National Defence committee  Well, as I mentioned, there were those three things. I don't want to reiterate them more than I already have, but again, there's the concept of umbrella projects, where there's a big chunk of funding and you can allocate it to subprojects, meaning that I could buy various technol

National Defence committee  You're very right. You have sticks and carrots—I like to look at it that way. In some cases, the sticks could be compelling businesses to disclose their breaches. Most businesses we talk to say that as long as they are involved with how that would occur and where the information

National Defence committee  It can happen. There isn't a one-size-fits-all. There are various incentives you can use. In our country, we have what we call an offset policy or an industrial and technological benefit policy that is applied at the time at which you do procurement. That incentivizes prime contr

National Defence committee  Well, we're trying to apply to agile procurement a model that wasn't designed for agile procurement. What we're suggesting isn't that the current model is broken. It's that the current model is being inappropriately applied to technology.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Well, in a model, time is the enemy. In our report—and the report you're referring to, I assume, is the 2021 report “Procurement at Cyber Speed”—for those of you who have it, page 18 is a good read. There are really three things that could be done. You start to create these umb

National Defence committee  I think it greatly hinders our co-operative effort. We see it on a regular basis within government entities: DND-CAF to the security agencies, and the security agencies to the government. Not to bring in the proceedings of yesterday, but you saw it in real time in foreign interfe

National Defence committee  We've been talking a lot, and this is under the defence policy review, the defence policy update, around a concept of continuous capability sustainment or agile procurement. There is a time and a place for competition. Typically, nations compete when there are two foreign vendor

National Defence committee  Well, they don't compete at the same level. Small businesses are generally part of the supply chain. There are two ways in which small businesses generally get directed contracts. Either you have a niche technology—that typically gets sought after by agencies and these are dire

National Defence committee  I assume you're talking about security clearances and classifications. I can't speak to how the agencies are screening to let in individuals with those clearances. What I can say is that because we face this on the defence file, we take a view in this country that we want the few

National Defence committee  As we suggested, you need almost like an institutionalized method by which you can create the connections to collaborate between industry, the private sector and the agencies or the government bodies. In part, there has been good forward motion being taken by CCCS, the Canadian

National Defence committee  I think we are seeing a great movement by countries to secure supply chains. I referenced CMMC, which is effectively a way in which the Americans are looking at securing their entire supply chain. We would say that failure to adopt these kinds of standards or these kinds of metho

National Defence committee  I think the challenge is.... It may not necessarily be adopting technologies from foreign countries. I believe it's investing most of its funds, whether that's funds for resources or funds for technology, into its own organization. CSE is increasing its resource pool and increasi

National Defence committee  Well, I spend a lot of time trying to keep up. I guess it comes down to having an entire industry around me that keeps me informed. We share information and we share knowledge. We have to be open to collaborating.

National Defence committee  There are a couple of things. One is securing the supply chain, which means, on one hand, adopting regulatory standards as they become available. We are concerned. Fifty per cent of the defence industrial base exports, half of those exports, go to the United States. If we want to