Tag Archives: Anita Anand

The 2023 Canadian federal budget: science & technology of the military and cybersecurity and some closing comments (2 of 2)

So far in part 1, the budget continues its focus on life sciences especially biomanufacturing, climate (clean energy, clean (?) manufacturing, mining, space, the forest economy, agriculture, and water. The budget also mentioned funding for the research councils (it’s been a while since I’ve seen them in a budget document).

Now, it’s time to focus on the military and cybersecurity. As noted in part 1 (third paragraph of my introduction), the military is often the source for technology (e.g., television, the internet, modern anesthesiology) that transforms society.

Chapter 5: Canada’s Leadership in the World

Finally, for this blog posting, there’s Chapter 5, from https://www.budget.canada.ca/2023/report-rapport/toc-tdm-en.html,

Key Ongoing Actions

In the past year, the federal government has announced a series of investments that have enhanced Canada’s security and our leadership around the world. These include:

  • $38.6 billion over 20 years to invest in the defence of North America and the modernization of NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command; emphasis mine];
  • More than $5.4 billion in assistance for Ukraine, including critical financial, military, and humanitarian support;
  • More than $545 million in emergency food and nutrition assistance in 2022-23 to help address the global food security crisis and respond to urgent hunger and nutrition needs;
  • $2.3 billion over the next five years to launch Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy [emphasis mine], including the further global capitalization of FinDev Canada [also known as Development Finance Institute Canada {DFIC}], which will deepen Canada’s engagement with our partners, support economic growth and regional security, and strengthen our ties with people in the Indo-Pacific;
  • $350 million over three years in international biodiversity financing, in addition to Canada’s commitment to provide $5.3 billion in climate financing over five years, to support developing countries’ efforts to protect nature;
  • $875 million over five years, and $238 million ongoing, to enhance Canada’s cybersecurity capabilities [emphasis mine];
  • Delivering on a commitment to spend $1.4 billion each year on global health, of which $700 million will be dedicated to sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls; and,
  • Channeling almost 30 per cent of Canada’s newly allocated International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights to support low-income and vulnerable countries, surpassing the G7’s 20 per cent target.

Defence Policy Update

In response to a changed global security environment following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the federal government committed in Budget 2022 to a Defence Policy Update that would update Canada’s existing defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged.

This review, including public consultations, is ongoing, and is focused on the roles, responsibilities, and capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces. The Department of National Defence will return with a Defence Policy Update [emphasis mine] that will ensure the Canadian Armed Forces remain strong at home, secure in North America, and engaged around the world.

With this review ongoing, the Canadian Armed Forces have continued to protect Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic, support our NATO allies in Eastern Europe, and contribute to operations in the Indo-Pacific.

In the past year, the government has made significant, foundational investments in Canada’s national defence, which total more than $55 billion over 20 years. These include:

  • $38.6 billion over 20 years to strengthen the defence of North America, reinforce Canada’s support of our partnership with the United States under NORAD, and protect our sovereignty in the North [emphases mine];
  • $2.1 billion over seven years, starting in 2022-23, and $706.0 million ongoing for Canada’s contribution to increasing NATO’s [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] common budget [emphasis mine];
  • $1.4 billion over 14 years, starting in 2023-24, to acquire new critical weapons systems needed to protect the Canadian Armed Forces in case of high intensity conflict, including air defence, anti-tank, and anti-drone capabilities;
  • $605.8 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, with $2.6 million in remaining amortization, to replenish the Canadian Armed Forces’ stocks of ammunition and explosives, and to replace materiel donated to Ukraine;
  • $562.2 million over six years, starting in 2022-23, with $112.0 million in remaining amortization, and $69 million ongoing to improve the digital systems of the Canadian Armed Forces;
  • Up to $90.4 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, to further support initiatives to increase the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces; and,
  • $30.1 million over four years, starting in 2023-24, and $10.4 million ongoing to establish the new North American regional office in Halifax for NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic [emphasis mine].

In addition, the government is providing $1.4 billion to upgrade the facilities of Joint Task Force 2, Canada’s elite counterterrorism unit.

Establishing the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence in Montreal

Climate change has repercussions for people, economic security, public safety, and critical infrastructure around the world. It also poses a significant threat to global security, and in 2022, NATO’s new Strategic Concept recognized climate change for the first time as a major security challenge for the Alliance.

At the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, Montreal was announced as the host city for NATO’s new Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, which will bring together NATO allies to mitigate the impact of climate change on military activities and analyze new climate change-driven security challenges, such as the implications for Canada’s Arctic.

  • Budget 2023 proposes to provide $40.4 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, with $0.3 million in remaining amortization and $7 million ongoing, to Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence to establish the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence [emphasis mine].

Protecting Diaspora Communities and All Canadians From Foreign Interference, Threats, and Covert Activities

As an advanced economy and a free and diverse democracy, Canada’s strengths also make us a target for hostile states seeking to acquire information and technology [emphasis mine], intelligence, and influence to advance their own interests.

This can include foreign actors working to steal information from Canadian companies to benefit their domestic industries, hostile proxies intimidating diaspora communities in Canada because of their beliefs and values, or intelligence officers seeking to infiltrate Canada’s public and research institutions.

Authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, China, and Iran, believe they can act with impunity and meddle in the affairs of democracies—and democracies must act to defend ourselves. No one in Canada should ever be threatened by foreign actors, and Canadian businesses and Canada’s public institutions must be free of foreign interference.

  • Budget 2023 proposes to provide $48.9 million over three years on a cash basis, starting in 2023-24, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to protect Canadians from harassment and intimidation, increase its investigative capacity, and more proactively engage with communities at greater risk of being targeted. 
  • Budget 2023 proposes to provide $13.5 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, and $3.1 million ongoing to Public Safety Canada to establish a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office.

5.4 Combatting Financial Crime

Serious financial crimes, such as money laundering, terrorist financing, and the evasion of financial sanctions, threaten the safety of Canadians and the integrity of our financial system. Canada requires a comprehensive, responsive, and modern system to counter these sophisticated and rapidly evolving threats.

Canada must not be a financial haven for oligarchs or the kleptocratic apparatchiks of authoritarian, corrupt, or theocratic regimes—such as those of Russia, China, Iran, and Haiti. We will not allow our world-renowned financial system to be used to clandestinely and illegally move money to fund foreign interference inside Canada. [emphases mine]

Since 2019, the federal government has modernized Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing (AML/ATF) Regime to address risks posed by new technologies and sectors, and made investments to strengthen Canada’s financial intelligence, information sharing, and investigative capacity.

Canada’s AML/ATF Regime must continue to be strengthened in order to combat the complex and evolving threats our democracy faces, and to ensure that Canada is never a haven for illicit financial flows or ill-gotten gains.

In Budget 2023, the government is proposing further important measures to deter, detect, and prosecute financial crimes, protect financial institutions from foreign interference, and protect Canadians from the emerging risks associated with crypto-assets.

Combatting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Money laundering and terrorist financing can threaten the integrity of the Canadian economy, and put Canadians at risk by supporting terrorist activity, drug and human trafficking, and other criminal activities. Taking stronger action to tackle these threats is essential to protecting Canada’s economic security.

In June 2022, the Government of British Columbia released the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia [emphasis mine], also known as the Cullen Commission. This report highlighted major gaps in the current AML/ATF Regime, as well as areas for deepened federal-provincial collaboration [emphasis mine]. Between measures previously introduced and those proposed in Budget 2023, as well as through consultations that the government has committed to launching, the federal government will have responded to all of the recommendations within its jurisdiction in the Cullen Commission report.

In Budget 2023, the federal government is taking action to address gaps in Canada’s AML/ATF Regime, and strengthen cooperation between orders of government.

  • Budget 2023 announces the government’s intention to introduce legislative amendments to the Criminal Code and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA) to strengthen the investigative, enforcement, and information sharing tools of Canada’s AML/ATF Regime.

These legislative changes will:

  • Give law enforcement the ability to freeze and seize virtual assets with suspected links to crime;
  • Improve financial intelligence information sharing between law enforcement and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and law enforcement and the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC);
  • Introduce a new offence for structuring financial transactions to avoid FINTRAC reporting;
  • Strengthen the registration framework, including through criminal record checks, for currency dealers and other money services businesses to prevent their abuse;
  • Criminalize the operation of unregistered money services businesses;
  • Establish powers for FINTRAC to disseminate strategic analysis related to the financing of threats to the safety of Canada;
  • Provide whistleblowing protections for employees who report information to FINTRAC;
  • Broaden the use of non-compliance reports by FINTRAC in criminal investigations; and,
  • Set up obligations for the financial sector to report sanctions-related information to FINTRAC.

Strengthening Efforts Against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

In keeping with the requirements of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA), the federal government will launch a parliamentary review of this act this year.

This review will include a public consultation that will examine ways to improve Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (AML/ATF) Regime, as well as examine how different orders of government can collaborate more closely. This will include how governments can better use existing tools to seize the proceeds of crime, and the potential need for new measures, such as unexplained wealth orders. Other topics of consultation will include, but will not be limited to, measures to support investigations and prosecutions, enhance information sharing, close regulatory gaps, examine the role of the AML/ATF Regime in protecting national and economic security, as well as the remaining recommendations from the Cullen Commission [also known as, the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia].

  • Budget 2023 announces that the government will bring forward further legislative amendments, to be informed by these consultations, to give the government more tools to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

Canada is also leading the global fight against illicit financial flows, having been chosen to serve for two years, effective July 2023, as Vice President of the Financial Action Task Force (from which Russia has been suspended indefinitely), as well as co-Chair of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering for two years, [emphases mine] beginning in July 2022. 

Implementing a Publicly Accessible Federal Beneficial Ownership Registry

The use of anonymous Canadian shell companies can conceal the true ownership of property, businesses, and other valuable assets. When authorities don’t have the tools to determine their true ownership, these shell companies can become tools of those seeking to launder money, avoid taxes, evade sanctions, or interfere in our democracy.

To address this, the federal government committed in Budget 2022 to implementing a public, searchable beneficial ownership registry of federal corporations by the end of 2023.

This registry will cover corporations governed under the Canada Business Corporations Act, and will be scalable to allow access to the beneficial ownership data held by provinces and territories that agree to participate in a national registry.

While an initial round of amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act received Royal Assent in June 2022, further amendments are needed to implement a beneficial ownership registry.

The government is introducing further amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act and other laws, including the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Income Tax Act, to implement a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry through Bill C-42. This represents a major blow to money laundering operations and will be a powerful tool to strengthen the security and integrity of Canada’s economy.

The federal government will continue calling upon provincial and territorial governments to advance a national approach to beneficial ownership transparency to strengthen the fight against money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing.

Modernizing Financial Sector Oversight to Address Emerging Risks

Canadians must be confident that federally regulated financial institutions and their owners act with integrity, and that Canada’s financial institutions are protected, including from foreign interference.

  • Budget 2023 announces the government’s intention to amend the Bank Act, the Insurance Companies Act, the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act, and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA) to modernize the federal financial framework to address emerging risks to Canada’s financial sector [emphasis mine].

These legislative changes will:

  • Expand the mandate of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to include supervising federally regulated financial institutions (FRFIs) in order to determine whether they have adequate policies and procedures to protect themselves against threats to their integrity and security, including protection against foreign interference;
  • Expand the range of circumstances where OSFI can take control of an FRFI to include where the integrity and security of that FRFI is at risk, where all shareholders have been precluded from exercising their voting rights, or where there are national security risks;
  • Expand the existing authority for the Superintendent to issue a direction of compliance to include an act that threatens the integrity and security of an FRFI;
  • Provide new powers under the PCMLTFA to allow the Minister of Finance to impose enhanced due diligence requirements to protect Canada’s financial system from the financing of national security threats, and allow the Director of FINTRAC to share intelligence analysis with the Minister of Finance to help assess national security or financial integrity risks posed by financial entities;
  • Improve the sharing of compliance information between FINTRAC, OSFI, and the Minister of Finance; and,
  • Designate OSFI as a recipient of FINTRAC disclosures pertaining to threats to the security of Canada, where relevant to OSFI’s responsibilities.

The government will also review the mandate of FINTRAC to determine whether it should be expanded to counter sanctions evasion and will provide an update in the 2023 fall economic and fiscal update. In addition, the government will review whether FINTRAC’s mandate should evolve to include the financing of threats to Canada’s national and economic security as part of the parliamentary review.

These actions will continue the strong oversight of the financial sector that underpins a sound and stable Canadian economy.

Canada Financial Crimes Agency

To strengthen Canada’s ability to respond to complex cases of financial crime, Budget 2022 announced the government’s intent to establish a new Canada Financial Crimes Agency (CFCA), and provided $2 million to Public Safety Canada to undertake this work.

The CFCA will become Canada’s lead enforcement agency against financial crime. It will bring together expertise necessary to increase money laundering charges, prosecutions and convictions, and asset forfeiture results in Canada. These actions will address the key operational challenges identified in both domestic and international reviews of Canada’s AML/ATF Regime.

Public Safety Canada is developing options for the design of the CFCA, working in conjunction with federal, provincial and territorial partners and external experts, as well as engaging extensively with stakeholders. Further details on the structure and mandate of the CFCA will be provided by the 2023 fall economic and fiscal update.

Protecting Canadians from the Risks of Crypto-Assets

Ongoing turbulence in crypto-asset markets, and the recent high-profile failures of crypto trading platform FTX, and of Signature Bank, have demonstrated that crypto-assets can threaten the financial well-being of people, national security, and the stability and integrity of the global financial system.

To protect Canadians from the risks that come with crypto-assets, there is a clear need for different orders of government to take an active role in addressing consumer protection gaps and risks to our financial system.

The federal government is working closely with regulators and provincial and territorial partners to protect Canadians’ hard-earned savings and pensions, and Budget 2023 proposes new measures to protect Canadians.

  • To help protect Canadians’ savings and the security of our financial sector, Budget 2023 announces that the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) will consult federally regulated financial institutions on guidelines for publicly disclosing their exposure to crypto-assets.

Secure pension plans are the cornerstone of a dignified retirement. While pension plan administrators are required to prudently manage their investments, the unique nature and evolving risks of crypto-assets and related activities require continued monitoring.

  • To help protect Canadians’ retirements, Budget 2023 announces that the government will require federally regulated pension funds to disclose their crypto-asset exposures to OSFI. The government will also work with provinces and territories to discuss crypto-asset or related activities disclosures by Canada’s largest pension plans, which would ensure Canadians are aware of their pension plan’s potential exposure to crypto-assets.

The federal government launched targeted consultations on crypto-assets as part of the review on the digitalization of money announced in Budget 2022. Moving forward, the government will continue to work closely with partners to advance the review, will bring forward proposals to protect Canadians from the risks of crypto-asset markets, and will provide further details in the 2023 fall economic and fiscal update.

Leadership in the world?

Maybe they should have titled chapter 5, “Shoring up Canada’s position in the world.” Most of the initiatives in this section of the budget seem oriented to catching up with the rest of world than forging new paths.

NORAD, NATO, and sovereignty in the North

It’s about time we contributed in a serious way to the “defence of North America and the modernization of NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command].” The same goes for NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), where we have failed to contribute our fair share for decades. For the latest NATO/Canada dustup, you may want to read Murray Brewster’s April 7, 2023 article (NATO is getting ready to twist Canada’s arm on defence spending) for CBC news online,

In late March [2023?], NATO published an annual report that shows Canada’s defence spending amounted to just 1.29 per cent of GDP in fiscal 2022-2023.

It’s not much of a stretch to say Canada has no plan to meet that 2 per cent target. There wasn’t one when the previous Conservative government signed on to the notion at the 2014 NATO leaders summit (when the goal was for allies to reach 2 per cent by 2024).

The Liberal government’s 2017 defence policy tiptoed around the subject. Whenever they’ve been asked about it since, Trudeau and his ministers have bobbed and weaved and talked about what Canada delivers in terms of capability.

In an interview with the London bureau of CBC News this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was asked point-blank about Stoltenberg’s [NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg] assertion that allies would soon consider the two per cent benchmark the floor, not the ceiling.

She responded that Canada recognized the world changed with the war in Ukraine and that tensions in the Indo-Pacific [emphasis mine] mean “we need to make sure that we step up our game and that’s what we’ll do.”

“Step up our game” may be a relative term, because Joly went on to say that the government is engaged “in a very important defence policy review, which is required before announcing any further investments.”

That defence policy review was announced in the 2022 federal budget. A year later, shortly after presenting its latest fiscal plan, the government announced there would be public consultations on how best to defend Canada in a more uncertain world.

The best-case scenario, according to several experts, is the defence policy being delivered next year and the necessary investments being made at some indeterminate point in the future.

In fairness, the Liberals have committed to spending $19 billion on new fighter jets, starting in 2026. They have agreed to put $4.9 billion toward modernizing continental defence through NORAD.

The current Liberal government has followed a longstanding precedent of many Canadian governments (Liberal or Conservative) of inadequately funding national defence.

Getting back to NATO commitments, yes, let’s pull our weight. Further, I hope they follow through with protecting sovereignty in the North as there’s more than one jurisdiction interested in claiming to be an ‘Arctic” country of some kind, including Scotland (on behalf of the UK?). My November 20, 2020 posting features the Scottish claim. Interestingly, the closest Scottish land (Shetland Islands, which have a separatist movement of their own) is 400 miles south of the Arctic.

China too claims to be close to the Arctic despite being some 900 miles south at its closest point. Roslyn Layton’s August 31, 2022 article (Cold Front: The Arctic Emerges As A New Flashpoint Of Geopolitical Challenge) for Forbes magazine provides good insight into the situation, including this tidbit: ‘on August 26, 2022 the US appointed an Ambassador-At-Large for the Arctic’.

For a Canadian take on the challenges vis-à-vis China’s interest in the Arctic, there’s a January 12, 2021 posting on the University of Alberta’s China Institute website, “China in the Canadian Arctic: Context, Issues, and Considerations for 2021 and Beyond” by Evan Oddleifson, Tom Alton, and Scott N. Romaniuk. Note: A link has been removed,

Shandong Gold Mining Co., a Chinese state-owned enterprise, brokered a deal in May 2020 to acquire TMAC Resources, a Canadian gold mining company with operations in the Hope Bay region of Nunavut [emphasis mine]. At the time, observers voiced concern about the merits of the deal, speculating that Shandong Gold may be motivated by political/strategic interests rather than solely firm-level economic considerations.

I don’t see it mentioned in their posting, but the Shandong acquisition would be covered under the ‘Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the People’s Republic of China for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments‘ (also known as Foreign Investment Protection Agreement (FIPA) or Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (FIPPA). It was not a popular agreement in Canada when it was signed, from a September 12, 2014 opinion piece by Scott Harris for The Council of Canadians, Note: Links have been removed,

In the world of official government announcements, a two-paragraph media release sent out in the late afternoon on the Friday before Parliament resumes sitting is the best way for a government to admit, “We know this is really, really unpopular, but we’re doing it anyway.”

That’s the way the Harper government, by way of a release quoting Trade Minister Ed Fast, announced that it had decided to ignore widespread public opposition, parliamentary opposition from the NDP, Greens and even lukewarm Liberal criticism, an ongoing First Nations legal challenge, and even division at its own cabinet table and grassroots membership [emphases mine] and proceed with the ratification of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).

With China’s ratification of the deal long since signed, sealed, and delivered (and, really, when you can convince another government to sign a deal this lopsided in your favour, wouldn’t you ratify as quickly as possible too?) Canada’s ratification of the deal means it will enter into force on October 1 [2014]. …

The CBC published this sharply (unusual for them) worded September 19, 2014 article by Patrick Brown for CBC news online,

The secrecy shrouding the much-delayed Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with China makes it hard for experts, let alone average Canadians, to figure out what benefits this country will see from the deal.

While reporting on Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the first time, during his visit to China in early 2012, I wrote a column with the headline Great Glorious and Always Correct, which began: “If Stephen Harper ever gets tired of being Canada’s Prime Minister, he might like to consider a second career in China – he’d fit right in.” [Note: Our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, once indicated that he found some aspects of the Chinese Communist Government’s system appealing. November 8, 2013 (article) Trudeau under fire for expressing admiration for China’s ‘basic dictatorship’]

The government revealed the text of the FIPA agreement and signed [emphasis mine] it in Vladivostok not long after the Beijing trip, and gave a briefing to the parliamentary trade committee for one single hour in October 2012 [emphasis mine]. Then the cone of silence descended.

Then late Friday afternoon, the witching hour favoured by spinmeisters with stealthy announcements they hope everyone will forget by Monday, a press release revealed that the agreement with China, mysteriously unratified [emphasis mine] for almost two years, has been approved by cabinet. It goes into effect Oct. 1 [2014].

Critics of the agreement, such as Gus Van Harten, an Osgoode Hall law professor who has written two books on investment treaties, raise several key objections:

  • Canadian governments are locked in for a generation. If Canada finds the deal unsatisfactory, it cannot be cancelled completely for 31 years [emphasis mine].
  • China benefits much more than Canada, because of a clause allowing existing restrictions in each country to stay in place. Chinese companies get to play on a relatively level field in Canada, while maintaining wildly arbitrary practices and rules for Canadian companies in China.
  • Chinese companies will be able to seek redress against any laws passed by any level of government in Canada which threaten their profits.[emphasis mine] Australia has decided not to enter FIPA agreements specifically because they allow powerful corporations to challenge legislation on social, environmental and economic issues. Chinese companies investing heavily in Canadian energy will be able seek billions in compensation if their projects are hampered by provincial laws on issues such as environmental concerns or First Nations rights, for example [emphasis mine].
  • Cases will be decided by a panel of professional arbitrators, and may be kept secret at the discretion of the sued party [emphasis mine]. This extraordinary provision reflects an aversion to transparency and public debate common to the Harper cabinet and the Chinese politburo.
  • Differences between FIPA and the North American Free Trade Agreement may offer intriguing loopholes for American lawyers [emphasis mine] to argue for equal treatment under the principle of Most Favoured Nation.

It is a reciprocal agreement but it seems China might have more advantages than Canada does. So, we’ll be able to establish sovereignty in the North, eh? That should be interesting.

There doesn’t seem to be any mention of involving the indigenous peoples in the discussion around sovereignty and the North. Perhaps it’s in another chapter.

An updated defence policy, the Indo-Pacific region, and cybersecurity

Hopefully they will do a little more than simply update Canada’s defence policy as Paul T. Mitchell’s (Professor of Defence Studies, Canadian Forces College) September 23, 2021 essay (Canada’s exclusion from the AUKUS security pact reveals a failing national defence policy) for The Conversation suggests there are some serious shortcomings dating back at least 100 years, Note: Links have been removed,

The recently announced deal on nuclear submarines between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUKUS, likely seems irrelevant to many Canadians.

But AUKUS is about far more than submarines. And Canada’s exclusion from the pact represents growing suspicions about the Canadian commitment to the rules-based international order.

The problem stems from Canada’s tacit “grand strategy” [emphasis mine] underlying our defence policy.

A country’s grand strategy typically outlines geopolitical realities alongside a plan to achieve its diplomatic goals.

In 1924, Liberal politician Raoul Dandurand famously said “Canada is a fire-proof house, far removed from flammable materials,” putting into words Canada’s approach to defence since 1867 [emphasis mine]. Simply put, three oceans and a superpower sufficiently shield us from having to think about how to achieve national security.

Canadian defence policy has never varied from three priorities — defend Canada, defend North America and contribute to international peace and security — that have appeared in every Defence Department white paper since the 1950s, regardless of the governing party. This attitude was evident in the recent election campaign, when discussions about defence were largely absent, despite growing threats from abroad and the turmoil within our own military.

Since the heydays of defence spending of the 1950s, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have been gradually shedding fundamental capabilities — including long-range artillery, tanks, fighters that are now obsolete, submarine forces, destroyers and maritime logistics.

And while the CAF specifically faces new challenges in terms of diversity, its traditional approach to leadership has alienated thousands within the ranks, causing a rush to the exits, especially among the most experienced of personnel. The lack of support for modern equipment has also contributed to this problem.

We can continue to drag our heels, but eventually the bill will come due when our government commits our forces to a mission they can no longer fulfil because we thought we didn’t need to concern ourselves with the health of the military.

Just prior to the 2023 budget announcement, AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, and United States) moved forward on a security deal in the Indo-Pacific region. As far as I’m aware, the UK no longer has any exposure (colonies/territories) in the Indo-Pacific region while Canada, like the US, has one border (defined by the Pacific Ocean) on the region. Lee Berthiaume’s March 13, 2023 article for The Canadian Press can be found on both the CBC website and the CTV website,

Experts are warning that, as the U.S., Britain and Australia move ahead on an expanded military pact, Canada’s omission from that group suggests a larger problem with how this country is perceived by its friends. [emphasis mine]

U.S. President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian leader Anthony Albanese were at a naval base in San Diego on Monday [March 13, 2023] to confirm the next steps of the trilateral agreement, known as “AUKUS” after the three countries involved.

Those next steps include formalizing American and British plans to help Australia develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in response to growing concerns about China’s actions in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Trudeau government has downplayed [emphasis mine] the importance of AUKUS to Canada, saying Ottawa is not in the market for nuclear-powered submarines — even as others have lamented its absence from the pact.

One senior Canadian Armed Forces commander, Vice-Admiral Bob Auchterlonie, told The Canadian Press he worries about Canada not having access to the same cutting-edge technology [emphasis mine] as three of its closest allies.

Canada’s exclusion is seen by some as further evidence that its allies do not believe Ottawa is serious about pushing back against Chinese ambitions, despite the release of a new Indo-Pacific strategy late last year.

Canada’s strategy seeks to strike a balance between confronting and co-operating with China. It says Canada will challenge China “in areas of profound disagreement” while working together on areas of shared interest, such as climate change.

The U.S. is taking a very different approach. In a defence strategy released earlier this month, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described “an increasingly aggressive China” as a “generational challenge” and the American military’s top priority.

Numbers remain uncertain, but Australia reportedly is poised to spend billions of dollars as part of the deal to purchase new submarines. Britain and the U.S. are also expected to put money into the agreement for technology development [emphasis mine], training and other areas.

Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute noted the U.S., Britain and Australia are all spending two per cent or more of their national gross domestic product on defence, compared to less than 1.3 per cent in Canada. [emphases mine]

They also have solid plans to build new submarines, while Ottawa has yet to even commit to replacing the Royal Canadian Navy’s four trouble-plagued Victoria-class vessels, let alone start work on plans to build or buy a new fleet.

Canadian military commanders — including chief of the defence staff Gen. Wayne Eyre — have repeatedly underscored the need for submarines.

Swiss cheese cybersecurity with a special emphasis on our research

While our defence spending is considered problematic, I suspect our cybersecurity is also in question, as I’ve noted previously in a September 17, 2021 posting (Council of Canadian Academies (CCA): science policy internship and a new panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age), scroll down about 45% of the way to the ‘What is public safety?’ subhead; look for the Cameron Ortis story (hints: (1) he was the top ranking civilian RCMP staff member reporting directly to the commissioner; (2) he was tasked with overseeing cybersecurity issues; and (3) he was fluent in Mandarin). You’ll also find information about the first AUKUS announcement and a link to a documentary about the Cameron Ortis affair further down under the ‘Almost breaking news’ subhead.

The Cameron Ortis story is shocking enough but when you include both the issues around the Winnipeg level 4 virology lab (see the Karen Pauls/Kimberly Ivany July 8, 2021 article for CBC online news for a summary and an analysis) and the National Research Council of Canada’s serious security breach (see the Tom Spears/Jordan Press July 29, 2014 article “Suspected Chinese cyber attack forces NRC security overhaul” for the Ottawa Citizen; it seems unbelievable and yet—it is.

This February 15, 2022 article for CBC news online by Catharine Tunney announces a report on a series of security breaches,

Gaps in Ottawa’s cyber defences could leave the government agencies holding vast amounts of data on Canadians and businesses susceptible to state-sponsored hackers from countries like China and Russia, says a new report from Parliament’s security and intelligence committee.

Their report, tabled late Monday in the House of Commons, shows previous mistakes have allowed state-sponsored actors to infiltrate and steal government information over the past decade.

“Cyber threats to government systems and networks are a significant risk to national security and the continuity of government operations,” says the report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

Intellectual property, advanced research already stolen

A year-long attack by China while Stephen Harper was prime minister served as a “wake-up call” for the federal government, said the report.

Between August 2010 and August 2011, China targeted 31 departments and eight suffered “severe compromises,” the report said. [emphases mine]

“Information losses were considerable, including email communications of senior government officials, mass exfiltration of information from several departments, including briefing notes, strategy documents and secret information, and password and file system data,” said the report.

In 2014 [emphasis mine], a Chinese state-sponsored actor was able to compromise the National Research Council.

“The theft included intellectual property and advanced research and proprietary business information from NRC’s partners. China also leveraged its access to the NRC network to infiltrate a number of government organizations,” said the report. [emphases mine]

You can find the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Special Report on the Government of Canada’s Framework and Activities to Defend its Systems and Networks from Cyber Attack here. By the way, we have had a more recent ‘cyber incident’ at the National Research Council as reported in a March 21, 2022 article for CBC online news by Catharine Tunney.

Meanwhile, the 2022 budget (released April 7, 2022) made these announcements (from my April 19, 2022 posting; scroll down about 50% of the way to the ‘Securing Canada’s Research from Foreign Threats’ subhead),

To implement these guidelines fully, Budget 2022 proposes to provide $159.6 million, starting in 2022-23, and $33.4 million ongoing, as follows:

  • $125 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, and $25 million ongoing, for the Research Support Fund [emphasis mine] to build capacity within post- secondary institutions to identify, assess, and mitigate potential risks to research security; and
  • $34.6 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, and $8.4 million ongoing, to enhance Canada’s ability to protect our research, and to establish a Research Security Centre [emphasis mine] that will provide advice and guidance directly to research institutions.

The About page for the Research Support Fund on the SSHRC website (perhaps there’s another fund with the same name somewhere else?) doesn’t mention identifying, assessing, and/or mitigating risks to research security and I cannot find any mention of a Research Security Centre on the government of Canada website or from a Google search. The government doesn’t seem to be rushing to address these issues.

Cybersecurity for the rest of us

As a reminder, there’s this from Chapter 5,

Canada must not be a financial haven for oligarchs or the kleptocratic apparatchiks of authoritarian, corrupt, or theocratic regimes—such as those of Russia, China, Iran, and Haiti. We will not allow our world-renowned financial system to be used to clandestinely and illegally move money to fund foreign interference inside Canada. [emphases mine]

Money laundering and terrorist financing can threaten the integrity of the Canadian economy, and put Canadians at risk by supporting terrorist activity, drug and human trafficking, and other criminal activities. Taking stronger action to tackle these threats is essential to protecting Canada’s economic security.

In June 2022, the Government of British Columbia released the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia [emphasis mine], also known as the Cullen Commission. This report highlighted major gaps in the current AML/ATF Regime, as well as areas for deepened federal-provincial collaboration [emphasis mine]. Between measures previously introduced and those proposed in Budget 2023, as well as through consultations that the government has committed to launching, the federal government will have responded to all of the recommendations within its jurisdiction in the Cullen Commission report.

A March 29, 2023 article by Bob Mackin for The Breaker News comments on some of the government initiatives announced in the wake of the Cullen report about BC’s investigation into money laundering

In the wake of B.C. case collapse, Liberal government promises new regulation of money services businesses

The federal government has pledged to fill a gap in Canada’s anti-money laundering laws, less than a month after a special prosecutor’s report blamed it for the failure to bring a Richmond man to justice.

The Jin case had been one of the biggest organized crime investigations in B.C. history and was featured throughout the B.C. NDP government’s $19 million Cullen Commission public inquiry into money laundering. 

I want to emphasize that it’s not just the Chinese Communist Government that abuses our systems, there is other state-backed interference with various diaspora communities and other Canadian communities.

According to a February 14, 2023 article (The Canadian businessmen accused of helping Iran’s regime) for CBC news online by Ashley Burke and Nahayat Tizhoosh, it seems Iran has used Canada as a ‘safe haven’ for evading US sanctions and to conduct “… transactions on the Iranian regime’s behalf worth more than $750 million US.”

A February 15, 2023 followup article for CBC news online by Ashley Burke and Nahayat Tizhoosh reiterates the businessmen’s claims that the allegations are baseless and not proven in court. The article includes this,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government is working “very closely with American partners” and the Iranian diaspora in Canada to target people with ties to Iran’s regime.

Iranian-Canadians accuse the government of doing too little to ensure Canada isn’t a safe haven for the Iranian regime’s business transactions. [emphasis mine] Trudeau defended the government’s actions on Wednesday [February 15, 2023], citing the sanctions it has imposed since the fall on Iranian individuals and entities.

In October 2022 [emphasis mine], the government announced it would be spending $76 million to help enforce sanctions on Iran. Some of the money was earmarked for an additional 30 staff members at the RCMP. But the national police force confirmed it’s still working with the Department of Finance on receiving the funds. 

“The process is ongoing and its implementation is expected to start during next fiscal year [2024?],” wrote Robin Percival, a spokesperson for the RCMP.

If memory serves, the Iranian (Persian) diaspora communities like the Chinese communities in Canada have also warned of being targeted by overseas agents.

Coincidentally or not, the Council of Canadian Academies; Expert Panel on Public Safety in the Digital Age released its report, Vulnerable Connections on March 30, 2023. The expert panel was asked to answer these questions, from p. 17 (xvii) of the report,

How have activities relating to serious criminal activity (including organized crime and child sexual exploitation) and online harms (including disinformation, violent extremist and terrorist use of the internet) in Canada changed to exploit the evolving information and communications technologies (ICTs) landscape?

The headline for the CCA’s Vulnerable Connections March 30, 2023 news release highlights what the 2023 federal budget is tacitly confirming, “Advances in digital technology [are] outpacing efforts to address online harms: expert panel report” [emphasis mine].

As you can see from the budget, state-backed efforts extend from the financial sector to attempts to affect elections, intimidate various communities, and more. Let’s not forget the ‘average’ consumer; criminal enterprises are also active. So, the federal government is playing ‘catch up’ with a complex set of issues.

My final comments

As I noted, no splashy announcements but there are some interesting developments, especially with regard to military spending and a focus on cyber issues, and with the announcement of a Canada Water Agency. It all comes back to science and technology.

Always a little disappointment

There are a number of commentaries but I’m most interested in the ‘science and research’ aspect of the budget for which I found two.

First, Universities Canada issued a March 28, 2023 media release that states a position in its headline “Budget 2023 a missed opportunity to keep Canada competitive in science and research,”

“Canada’s universities are disappointed in Budget 2023’s lack of any significant support for Canadian research,” says Paul Davidson, President of Universities Canada. “With no new funding that matches the ambition of our peers, today’s budget is without the investments across Canada’s research ecosystem which are urgently needed to keep Canada competitive and ensure inclusive and sustainable growth.” 

Second, a March 28, 2023 Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences briefing note holds forth in a similar fashion,

Without a plan to attract and support our next generation of researchers, Budget 2023 is a missed opportunity for Canada. Despite a call for action from students, researchers, and our post-secondary sector, the Budget lacks urgently-needed investments in Canada’s graduate students and early-career researchers.

Over the past two decades, Canada’s graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have faced rising living costs and stagnating funding levels. Dedicated support is needed to reverse the declining value of this funding, and to ensure it remains competitive and keeps pace with rising inflation. Investment in Canada’s research talent and skilled workforce will bolster our capacity to solve our most important challenges here in Canada and internationally.

Disappointment is inevitable with any budget. The writers have a point but where will the money come from? We’re having to spend money on our military after ignoring it for decades. As well, we have security issues that are urgent not to mention the oncoming climate crisis, which faces everyone research scientists and graduate students included.

Will our money be well spent?

I don’t think I’ve ever addressed that question in any of my budget commentaries over the years.

The emphasis on the climate is encouraging as is the potential Canada Water Agency. and finally addressing some of our obligations to our military is a relief. (I have a friend who’s been in the regular Army and in the reserves and he’s been muttering about a lack of and outdated equipment for years.) Assuming the government follows through, it’s about time.

As for obligations to NATO and NORAD, our partners have rightly been applying pressure. It’s good to see money going to NORAD and perhaps the promised Defence Policy update will include policy that supports greater contributions to NATO and, since we’ve been left out of AUKUS, perhaps some fleshing out of the federal government’s new found interest in the Indo-Pacific Region. (This represents a seismic shift from the federal government’s almost exclusively eurocentric focus when looking beyond the border with our southern neighbour, the US.)

The greatest focus for election interference and influence on immigrant diaspora communities has been on the Chinese Communist Government (CCG) but there are others. The Trudeau government’s response has not been especially reassuring even with these budget promises. The best summary of the current situation regarding CCG interference that I’ve seen is an April 13, 2023 article by Frederick Kelter for Al Jazeera.

We definitely could do with a boost in our cybersecurity. The latest incident may have involved Russian hackers according to an April 13, 2023 article for CBC news online by Catharine Tunney, Note: A link has been removed,

One of Canada’s intelligence agencies says a cyber threat actor “had the potential to cause physical damage” to a piece of critical infrastructure recently, a stark warning from the Communications Security Establishment [CSE] amid a string of hits linked to pro-Russian hackers.

“I can report there was no physical damage to any Canadian energy infrastructure. But make no mistake — the threat is real,” said Sami Khoury, head of the CSE’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security during briefing with reporters Thursday.

Earlier this week, leaked U.S. intelligence documents suggested Russian-backed hackers successfully gained access to Canada’s natural gas distribution network.

Defence Minsiter Anita Anand said Canada has seen a “notable rise in cyber threat activity by Russian-aligned” [sic] and issued a cyber flash on April 12 to let critical Canadian sectors know about an ongoing campaign.

Earlier Thursday [April 13, 2023], a pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Hydro Quebec, the province’s state-owned electricity provider.

The same group took credit for knocking the Prime Minister Office website offline [emphasis mine] earlier this week in a distributed denial-of-service attack as Canada played host to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

Denial-of-service attacks flood the target website with traffic, triggering a crash. Earlier this week CSE said these types of attacks have very little impact on the affected systems.

Khoury said that state-sponsored cyber threat actors like to target critical infrastructure “to collect information through espionage, pre-position in case of future hostilities, and as a form of power projection and intimidation.”

My answer (will our money be well spent?) is yes, assuming at least some of it goes to the projects mentioned.

Shifting winds

The world seems an unfriendlier place these days, which is what I see reflected in this budget. Multiple references to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a major focus on Canada’s financial system being used to support various state-sponsored hostile actions suggest the Canadian government is beginning to recognize a need to respond appropriately and, I hope, in a more time sensitive fashion than is usual for a government that is known for ‘dragging its feet’.

There’s a quite interesting April 19, 2023 article by Alexander Panetta for CBC news online, which highlights some of the tensions, Note: A link has been removed,

A massive leak of U.S. national security documents has now spilled over into Canada.

The Washington Post says it has seen a Pentagon document criticizing Canada’s military readiness among materials allegedly posted online by a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman arrested last week.

The purported document, which CBC has not seen, makes two broad claims, according to the Post.

First, it says that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told NATO officials privately that Canada will never reach the military spending target agreed to by members of the alliance.

Second, the document claims wide-ranging deficiencies in Canada’s military capabilities are a source of tension with allies and defence partners.

That US security leak is a good reminder that everyone has problems with security and (not mentioned in Panetta’s article) that the US spies on its ‘friends’. BTW, Canada does the same thing. Everyone spies on everyone.

The past and the future and the now

Strikingly, the 2023 budget went back in time to revisit the ‘staples theory’ when mining, agriculture, and forestry were Canadian economic mainstays.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a reference in a budget to a perennial R&D (research and development) problem, Canadian companies do not invest in research. We score low on investment in industrial research when compared to other countries. In fact, a 2018 report from the Council of Canadian Academies, “Competing in a Global Innovation Economy: The Current State of R&D in Canada; The Expert Panel on the State of Science and Technology and Industrial Research and Development in Canada” executive summary states this,

… The number of researchers per capita in Canada is on a par with that of other developed countries, and increased modestly between 2004 and 2012. Canada’s output of PhD graduates has also grown in recent years, though it remains low in per capita terms relative to many OECD countries.

In contrast, the number of R&D personnel employed in Canadian businesses dropped by 20% between 2008 and 2013. This is likely related to sustained and ongoing decline in business R&D investment across the country. R&D as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has steadily declined in Canada since 2001, and now stands well below the OECD average (Figure 1). As one of few OECD countries with virtually no growth in total national R&D expenditures between 2006 and 2015, Canada would now need to more than double expenditures to achieve an R&D intensity comparable to that of leading countries. [p. xviii on paper or p. 20 PDF]

Our problems in this area will not be solved quickly. Nor will our defence issues; it’s about time we started paying our way with NORAD and NATO and elsewhere. By the way, I wasn’t expecting to find a “new North American regional office in Halifax for NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic” (innovation, in this case, being code for technology). This hearkens back to the military being a resource for scientific and technological advances, which affect us all.

More generally, it’s good to see some emphasis on the climate and on water and food security.

There was one odd note regarding the 2023 budget according to an April 18, 2023 CBC news online article by Janyce McGregor (confession: I missed it),

King Charles, Canada’s head of state, will no longer include the phrase “Defender of the Faith” in his official royal title in Canada.

The new language was revealed late Monday [April 17, 2023] when the Liberal government published its notice of the Ways and Means Motion for this spring’s budget implementation bill — the legislation that actually brings into force the measures Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced on March 28.

The new title will read: “Charles the Third, by the Grace of God King of Canada and His other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth.”

In addition to dropping the religious role, the revised title also deletes a reference to Charles as King of the United Kingdom — an update consistent with Canada’s status as an independent country among the 14 other countries that share the same monarch.

Getting back to the budget, I’m mildly optimistic.

Science and technology, the 2019 Canadian federal government, and the Phoenix Pay System

This posting will focus on science, technology, the tragic consequence of bureaucratic and political bungling (the technology disaster that is is the Phoenix payroll system), and the puzzling lack of concern about some of the biggest upcoming technological and scientific changes in government and society in decades or more.

Setting the scene

After getting enough Liberal party members elected to the Canadian Parliament’s House of Commons to form a minority government in October 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a new cabinet and some changes to the ‘science’ portfolios in November 2019. You can read more about the overall cabinet announcement in this November 20, 2019 news item by Peter Zimonjic on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) website, my focus will be the science and technology. (Note: For those who don’t know, there is already much discussion about how long this Liberal minority government will last. All i takes is a ‘loss of confidence’ motion and a majority of the official opposition and other parties to vote ‘no confidence’ and Canada will back into the throes of an election. Mitigating against a speedy new federal election,, the Conservative party [official opposition] needs to choose a new leader and the other parties may not have the financial resources for another federal election so soon after the last one.)

Getting back to now and the most recent Cabinet announcements, it seems this time around, there’s significantly less interest in science. Concerns about this were noted in a November 22, 2019 article by Ivan Semeniuk for the Globe and Mail,

Canadian researchers are raising concerns that the loss of a dedicated science minister signals a reduced voice for their agenda around the federal cabinet table.

“People are wondering if the government thinks its science agenda is done,” said Marie Franquin, a doctoral student in neuroscience and co-president of Science and Policy Exchange, a student-led research-advocacy group. “There’s still a lot of work to do.”

While not a powerful player within cabinet, Ms. Duncan [Kirsty Duncan] proved to be an ardent booster of Canada’s research community and engaged with its issues, including the muzzling of federal scientists by the former Harper government and the need to improve gender equity in the research ecosystem.

Among Ms. Duncan’s accomplishments was the appointment of a federal chief science adviser [sic] and the commissioning of a landmark review of Ottawa’s support for fundamental research, chaired by former University of Toronto president David Naylor

… He [Andre Albinati, managing principal with Earnscliffe Strategy Group] added the role of science in government is now further bolstered by chief science adviser [sic] Mona Nemer and a growing network of departmental science advisers [sic]. .

Mehrdad Hariri, president of the Canadian Science Policy Centre …, cautioned that the chief science adviser’s [sic] role was best described as “science for policy,” meaning the use of science advice in decision-making. He added that the government still needed a separate role like that filled by Ms. Duncan … to champion “policy for science,” meaning decisions that optimize Canada’s research enterprise.

There’s one other commentary (by CresoSá) but I’m saving it for later.

The science minister disappears

There is no longer a separate position for Science. Kirsty Duncan was moved from her ‘junior’ position as Minister of Science (and Sport) to Deputy Leader of the government. Duncan’s science portfolio has been moved over to Navdeep Bains whose portfolio evolved from Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (yes, there were two ‘ministers of science’) to Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. (It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Sadly, nobody from the Prime Minister’s team called to ask for my input on the matter.)

Science (and technology) have to be found elsewhere

There’s the Natural Resources (i.e., energy, minerals and metals, forests, earth sciences, mapping, etc.) portfolio which was led by Catherine McKenna who’s been moved over to Infrastructure and Communities. There have been mumblings that she was considered ‘too combative’ in her efforts. Her replacement in Natural Resources is Seamus O’Regan. No word yet on whether or not, he might also be ‘too combative’. Of course, it’s much easier if you’re female to gain that label. (You can read about the spray-painted slurs found on the windows of McKenna’s campaign offices after she was successfully re-elected. See: Mike Blanchfield’s October 24, 2019 article for Huffington Post and Brigitte Pellerin’s October 31, 2019 article for the Ottawa Citizen.)

There are other portfolios which can also be said to include science such as Environment and Climate Change which welcomes a new minister, Jonathan Wilkinson moving over from his previous science portfolio, Fisheries, Oceans, and Canadian Coast Guard where Bernadette Jordan has moved into place. Patti Hajdu takes over at Heath Canada (which despite all of the talk about science muzzles being lifted still has its muzzle in place). While it’s not typically considered a ‘science’ portfolio in Canada, the military establishment regardless of country has long been considered a source of science innovation; Harjit Sajjan has retained his Minister of National Defence portfolio.

Plus there are at least half a dozen other portfolios that can be described as having significant science and/or technology elements folded into their portfolios, e.g., Transport Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Safety and Emergency Preparedness, etc.

As I tend to focus on emerging science and technology, most of these portfolios are not ones I follow even on an irregular basis meaning I have nothing more to add about them in this posting. Mixing science and technology together in this posting is a reflection of how tightly the two are linked together. For example, university research into artificial intelligence is taking place on theoretical levels (science) and as applied in business and government (technology). Apologies to the mathematicians but this explanation is already complicated and I don’t think I can do justice to their importance.

Moving onto technology with a strong science link, this next portfolio received even less attention than the ‘science’ portfolios and I believe that’s undeserved.

The Minister of Digital Government and a bureaucratic débacle

These days people tend to take the digital nature of daily life for granted and that may be why this portfolio has escaped much notice. When the ministerial posting was first introduced, it was an addition to Scott Brison’s responsibilities as head of the Treasury Board. It continued to be linked to the Treasury Board when Joyce Murray* inherited Brison’s position, after his departure from politics. As of the latest announcement in November 2019, Digital Government and the Treasury Board are no longer tended to by the same cabinet member.

The new head of the Treasury Board is Jean-Yves Duclos while Joyce Murray has held on to the Minister of Digital Government designation. I’m not sure if the separation from the Treasury Board is indicative of the esteem the Prime Minister has for digital government or if this has been done to appease someone or some group, which means the digital government portfolio could well disappear in the future just as the ‘junior’ science portfolio did.

Regardless, here’s some evidence as to why I think ‘digital government’ is unfairly overlooked, from the minister’s December 13, 2019 Mandate Letter from the Prime Minister (Note: All of the emphases are mine],

I will expect you to work with your colleagues and through established legislative, regulatory and Cabinet processes to deliver on your top priorities. In particular, you will:

  • Lead work across government to transition to a more digital government in order to improve citizen service.
  • Oversee the Chief Information Officer and the Canadian Digital Service as they work with departments to develop solutions that will benefit Canadians and enhance the capacity to use modern tools and methodologies across Government.
  • Lead work to analyze and improve the delivery of information technology (IT) within government. This work will include identifying all core and at-risk IT systems and platforms. You will lead the renewal of SSC [Shared Services Canada which provides ‘modern, secure and reliable IT services so federal organizations can deliver digital programs and services to meet Canadians’ needs’] so that it is properly resourced and aligned to deliver common IT infrastructure that is reliable and secure.
  • Lead work to create a centre of expertise that brings together the necessary skills to effectively implement major transformation projects across government, including technical, procurement and legal expertise.
  • Support the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry in continuing work on the ethical use of data and digital tools like artificial intelligence for better government.
  • With the support of the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, accelerate progress on a new Government of Canada service strategy that aims to create a single online window for all government services with new performance standards.
  • Support the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development in expanding and improving the services provided by Service Canada.
  • Support the Minister of National Revenue on additional steps required to meaningfully improve the satisfaction of Canadians with the quality, timeliness and accuracy of services they receive from the Canada Revenue Agency.
  • Support the Minister of Public Services and Procurement in eliminating the backlog of outstanding pay issues for public servants as a result of the Phoenix Pay System.
  • Lead work on the Next Generation Human Resources and Pay System to replace the Phoenix Pay System and support the President of the Treasury Board as he actively engages Canada’s major public sector unions.
  • Support the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of National Revenue to implement a voluntary, real-time e-payroll system with an initial focus on small businesses.
  • Fully implement lessons learned from previous information technology project challenges and failures [e,g, the Phoenix Payroll System], particularly around sunk costs and major multi-year contracts. Act transparently by sharing identified successes and difficulties within government, with the aim of constantly improving the delivery of projects large and small.
  • Encourage the use and development of open source products and open data, allowing for experimentation within existing policy directives and building an inventory of validated and secure applications that can be used by government to share knowledge and expertise to support innovation.

To be clear, the Minister of Digital Government is responsible (more or less) for helping to clean up a débacle, i.e., the implementation of the federal government’s Phoenix Payroll System and drive even more digitization and modernization of government data and processes.

They’ve been trying to fix the Phoenix problems since the day it was implemented in early 2016.That’s right, it will be four years in Spring 2020 when the Liberal government chose to implement a digital payroll system that had been largely untested and despite its supplier’s concerns.

The Phoenix Pay System and a great sadness

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (the largest union for federal employees; PSAC) has a separate space for Phoneix on its website, which features this video,

That video was posted on September 24, 2018 (on YouTube) and, to my knowledge, the situation has not changed appreciably. A November 8, 2019 article by Tom Spears for the Ottawa Citizen details a very personal story about what can only be described as a failure on just about every level you can imagine,

Linda Deschâtelets’s death by suicide might have been prevented if the flawed Phoenix pay system hadn’t led her to emotional and financial ruin, a Quebec coroner has found.

Deschâtelets died in December of 2017, at age 52. At the time she was struggling with chronic pain and massive mortgage payments.

The fear of losing her home weighed heavily on her. In her final text message to one of her sons she said she had run out of energy and wanted to die before she lost her house in Val des Monts.

But Deschâtelets might have lived, says a report from coroner Pascale Boulay, if her employer, the Canada Revenue Agency, had shown a little empathy.

“During the final months before her death, she experienced serious financial troubles linked to the federal government’s pay system, Phoenix, which cut off her pay in a significant way, making her fear she would lose her house,” said Boulay’s report.

“A thorough analysis of this case strongly suggests that this death could have been avoided if a search for a solution to the current financial, psychological and medical situation had been made.”

Boulay found “there is no indication that management sought to meet Ms. Deschâtelets to offer her options. In addition, the lack of prompt follow-up in the processing of requests for information indicates a distressing lack of empathy for an employee who is experiencing real financial insecurity.”

Pay records “indeed show that she was living through serious financial problems and that she received irregular payments since the beginning of October 2017,” the coroner wrote.

As well, “her numerous online applications using the form for a compensation problem, in which she expresses her fear of not being able to make her mortgage payments and says that she wants a detailed statement of account, remain unanswered.”

On top of that, she had chronic back pain and sciatica and had been missing work. She was scheduled to get an ergonomically designed work area, but this change was never made even though she waited for months.

Money troubles kept getting worse.

She ran out of paid sick leave, and her department sent her an email to explain that she had automatically been docked pay for taking sick days. “In this same email, she was also advised that in the event that she missed additional days, other amounts would be deducted. No further follow-up with her was done,” the coroner wrote.

That email came eight days before her death.

Deschâtelets was also taking cocaine but this did not alter the fact that she genuinely risked losing her home over her financial problems, the coroner wrote.

“Given the circumstances, it is highly likely that Ms. Deschâtelets felt trapped” and ended her life “because of her belief that she would lose the house anyway. It was only a matter of time.”

The situation is “even more sad” because CRA had advisers on site who dealt with Phoenix issues, and could meet with employees, Boulay wrote.

“The federal government does a lot of promotion of workplace wellness. Surprisingly, these wellness measures are silent on the subject of financial insecurity at work,” Boulay wrote.

I feel sad for the family and indignant that there doesn’t seem to have been enough done to mitigate the hardships due to an astoundingly ill-advised decision to implement an untested payroll system for the federal government’s 280,000 or more civil servants.

Canada’s Senate reports back on Phoenix

I’m highlighting the Senate report here although there are also two reports from the Auditor General should you care to chase them down. From an August 1, 2018 article by Brian Jackson for IT World Canada,

In February 2016, in anticipation of the start of the Phoenix system rolling out, the government laid off 2,700 payroll clerks serving 120,000 employees. [I’m guessing the discrepancy in numbers of employees may be due to how the clerks were laid off, i.e., if they were load off in groups scheduled to be made redundant at different intervals.]

As soon as Phoenix was launched, problems began. By May 2018 there were 60,000 pay requests backlogged. Now the government has dedicated resources to explaining to affected employees the best way to avoid pay-related problems, and to file grievances related to the system.

“The causes of the failure are multiple, including, failing to manage the pay system in an integrated fashion with human resources processes, not conducting a pilot project, removing essential processing functions to stay on budget, laying off experienced compensation advisors, and implementing a pay system that wasn’t ready,” the Senate report states. “We are dismayed that this project proceeded with minimal independent oversight, including from central agencies, and that no one has accepted responsibility for the failure of Phoenix or has been held to account. We believe that there is an underlying cultural problem that needs to be addressed. The government needs to move away from a culture that plays down bad news and avoids responsibility, [emphasis mine] to one that encourages employee engagement, feedback and collaboration.”

There is at least one estimate that the Phoenix failure will cost $2.2 billion but I’m reasonably certain that figure does not include the costs of suicide, substance abuse, counseling, marriage breakdown, etc. (Of course, how do you really estimate the cost of a suicide or a marriage breakdown or the impact that financial woes have on children?)

Also concerning the Senate report, there is a July 31, 2018 news item on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) news online,

“We are not confident that this problem has been solved, that the lessons have all been learned,” said Sen. André Pratte, deputy chair of the committee. [emphases mine]

I haven’t seen much coverage about the Phoenix Pay System recently in the mainstream media but according to a December 4, 2019 PSAC update,

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said the Phoenix situation could continue until 2023, yet government funding commitments so far have fallen significantly short of what is needed to end the Phoenix nightmare. 

PSAC will continue pressing for enough funding and urgent action:

  • eliminate the over 200,000 cases in the pay issues backlog
  • compensate workers for their many hardships
  • stabilize Phoenix
  • properly develop, test and launch a new pay system

2023 would mean the débacle had a seven year lifespan, assuming everything has been made better by then.

Finally, there seems to be one other minister tasked with the Phoenix Pay System ‘fix’ (December 13, 2019 mandate letter) and that is the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Anita Anand. She is apparently a rookie MP (member of Parliament), which would make her a ‘cabinet rookie’ as well. Interesting choice.

More digital for federal workers and the Canadian public

Despite all that has gone before, the government is continuing in its drive to digitize itself as can be seen in the Minister of Digital Government’s mandate letter (excerpted above in ‘The Minister of Digital Government and some …’ subsection) and on the government’s Digital Government webspace,

Our digital shift to becoming more agile, open, and user-focused. We’re working on tomorrow’s Canada today.

I don’t find that particularly reassuring in light of the Phoenix Payroll System situation. However, on the plus side, Canada has a Digital Charter with 10 principles which include universal access, safety and security, control and consent, etc. Oddly, it looks like it’s the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry who are tasked with enhancing and advancing the charter. Shouldn’t this group also include the Minister of Digital Government?

The Minister of Digital Government, Joyce Murray, does not oversee a ministry and I think that makes this a ‘junior’ position in much the same way the Minister of Science was a junior position. It suggests a mindset where some of the biggest changes to come for both employees and the Canadian public are being overseen by someone without the resources to do the work effectively or the bureaucratic weight and importance to ensure the changes are done properly.

It’s all very well to have a section on the Responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) on your Digital Government webspace but there is no mention of ways and means to fix problems. For example, what happens to people who somehow run into an issue that the AI system can’t fix or even respond to because the algorithm wasn’t designed that way. Ever gotten caught in an automated telephone system? Or perhaps more saliently, what about the people who died in two different airplane accidents due to the pilots’ poor training and an AI system? (For a more informed view of the Boeing 737 Max, AI, and two fatal plane crashes see: a June 2, 2019 article by Rachel Kraus for Mashable.)

The only other minister whose mandate letter includes AI is the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Navdeep Bains (from his December 13, 2019 mandate letter),

  • With the support of the Minister of Digital Government, continue work on the ethical use of data and digital tools like artificial intelligence for better government.

So, the Minister of Digital Government, Joyce Murray, is supporting the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Navdeep Bains. That would suggest a ‘junior’ position wouldn’t it? If you look closely at the Minister of Digital Services’ mandate letter, you’ll see the Minister is almost always supporting another minister.

Where the Phoenix Pay System is concerned, the Minister of Digital Services is supporting the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, the previously mentioned rookie MP and rookie Cabinet member, Anita Anand. Interestingly, the employees’ union, PSAC, has decided (as of a November 20, 2019 news release) to ramp up its ad campaign regarding the Phoenix Pay System and its bargaining issues by targeting the Prime Minister and the new President of the Treasury Board, Jean-Yves Duclos. Guess whose mandate letter makes no mention of Phoenix (December 13, 2019 mandate letter for the President of the Treasury Board).

Open government, eh?

Putting a gift bow on a pile of manure doesn’t turn it into a gift (for most people, anyway) and calling your government open and/or transparent doesn’t necessarily make it so even when you amend your Access to Information Act to make it more accessible (August 22, 2019 Digital Government news release by Ruth Naylor).

One of the Liberal government’s most heavily publicized ‘open’ initiatives was the lifting of the muzzles put on federal scientists in the Environment and Natural Resources ministries. Those muzzles were put into place by a Conservative government and the 2015 Liberal government gained a lot of political capital from its actions. No one seemed to remember that Health Canada also had been muzzled. That muzzle had been put into place by one of the Liberal governments preceding the Conservative one. To date there is no word as to whether or not that muzzle has ever been lifted.

However, even in the ministries where the muzzles were lifted, it seems scientists didn’t feel free to speak even many months later (from a Feb 21, 2018 article by Brian Owens for Science),

More than half of government scientists in Canada—53%—do not feel they can speak freely to the media about their work, even after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government eased restrictions on what they can say publicly, according to a survey released today by a union that represents more than 16,000 federal scientists.

That union—the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) based in Ottawa—conducted the survey last summer, a little more than a year and a half into the Trudeau government. It followed up on a similar survey the union released in 2013 at the height of the controversy over the then-Conservative government’s reported muzzling of scientists by preventing media interviews and curtailing travel to scientific conferences. The new survey found the situation much improved—in 2013, 90% of scientists felt unable to speak about their work. But the union says more work needs to be done. “The work needs to be done at the department level,” where civil servants may have been slow to implement political directives, PIPSC President Debi Daviau said. ”We need a culture change that promotes what we have heard from ministers.”

I found this a little chilling (from the PIPSC Defrosting Public Science; a 2017 survey of federal scientists webpage),

To better illustrate this concern, in 2013, The Big Chill revealed that 86% of respondents feared censorship or retaliation from their department or agency if they spoke out about a departmental decision or action that, based on their scientific knowledge, could bring harm to the public interest. In 2017, when asked the same question, 73% of respondents said they would not be able to do so without fear of censorship or retaliation – a mere 13% drop.

It’s possible things have improved but while the 2018 Senate report did not focus on scientists, it did highlight issues with the government’s openness and transparency or in their words: “… a culture that plays down bad news and avoids responsibility.” It seems the Senate is not the only group with concerns about government culture; so do the government’s employees (the scientists, anyway).

The other science commentary

I can’t find any commentary or editorials about the latest ministerial changes or the mandate letters on the Canadian Science Policy Centre website so was doubly pleased to find this December 6, 2019 commentary by Creso Sá for University Affairs,

The recently announced Liberal cabinet brings what appear to be cosmetic changes to the science file. Former Science Minister Kirsty Duncan is no longer in it, which sparked confusion among casual observers who believed that the elimination of her position signalled the termination of the science ministry or the downgrading of the science agenda. In reality, science was and remains part of the renamed Ministry of Innovation, Science, and (now) Industry (rather than Economic Development), where Minister Navdeep Bains continues at the helm.

Arguably, these reactions show that appearances have been central [emphasis mine] to the modus operandi of this government. Minister Duncan was an active, and generally well-liked, champion for the Trudeau government’s science platform. She carried the torch of team science over the last four years, becoming vividly associated with the launch of initiatives such as the Fundamental Science Review, the creation of the chief science advisor position, and the introduction of equity provisions in the Canada Research Chairs program. She talked a good talk, but her role did not in fact give her much authority to change the course of science policy in the country. From the start, her mandate was mostly defined around building bridges with members of cabinet, which was likely good experience for her new role of deputy house leader.

Upon the announcement of the new cabinet, Minister Bains took to Twitter to thank Dr. Duncan for her dedication to placing science in “its rightful place back at the centre of everything our government does.” He indicated that he will take over her responsibilities, which he was already formally responsible for. Presumably, he will now make time to place science at the centre of everything the government does.

This kind of sloganeering has been common [emphasis mine] since the 2015 campaign, which seems to be the strategic moment the Liberals can’t get out of. Such was the real and perceived hostility of the Harper Conservatives to science that the Liberals embraced the role of enlightened advocates. Perhaps the lowest hanging fruit their predecessors left behind was the sheer absence of any intelligible articulation of where they stood on the science file, which the Liberals seized upon with gusto. Virtue signalling [emphasis mine] became a first line of response.

When asked about her main accomplishments over the past year as chief science advisor at the recent Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa, Mona Nemer started with the creation of a network of science advisors across government departments. Over the past four years, the government has indeed not been shy about increasing the number of appointments with “science” in their job titles. That is not a bad thing. We just do not hear much about how “science is at the centre of everything the government does.” Things get much fuzzier when the conversation turns to the bold promises of promoting evidence-based decision making that this government has been vocal about. Queried on how her role has impacted policy making, Dr. Nemer suggested the question should be asked to politicians. [emphasis mine]

I’m tempted to describe the ‘Digital Government’ existence and portfolio as virtue signalling.

Finally

There doesn’t seem to be all that much government interest in science or, even, technology for that matter. We have a ‘junior’ Minister of Science disappear so that science can become part of all the ministries. Frankly, I wish that science were integrated throughout all the ministries but when you consider the government culture, this move more easily lends itself to even less responsibility being taken by anyone. Take another look at the Canada’s Chief Science Advisor’s comment: “Queried on how her role has impacted policy making, Dr. Nemer suggested the question should be asked to politicians.” Meanwhile, we get a ‘junior Minister of Digital Government whose portfolio has the potential to affect Canadians of all ages and resident in Canada or not.

A ‘junior’ minister is not necessarily evil as Sá points out but I would like to see some indication that efforts are being made to shift the civil service culture and the attitude about how the government conducts its business and that the Minister of Digital Government will receive the resources and the respect she needs to do her job. I’d also like to see some understanding of how catastrophic a wrong move has already been and could be in the future along with options for how citizens are going to be making their way through this brave new digital government world and some options for fixing problems, especially the catastrophic ones.

*December 30, 2019 correction: After Scott Brison left his position as President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government in January 2019, Jane Philpott held the two positions until March 2019 when she left the Liberal Party. Carla Quatrough was acting head from March 4 – March 18, 2019 when Joyce Murray was appointed to the two positions which she held for eight months until November 2019 when, as I’ve noted, the ‘Minister of Digital Government’ was split from the ‘President of the Treasury Board’ appointment.

ETA January 28, 2020: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has an update on the Phoenix Pay System situation in a January 28, 2020 posting (supplied by The Canadian Press),

More than 98,000 civil servants may still owe the federal government money after being overpaid through the disastrous Phoenix pay system.

… the problems persist, despite the hiring of hundreds of pay specialists to work through a backlog of system errors.

The public service pay centre was still dealing with a backlog of about 202,000 complaints as of Dec. 24 [2019], down from 214,000 pay transactions that went beyond normal workload in November [2019].