Canada’s Digital Wake-Up Call: Build It Here, Protect It Here

As global threats rise and the U.S. steps back, Canada must step up and ensure it has a strong, sustainable, and resilient digital foundation. 

This week, we joined digital security and human rights leaders from across the country at Parliament Hill in Ottawa for a press conference ahead of the inaugural Digital Resilience Forum.

Together with our friends and partners from MIGS (Montreal Institute for Global Security), eQualitie.org, Women on Web, and the SecDev Foundation, we delivered a clear and urgent message:

Canada has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead globally in building a resilient digital future — one that’s secure, transparent, open, and built for the public good.

📺 Watch the full press conference

• What is Digital Resilience?
• Why This Matters Now
• What Canada Can Do
• Why Open Source and Open Data Matter
• What If We Don’t Act?
• The World Needs More Canada — And It Starts With You

What is Digital Resilience?

Digital resilience is having the capacity, adaptability, and resilience to stay safe and connected when things don't go as planned or when they go wrong. In a context such as Ukraine for example. 

Concretely, digital resilience for Canada is all about:

• Protecting our data and systems from cyberattacks, outages, and foreign interference
• Making sure Canadians stay in control of their data, information and digital tools
• Building local, reliable infrastructure that we can trust — and that reflects our values

A resilient digital infrastructure doesn’t just react to threats. It’s built to withstand them, recover quickly, and keep serving the people who rely on it. 

In short: digital resilience = digital safety = Canada comes out more independent and stronger as a state.

Why This Matters Now

The digital landscape is shifting. And fast! The United States, once the informal moderator of the open internet, is pulling back. Funding cuts, weakened international engagement, and political polarization have created a dangerous vacuum in global leadership on digital rights, cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure.

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, and North Korea are ramping up their use of digital tools to spy, censor, disrupt, and destabilize. Their cyber strategies directly target democratic societies, threatening free expression, critical infrastructure, and public trust.

That is why it is more important than ever for Canada to speak out alongside its democratic allies and strengthen its digital foundations. Because Canada has: 

• 🍁 Credibility
• 🍁 Talent
• 🍁 Values

Now we need the political will and public pressure to turn this potential into concrete progress. In short, Canada must move from words to action.

What Canada Can Do

If Canada wants to be a global leader in digital resilience, it starts with:

1. Making local hosting of public data and infrastructure mandatory. Keeping critical systems and data storage under Canadian legal jurisdiction.
2. End tax loopholes that benefit foreign tech giants. Ensure a fair playing field for Canadian providers.
3. Invest in open-source technologies that respect privacy. Innovation doesn’t have to mean being dependant.
4. Work in partnership with Canadian businesses. Prioritize local suppliers in government procurement and digital services.

This isn’t about isolation — it’s about leadership. It’s about building strong, transparent, values-driven digital ecosystems that can stand up to global threats and stand out as a model for others.

Why Open Source and Open Data Matter

Digital resilience also involves creating tools and services that belong to citizens, not private providers. When governments invest public funds in technology solutions, they have two options:

• Develop open source platforms that are accessible to everyone and can be reused and improved by different services, cities, and communities. 🙂 
• Or invest in private software, whose source code is closed, which cannot be shared, consulted or adapted. 😕 

For example: Manitoba contracts a company to create an online application or platform for senior housing assistance.

• If the platform is open source, other provinces or cities can reuse it, saving taxpayers time and money.
• If the platform is closed, each province or city has to start from scratch, risking duplication of effort and budgets.

Public money should be used to build public infrastructure. Let's make sure that what we build in Canada can be reused, improved, and trusted by everyone.

What If We Don’t Act?

Digital resilience is now a national priority. Without action, Canada risks losing control over the systems we rely on every day. Here’s what that could look like:

1. Critical services go dark during a crisis

When war broke out in Ukraine, one of the first targets was digital infrastructure. Government websites, banks, and public services were hit with cyberattacks and taken offline. In Canada, many essential systems — from healthcare to emergency alerts — rely on foreign-owned platforms. If those platforms go down or get pulled due to geopolitical tensions, who restores them? And how fast?

2. Our public data becomes foreign property

Without strong data residency policies, sensitive government and citizen data — like health records or legal files — can end up stored in the U.S., where it’s subject to laws like the CLOUD Act. That means foreign authorities could legally access Canadians' data without our consent or knowledge. Now more than ever, we need to keep our data in Canada. 

3. Canada becomes digitally dependent

If we keep outsourcing our digital infrastructure, we’re not building our future — we’re renting it. Foreign tech giants can change terms, raise prices, or cut access with no accountability to Canadians. We risk becoming a digital colony, with no leverage, no control, and no backup plan.

The World Needs More Canada — And It Starts With You

This is our moment. While others retreat, Canada can rise. But for the government to take the lead, the public needs to apply pressure.

👉 Email your MP today and send them this article, asking them to take action:

“I truly believe Canada must become a leader in digital resilience. I'm calling for public data and critical digital infrastructure to be hosted and kept in Canada, by Canadian providers, and governed by Canadian laws and values.”

📍 Find your MP's email here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en

Canada’s digital future can be secure, independent, innovative and built for the public good.

Let’s make it happen. Let’s lead the way.