That is correct, yes.
Evidence of meeting #8 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.
A video is available from Parliament.
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of National Defence
That is correct, yes.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
As a stand-alone as a Coast Guard unit, would the Coast Guard be, in the new mandate, expected to board, say, a Chinese vessel that's intruded into our Arctic waters?
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of National Defence
Right now, again, we have people trained and equipped to do that. We don't have the mandate to do it.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Currently the Coast Guard has people trained to board, say, a foreign national vessel that intrudes into our national waters.
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of National Defence
It depends on what threats we're looking at.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Concerning an unopposed boarding on to a foreign national vessel, is the Coast Guard is capable of doing that at the moment?
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of National Defence
Yes, if we have the right authority on board.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Mr. Kibble, time is up.
Commissioner, thank you for your responses.
It's over to you, Madam Lapointe. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
My questions will be directed to Ms. Xavier.
As cyber-defence becomes a core pillar of NATO's collective security, how is CSE ensuring that Canada's networks and capabilities remain fully interoperable with those of our allies both to defend our systems but also to contribute to joint operations?
Caroline Xavier Chief, Communications Security Establishment
I'm happy to say that CSE, as part of its mandate, has the role of defending the Government of Canada's systems as well as our Canadian critical infrastructure. As part of the work that we do, there is interoperability with our allies. We have very great interoperability especially with our Five Eyes allies as well as domestically with our domestic security intelligence partners.
Have said that, cybersecurity is something that everybody worries about on a global scale. We are quite concerned about the threats we're seeing that happen on a cyber scale, so we have relationships with members of NATO as well as beyond to be able to continue to ensure that we're learning from what they're seeing but also to be able to share our advice and guidance because of all of the defence of Canada that we're doing and the systems that we are protecting.
We also get the opportunity to learn a lot from the foreign intelligence mandate that we have within the CSE organization, and that is a part of what we call our secret sauce, the ability to have foreign intelligence help inform what we might see in cyber-defence and to be able to predict those cyber-threats that could impact Canada as well as our allies. Our allies help inform us through foreign intelligence but as well through the cybersecurity side of our mandate.
Ultimately, we do feel that the number of malicious actions we defend against per day permits us to better understand what the threats are globally but to Canadians as well, so that is part of what we do on a regular basis.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
You talk about threats, and we know that the threat landscape continues to evolve from state actors to ransomware and hybrid operations that target critical sectors.
How does this year's funding help CSE stay ahead of those complex and fast-changing threats, particularly when it comes to protecting defence supply chains and critical infrastructure like energy and communications?
Chief, Communications Security Establishment
In general, we've been really fortunate to be invested in since 2022 and, as the various budgets have ensued, we have received additional investments to continue to do our part with regard to cybersecurity and securing the defence of the digital mandate of the country.
I would say, with regard to the defence investment we receive, which is $370.1 million, that will go towards NATO's 2%. The full budget of CSE goes towards the NATO 2%. In that $370.1 million, the intent is to be able to help us to modernize that digital foundation and harden it so that we're going to continue to have that interoperability with allies internationally as well with our colleagues domestically. A big part of that interoperability will be the work that we do in support of the Canadian Armed Forces so that they can also continue to have that interoperability with their allies to do the work that they do.
A big part of our mandate is securing that digital foundation, so we worry about cryptography. We worry about the quantum computing threat that is coming, and part of the investment will allow us to better understand how to ensure that all the digital data that we will collect, including what you heard from General Carignan a few minutes ago, will remain protected based on the investments that have been made in CSE.
Liberal
Viviane LaPointe Liberal Sudbury, ON
Collaboration among CSE, the Canadian Armed Forces and other departments is essential for situational awareness and resilience.
Could you expand on how that partnership is strengthening, especially in support of NORAD modernization and Arctic domain awareness, and also for countering disinformation that targets Canadians and our democratic institutions? We're seeing more and more of it.
Chief, Communications Security Establishment
As I mentioned, part of our mandate is foreign intelligence collection. A big part of that is to ensure that decision-makers have the insights they need to do their job, and that includes our Canadian Armed Forces decision-makers. That is one part of the mandate.
The other part is our foreign cyber-operations, which are, again, informed effectively by our foreign intelligence mandate as well as our cybersecurity defence. In that role, we work hand in glove with the Canadian Armed Forces. In my own building, on a regular basis I have Canadian Armed Forces members who are embedded in our agency to do the work we do in the defence of Canada, especially focused on the digital front line. We have people who are also sent overseas at times with our Canadian Armed Forces to be able to continue to support them in the roles that they're playing and in the mandate that they have.
In terms of really paying attention to the Arctic and our backyard, Canada is very much a priority for us, as you heard General Carignan talking about with regard to the Canadian Armed Forces. We are part of the ONSAF policy that was issued by the Government of Canada. We work hand in glove with CAF to protect the Arctic, from the perspective of foreign intelligence but as well in our cyber-sensors and our cyber-defence.
We've distributed sensors in the northern territories to ensure that we have good monitoring from a cyber-threat perspective. That's in addition to working with critical infrastructure in the north, continuing to monitor and surveil from a foreign intelligence perspective, and leading multilats with international partners to better understand the threats in the Arctic, again, to better equip our Canadian Armed Forces in the decisions that they're making. We work, literally, hand in glove.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Charles Sousa
Thank you.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have a whole two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair. You couldn't ask for anything more, as they say.
General Carignan, let's continue where we left off earlier.
This potential conflict is likely creating a very significant need for weapons and ammunition production, which will likely involve converting some civilian production to military production.
Is it a work in progress?
Gen. Jennie Carignan
Extremely interesting things are currently happening in the defence ecosystem. To be properly organized, it takes more than just the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence, strictly speaking. As you mentioned, the support provided by our industrial base and what it supplies is extremely important. These are the foundations upon which a strong defence is built. It's part of the defence industrial strategy that's being developed and will be released soon.
In addition, we now have the Defence Investment Agency, which was created to ensure that procurement projects are carried out efficiently and in a modern manner, and are adaptable to the current situation. That further strengthens our mandate.
If we have an industrial base and a supply chain capable of continuing production in a context where we would need more materials, equipment and ammunition, it will be an extremely powerful model.
We are very positive about the changes that are taking place.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Do we know approximately how long it would take to convert part of civilian production to military production for that purpose? China has indicated the year it will attack Taiwan. Do we have time to proceed?
Gen. Jennie Carignan
Earlier, we talked about strategic stock. We anticipate things, we conduct analyses, and we estimate our needs based on what we know. We are therefore able to position in advance what we will need at the right time.
Right now, all of our transformation and reform efforts are aimed at adapting our position to the current situation, which is fundamentally different from anything we've been asked to do since the Cold War.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Chairman.
The Auditor General found that the coordination among Treasury Board, Shared Services and CSE was insufficient during active attacks. An initiative was set up for a cybersecurity collaboration platform and incident case management tool, but had not yet received funding.
Is it scheduled to receive funding?
Chief, Communications Security Establishment
Indeed, CSE works with Treasury Board and Shared Services to ensure that Government of Canada systems are effectively protected. We're really grateful for the audit that has been done by the OAG. We feel that there's been significant progress since the OAG completed is report. We continue to improve the collaboration amongst ourselves as agencies in ensuring and protecting Government of Canada systems.
One of the recommendations was to invest in this platform. This is part of the assessment to ensure we acquire this platform in order to have a better integration of how we do the management of—