Invest Ottawa
chart of Ottawa-Gatineau "cyber security cluster." Click to enlarge
On February 26, Minister of Economic Development Mélanie
Joly
announced a $3.2 million investment in what is called the
Ottawa-Gatineau "cyber security
cluster."
Although Joly presented this investment
as part of a post-pandemic
"economic recovery" effort, the sector has been promoted since 2018. In
November 2018, Invest Ottawa, Ville de
Gatineau, ID Gatineau, and IN-Sec-M announced the official launch of a
joint strategy aimed at attracting "new cyber firms, investment, talent
and opportunity to Canada's Capital Region."
The strategy aims to "position Canada's Capital Region as a global
cyber security epicentre" and "help local innovators and firms further
capitalize on the global cyber market," which, it
points out, "is expected to grow from U.S.$152.71 billion in 2018 to
U.S.$248.26 billion by 2023."
IN-Sec-M, which will
receive $820,000, is an organization comprised
of some 90 cyber security companies that describes itself as "the
Canadian cluster of the cyber security industry."
The funds are said to be "to strengthen the competitiveness of business
in strategic sectors in Quebec around cyber security."
Founded
in 2017, IN-Sec-M claims to "bring together companies,
learning and research institutions, and government actors to take
concerted action to increase the cohesion and competitiveness of the
Canadian cyber security industry, nationally and internationally." As a
"digital centre of excellence" funded by the Government of Quebec,
IN-Sec-M aims to "promote cyber security industry and increase
innovation, commercialization and growth capabilities of businesses in
this field." It also supports innovative Canadian small and
medium-sized enterprises by providing cyber security consulting
services through the National Research Council of Canada's Industrial
Research Assistance Program.
One of IN-Sec-M's
partners is CyberQuébec, "the college
centre for technology transfer of cyber security" affiliated with the
Cégep de l'Outaouais since the summer of 2018, which
offers technical assistance and research services to companies
specialized in this field. The University of Quebec in the Outaouais is
also seeking to improve its training offerings in cyber security as
part of these overall aims.
Until now, it has been
claimed that the main raison d'être
of all this cyber security-connected infrastructure is to protect
companies from online piracy. But a statement by
Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon on the day of Joly's announcement
establishes a definite relation between this sector and the state
police and military apparatus. MacKinnon describes
Ottawa-Gatineau as an ideal region to develop the cyber security
"industry" because of the proximity of federal agencies such as the
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), CSIS, the
RCMP, Shared Services Canada, and the Department of National Defence.
As well, in a presentation on May 25, 2020, Minister of
Digital
Government Joyce Murray spoke of today's cyber security challenges. In
her remarks, she stated that the Treasury Board
of Canada Secretariat and Shared Services Canada would continue to work
with the CCCS to implement measures "to prevent, detect and respond to
potential threats to government
systems." The CCCS itself is a unit of the Communications Security
Establishment, which has just recently considered as
serious threat activities the targeting of COVID-19
vaccine development and "cyber threats to Canada's democratic process."
The minister went on to say that "to combat misinformation surrounding
COVID-19 as well as fraud," the CCCS
"coordinated with industry partners to help remove thousands of
fraudulent websites or email addresses used for malicious cyber
activity."
In 2019, a multimillion-dollar training
complex for the police and
military on the grounds of the Gatineau airport was announced. The
centre will be used for training of tactical squads and in helicopter
rescue and would include a fictional village. At a Gatineau city
council meeting in October 2019, two council members tabled a
resolution refusing the zoning change the project required on the
grounds, among other things, that the city's Planning Department found
the project to be unacceptable. The motion was defeated by a majority
vote in favour of the zoning change.
The plan to
make the "National Capital Region" a cyber security hub
reveals a suffocating intricate web of connections, where it is
difficult to see where government ends and
businesses begin, where businesses and governments end and educational
institutions begin, etc. Rather than being a boon or contributing to
"economic recovery," it is already casting a
shadow of government policing, spying and intrigue over the region. It
definitely needs to be discussed. In these times of pandemic and with
all the associated problems we are facing, there
are more pressing democratic needs and preoccupations than hunting for
threats to Canada's "democratic process."
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 4 - April 4, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/M510044.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
