National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to appear before you. I will be making my opening remarks in French, but I would be happy to answer questions in both official languages. I am a professor at the Université de Montréal and Canada research chair i

National Defence committee  The Government of Canada just announced an $80-million investment in the cyber security innovation network through ISED. I think this is a great initiative, because it's going to bring together more than 120 academics and industry partners from the private sector and from the pro

National Defence committee  This is something I have very little information about. I work in academia, so this is something that is very remote from my work.

National Defence committee  There is a real effort to try to coordinate with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and through other initiatives, but it's probably still lagging. This is such a complex issue, and we probably need to inject a lot more effort, energy and money into it. I think a lot more wo

National Defence committee  FireEye is a private firm, not a think tank. It has more or less the same type of expertise as Microsoft. I think Canada is behind because security and cybersecurity issues are not high on the political agenda. They are considered important, but not necessarily seen as prioritie

National Defence committee  We could certainly look to Europe for some worthwhile initiatives. The U.K.'s armed forces, for instance, created a cyber reservists unit to attract people from the private sector to work on matters of national security on a temporary basis. My colleague Christian Leuprecht ment

National Defence committee  Yes. It does indeed depend on how much of a priority the country has made the issue and its level of investment in recent years.

National Defence committee  When very specialized skills are needed, people want assurance that they are going to stay in their position for a number of years. Remuneration is another important consideration. Even though those who consider a career in the armed forces are not motivated by money, it's still

National Defence committee  When I talk about digital sovereignty, I'm talking about Canada developing its own businesses and capacity so that it can produce Canadian technologies and services in response to strategically important technological needs. This means helping to build Canadian companies and indu

National Defence committee  That's right.

National Defence committee  Yes, the same skills are required to carry out the same type of analysis in determining the appropriate response. The only exception is that, in cases involving ransom, negotiating skills can come into play, but more in the private sector.

National Defence committee  When I was talking about a neural interface, it's a new brand of technology trying to connect human brains to machines in order to communicate faster between those two components. For example, Elon Musk is investing a lot of money in a company called Neuralink, which is trying to

National Defence committee  That is one of the examples. It is one of the early use cases, but the applications will be much broader than that.

National Defence committee  Yes. We could be thinking about implanting neural interfaces in the brains of soldiers to make them much more effective combatants.

National Defence committee  It's hard to know, because it's all very sensitive and confidential. This is being developed at the moment. There are papers and documentaries. Investors are investing millions of dollars in these technologies. This is coming for sure.