44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 1, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I think we are happy to see the government finally tackle the issue of cybersecurity. I am not necessarily saying that it is too little, too late, but I can say that we have waited a long time. We applaud the idea of forcing Internet providers to adopt better practices, and to that we say kudos. We all agree on that.
However, why does the federal government always have to react rather than be proactive?
We have been talking about 5G and Huawei for years. Hydro-Québec has been fending off daily computer attacks for years. We have known for years that China has been gaining power and interfering more and more. In short, we have known for years that Canada is extremely vulnerable in terms of cybersecurity.
How is it that, in this postnational system, everything always happens reactively, not proactively?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague for his speech, which was a real voyage of discovery. One moment we were in Hollywood, and the next we were at Tim Hortons.
I will do him one better. I will take us on a journey across the Pacific all the way from China to the riding of Papineau. I worry about interference, as does our colleague, I am sure, because he supports a cybersecurity bill to reduce digital vulnerability.
Is my colleague concerned about the fact that, within the same time period, the federal Liberal association for the Prime Minister's riding of Papineau received donations from China and a Chinese bank got permission to set up shop in Canada?
I have a second question. Does the member believe in chance and coincidence?
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Mr. Speaker, that is twice now that my colleague has accused me of subscribing to conspiracy theories. With all due respect, I would ask that he withdraw his remarks.
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Madam Speaker, I will give my speech in French. I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Trois‑Rivières, who will no doubt be able to give a more relevant speech than me. I am pleased to share my time with him.
Ottawa is finally proposing a law to deal with the issue of cybersecurity. We are pleased to see that the government is finally addressing this issue. I will not say that it is too little, too late, but I will say that we waited a long time for this.
The purpose of the bill is to force Internet service providers to adopt better practices, something on which we all agree. We commend the government for that.
However, why is Ottawa always in reaction mode? We have been talking about the 5G network and Huawei for years. Hydro-Québec has been experiencing cyber-attacks on a daily basis for years. We have known for years about the rise of China, a country that is interfering more and more. In short, we have known for years that Canada is extremely vulnerable and that it is basically a sieve in terms of cybersecurity.
How can it be that, in this postnational system, everything happens reactively, not proactively? That is all I am going to say about that, because there is no changing the fundamentals of a country that is impervious to reform. Instead, we are going to get out. I just wanted to put that out there.
We support the bill in principle, but there are some grey areas that need clarification. That is what committees are for. The legislation is essentially a regulatory framework that, first and foremost, enables the government to make regulations to ensure the security of critical cyber systems. We have to look at the impact this bill could have on Quebec, especially Hydro‑Québec, because it lists interprovincial power line systems under vital services and vital systems. The committee will also have to look at whether the vast regulatory powers provided for in the bill are justified and ensure that they do not needlessly circumvent Parliament.
The threats that weigh on cybersecurity are likely to increase. They are the future, but they are also very much part of our present. In fact, a number of experts on the matter in Quebec talk to us about it. There is someone I really liked to watch when he was on television, although he stopped appearing when he became a deputy minister. I am talking about one of my constituents, Steve Waterhouse, who is always very interesting to listen to. His work helped raise our awareness and raise public awareness. He is from Sainte‑Madeleine, which is in the incredible riding of Saint‑Hyacinthe—Bagot.
Cyber-threats are already a part of our daily lives. Hydro-Québec is attacked every day by what are referred to as denial of service attacks. These are less sophisticated cyber-attacks and are the easiest ones to deal with, but they can cause major disruptions.
Look at Aluminerie Alouette, on the North Shore, which was the victim of a major cyber-attack that led to a serious outage. A Russian group claimed responsibility. Last summer, during the Rogers outage, which also had a serious impact on debit card transactions, a cyber-attack was the first thing that came to mind.
The objective of the bill is to mitigate the risks upstream. The legislation could certainly help Quebeckers, for example by imposing certain standards on Internet service providers, such as the obligation to avoid using products from suspect companies like Huawei.
In 2020, Parliament adopted a motion to force the government to make a decision about Huawei and Chinese interference in general. Recently, Ottawa finally blocked Huawei after years of dithering. What a waste of time. As Proust wrote, we are in search of lost time.
Madam Speaker, please tell my colleagues that they can let me know if I am disturbing them. I would not want to prevent them from having their conversations.
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Thank you, Madam Speaker. I see that they are no more interested in what you have to say than what I was saying, so I do not take it personally.
The 5G network is a new communications technology with bandwidth that is 10 to 100 times greater than that of current networks. The technology stands out for more than just its speed. It stands out for its extremely low latency, which is the time it takes for one computer to communicate with another and receive a response.
This opens the door to many possibilities in different areas, but to achieve performance, 5G uses a multitude of pathways. To simplify, let us say that something that is sent from Montreal to a computer in Paris could have a portion pass through New York, another through London, another through Barcelona, and so forth. This makes the technology particularly vulnerable because it becomes difficult to track the path that the data takes.
Huawei has already been implicated in the scandal involving China spying on the African Union headquarters. In 2012, China offered the African Union a fully equipped ultramodern building. Africa is known to be an extremely important location for Chinese investment. China supplied everything: networks, computers and telecommunications systems. After a few years of operation, in 2017, African computer scientists realized that the servers were sending out huge amounts of data at night, when nobody was working in the building. They discovered that the data was going to servers in China, which was spying on all staff and political leaders. Huawei was the main supplier of the network infrastructure. Microphones were also found in the walls and tables.
China passed a new national intelligence law in 2017. One thing is clearly set out in their law. All Chinese companies must absolutely participate in China's intelligence efforts. It is a form of economic and commercial patriotism, and we could also add digital. In other words, all the private players are being mobilized to say that they are going to participate in the construction of the great digital wall of China. This includes military intelligence and civilian intelligence. For instance, a company can be called upon to spy on behalf of another Chinese company in order to place China in an advantageous position on the world stage.
At this very moment, a genomics company called BGI, which works with genes, is still supplying medical equipment to Canadian hospitals. Its machines collect data, and only the company's technicians are authorized to carry out the monthly maintenance. They are the only ones with access. It turns out that this company has close ties to the Chinese military.
There is also Alibaba, a publicly traded Chinese company similar to Amazon that was founded by businessman Jack Ma. It derives its income from online activities, including a public market designed to facilitate transactions between businesses, payment and retail sales platforms, a shopping search engine and cloud computing services.
Another example is Tencent, a company founded in 1998 that specializes in Internet and mobility services and online advertising. Tencent's services include social networks, web portals, e-commerce and multiplayer online games. Tencent manages and operates well-known services, such as messaging services Tencent QQ and WeChat, and the qq.com web portal.
Today, China is the champion of data collection. This rising power requires new practices, new barriers and new ways of doing things. We should not think that the U.S. does not have their own giants that collect data, but just in China there are 800 million Internet users. That is more than the U.S. and India put together and one-quarter of all Internet users in the world. This number of users will give public and private Chinese actors, which have a close relationship, access to large sources of data that they can mine at will.
China has built a formidable digital system. There is a reason why it is constantly increasing its data storage. There is no doubt that the issue of cybersecurity is at the centre of the current international economic war that is engulfing an increasingly multipolar world. We need to acknowledge this. We need to act.
We support this bill because it is well-intentioned, but we have to find a way to put some meat on the bones.
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Madam Speaker, should that not just be one step? The answer is: of course it should.
I believe we said we are in favour. We are not even sure that this step will be enough, but it is a step in the right direction, and that is why we support it. It is great that there is going to be money for this, but now the real work starts.
I feel there are a lot of areas to consider. We will have to look at industrial espionage and economic espionage too. Regimes have all kinds of legal and digital techniques for acquiring competitors' data and trade secrets.
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Madam Speaker, Bill C‑26 does contain some good solutions and some interesting elements.
The only thing is, we will have to look at the details and see what is next. Are we giving the minister too much power? At the same time, we may have to think twice about giving more power to the minister at the expense of Parliament when we are not sure whether the minister will fulfill his commitments. There have been promises followed by waffling in the past. There are definitely things that need to be looked at, yes, but at least this bill is motivated by good intentions. For that alone, it deserves to be supported at this stage.
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Madam Speaker, as I said at the beginning, I was a bit critical. Unfortunately, in this country, in this Parliament and in this postnational system, it is clear that there is much hemming and hawing in far too many files.
Take a look at the general political culture of other countries like the United States. It did not take them long. Consider the example of Huawei; it took no time at all. They looked at it, concluded that it was preposterous and they put an end to it.
Why has it taken Canada years? This is still something to keep an eye on.
The European Union is also starting to take action. It is starting to move on this front by setting up institutes to monitor interference, the extraterritoriality of certain practices, and so on. There are certainly practices that should be monitored.
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