack can be, because they're so heavily dependent on modern technology. It can just close everything down, from getting money out of bank machines to the lights. Everything stops. There is research on that. NATO was involved with research on cyber up in Estonia and the Balkans, which we all participate in and have a chance to learn from.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I had the experience when I was on vacation that all of a sudden there was this notification on my phone: “Ballistic missile threat inbound. Seek immediate shelter.” How important is that? I've never experienced that in Canada, or ever seen any test, but obviously I had a Canadian phone and I still got the message. How important is it for public engagement if a threat is real? Should we, or do we, have a system in place that lets the public know that there's something coming down the pipe?
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
There is an emergency alert. By and large, it's for natural disasters. In the world of ballistic missiles, the timelines are so short. For example, from Russia to North America is about a 30-minute flight, so what are you going to do? We don't have a civil defence capability. There are places you might want to go as deep as you can underground, in the basements of places, but otherwise it can cause more danger, which is ironic in a way, particularly if you're wrong, than it can help, because there will be great panic with nothing to do.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I agree with you, but, you know, I was kind of shocked. Being from Canada, I said, oh, it's spam, and I had a coffee—
9:55 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
I do understand that the Government of Canada and others are dusting off old bomb shelters, if you will, or looking back into this issue, at least to ensure the security of the government structure of the nation in a worst-case scenario.
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, As an Individual
You may.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
How should the security situation develop in the Arctic, especially when climate change allows foreign ships to sail into the area? In that respect, what are NATO's current and future roles in the Arctic?
10 a.m.
Senator, New Brunswick, Lib.
We have already taken a number of trips to the Arctic and NATO is very involved, especially now that countries like China have decided that the Arctic is important. We have to be on top of what is going on and what they are doing.
For that reason, I have made at least two trips to the Arctic to examine the problems directly, and that will continue. NATO is very involved and that is very important for the future.
10 a.m.
Liberal
10 a.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Also, how can parliamentarians in NATO countries make NATO, and its relevance, better known in their countries, to young people specifically?
10 a.m.
Senator, New Brunswick, Lib.
Do you want to take this discussion as to how we can communicate this on NATO's work?
10 a.m.
Secretary General, NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Thank you for that.
First of all, on the Arctic, by the way, the members of the assembly who are Arctic powers, if you like, have ensured that it features regularly on the assembly's agenda. For example, this year one of our committees is going to be specifically looking at search and rescue capabilities, and they have made sure that our members resist the temptation to be exclusively south-focused and actually look at the particular challenges that are changing in the Arctic region.
In fact, that leads me to how, as an organization, we do a tremendous amount in terms of heightening awareness of what the alliance does, where it does it, and how it does it, and what the peculiar circumstances of each of our nations are so that we make sure that members from Greece and Turkey appreciate what the high north looks like and what the challenges are, and why they should be concerned about it, in the same way that we hope you will go to Greece and Turkey and see what issues they are concerned about. We have a specific program whereby we are seeking to look at the way NATO is taught academically, and also the way it's dealt with within Parliament and what lessons can be learned. For example, if you speak to the Baltic states, they'll say it's taught really well in schools and every single parliamentarian knows everything about NATO. Then with some of the old, traditional allies, we totally take it for granted and don't realize frankly that it's part of our DNA, and we need to appreciate it better instead of making jokes about it sometimes and taking it for granted.
10 a.m.
Senator, New Brunswick, Lib.
Our group here in Canada is involved in NATO communications, especially those aimed at young people. Leona Alleslev, as chair of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, has worked in Brussels in the field of NATO communications. The current chair is from Italy and he has just set up a committee to examine ways to improve those communications. We are working on it at the moment.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
We can see that young people are becoming more and more interested in problems like these.
I will share the rest of my time with Mr. Gerretsen.