I had the privilege of being invited to the press conference where the Honorable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, announced the Canadian National Strategy and Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure. The Honorable Minister was joined representatives from across Canada in making this important announcement. It was cool that the event was held at the Ottawa Hydro operations center and I must admit that I watched one or two of the tens of screens as they displayed what was happening on the electrical grid in real time (sorry, flashing screens have always caught my attention). It was especially cool given that just yesterday I blogged about Energy and how this digitally enabled industry is an important part of the Digital Economy. You can see one or two of the screens (one with a weather map) behind Minister Toews in the clip from the CBC .
One thing that stood out in today’s announcement was the Federal, Provincial and Municipal coordination and cooperation that went into the strategy development. There was also clear evidence of coordination and cooperation with industry. This cooperation will be essential moving forward, especially since much of Canada’s Critical Infrastructure is operated by private sector organizations. This cooperation amongst a relative small community is where Canada has an advantage which can be leveraged in the Digital Economy.
We often overlook the sheer size of our country, our distributed population and our rich infrastructures. When we think a little bit about the long distances that our infrastructures must span, we quickly see how big the jobs could be to make sure that these infrastructures remain safe and available. It could almost seem an impossible task, unless we had great people safeguarding these vital assets and great people willing to share information, cooperate and to build out even more resiliency in Canada’s infrastructures. Because of this relatively small community, it’s often easier to connect with the right experts, reach decisions faster and as a result be more agile to pivot to pursue new directions if required. Our smaller community also fosters the establishment of relationships of trust between individual stakeholders, because in addition to the ever present policy and legal frameworks, CIP stakeholders interact on a person to person basis. Being able to work with the same people over a period of time builds the confidence often required in time of crisis.
I know you’re thinking that the addressable market for CIP expertise is probably pretty small and that there are only select customers that would be interested in these services. And I guess you’re probably right. If we were to think for a minute of the broader economic impact of a strong CIP program we can quickly find a strong compelling economic reason for ensuring a reliable and resilient infrastructure.
Consider for a moment our relatively “flat world”, where businesses and their employees can locate anywhere to contribute to the economy. If you were looking to move outside of Canada (not that you would, but humour me) what would you think about? Probably a nice place to live. Well what would Nice mean? A lovely region, a safe community, clean drinking water, electricity, Internet access, smooth flowing traffic (sorry Toronto 
) , easy access to health-care, and perhaps, as Richard Florida suggests, other creative people. Businesses do the same. They seek out locations with reliable access to green power sources, water, smart employees, transportation routes to ship their goods and strong financial systems to support their growth. Assurance in Canada’s Critical Infrastructures contributes to the spikiness that attracts business and individuals alike to our great country.
So while you may have breezed over today’s announcement as only applying to a small number of Canadians, I invite you to take another look and reconsider how important a reliable, trusted and resilient critical infrastructure is to Canada’s Digital Economy.
