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cyber attacks that could shut down
Canadian oil and gas pipelines are we
ready I'm Mercedes Stevenson welcome to
the West walk
from Banks to pipelines and power grids
to your cell phone company the risk from
Russia China and hackers to Services we
depend on for our way of life and
National Security why Canada's top cyber
security official is warning companies
to be on the alert
and as MPS head home for the summer a
report card on the last session of
Parliament
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a Canadian intelligence agency is
sounding the alarm that Russia may be
stepping up its cyber attacks against
Canada for supporting Ukraine amid
Russia's Invasion a new threat
assessment says Russia aligned Hacker's
next goal could be compromising Canada's
oil and gas sector increasing National
Security concerns as critical
infrastructure needs oil and gas to
operate the intelligence agency the RCMP
and several government departments
briefed top energy Executives last week
on how to guard against these coming
cyber attacks but critics warn that the
federal government hasn't followed
through on its cyber security promises
leaving businesses and Canadians
vulnerable to Growing threats joining me
now to talk about this is Sami Corrie
head of the cse's Canadian Center for
cyber security great to talk to thank
you Sammy we don't get to hear from you
often so this is quite a pleasure thanks
Mercedes for having me on the show let's
start with the oil and gas picture
obviously we've seen a lot of concern
around this when we look at Europe
Ukraine being cut off other European
countries who supported Ukraine being
cut off but there hasn't been a lot of
discussion in the public sphere about
Canadian Oil and Gas being targeted
until your report
how have you assessed the Threat Level
for Canadian pipelines and oil and gas
companies
critical infrastructure as a whole is a
sector that we're very concerned about
and the the we find ways to share
information lots of information we do it
through advice and guidance we do it
through thread bulletins but also we
felt the need to connect with the top
Executives of the oil and gas in Canada
and share with them the latest threat
landscape and that's what we assess is
that the threat is real and it's ever
present and it's important that
everybody gets sensitized to building
resilience in the company because a lot
of these companies will rely on for our
daily lives you talk in this report
specifically about sort of two different
kinds of threats those that would come
for example from Russia as a state or
state aligned actors that Russia is sort
of paying to hack with them or who
support them and also those who are
doing this for ransom trying to get
money can you tell us what a potential
attack on Canadian Oil and Gas would
actually look like if it was unfolding
in real time
uh we've had a taste of that although
not in Canada but the colonial pipeline
was an example of an attack on a U.S
company in Canada the threat we assess
is either a threat from cyber criminals
so that would be ransomware or a threat
from nation state and that would be sort
of spying or stealing information but
ransomware can the information
systems of a company and now it could
the corporate systems but it can
also extend to the operational system
which means the pumps which means the
flow of oil or the flow of gas so the
impact could be that a company is
essentially crippled from delivering
services to Canadian if need be that's
one way or it could put the company in a
way in a holding pattern because their
I.T is locked and they need to recover
from it so the business continuity will
be impacted too
you mentioned before
that a little bit but here
quick term we think about out pipelines
or electricity grids but it's also Banks
your ability to log in and pay your
bills it's being able to pay for gas at
the gas station it's your phone how many
people during the Rogers outage couldn't
even call 9-1-1 this is a really broad
segment of vulnerability that could have
a very real impact on Canadians lives
absolutely I mean Canada has 10 critical
infrastructure sectors uh Transportation
being one of them the airline companies
the rail the the financial the banks are
a critical Finance sector as a critical
infrastructure sector you have
transportation so Transportation energy
telecommunication you have education so
all of these are recognized as critical
infrastructure sectors that have an
impact on our daily lives some are run
by big businesses some are run by
provinces and or within provincial
jurisdiction so everything we do today
uh touches an aspect of a critical
infrastructure one of those 10 critical
infrastructure segments
sure got through and was able to set
down shut down pardon me multiple
sectors at once in some kind of a
sophisticated coordinated attack
we're doing a lot to prevent that from
happening uh and uh the the information
sharing partnering with the private
sector partnering with the provinces is
key to what we do at the Cyber Center uh
but we have to recognize that Russia is
a sophisticated cyber adversary and
they've demonstrated all the way back to
2015 that they can bring down the they
shut down the power in Ukraine in 2015
and again in 2016 and we throw them
throw all sorts of destructive
capability at Ukraine over the last year
so they have the capability and our role
is to stay on top of these things to see
what's happening around the world to use
our intelligence operations uh in
partnership with some of our closest
allies to pick up those signals and warn
Canadians about them do they have the
capability ability to do that to Canada
at this point that
the uh whether or not they have the
capability the importance of this we
need to protect ourselves I I assume
we'd only need to protect ourselves
though if they had that capability if we
weren't that far ahead of it we have to
be we have to stay one step ahead of
them but it's not just a technology
thing so yes we can protect ourselves
but we're living in a very complicated
I.T world and we need to protect
ourselves against all sorts of threats
but we also need to educate the users at
the end phishing attacks are also on the
rise and we don't want somebody to click
we might have the strongest I.T
protection but if somebody clicks on a
link and that link translates into a
phishing attack against the network that
is a weak point
how often would you say attacks happen
on Canada both on government
infrastructure and on private
infrastructure is it a daily event a
weekly event a couple of times a month
an hourly event wow so against the
government we have sensors deployed
across government and on an average day
we block between five and six billion uh
signals coming against the government
these are automated systems that are
looking for vulnerabilities having said
that we hear about incidents in the
private sector constantly and and every
day we have a daily stand-up and we we
look at you know who has reached over to
us overnight to report an incident so
attacks are a varying degree of
sophistication some are benign but some
are definitely when it evolves into a
ransomware case it's very concerning
because there is an impact on business
there's an impact on Service delivery I
wanted to ask you about tiktok
and it but
a look talk or other apps that could
create a back door for that kind of
hacking on people's phones who might be
handling very sensitive information and
critical infrastructure
uh Tick Tock like many of the other
social media app uh requests from the
user and expanded access to a lot of
personal information uh the ban in the
government was deemed at the in the
aggregate there was a privacy concern
that we felt across government that
should the app should not have access to
that we have issued an advisory or a
advice and guidance bulletin to invite
Canadian to encourage Canadian to look
at the settings on their phone to look
at what information are these apps
asking for and make a personal judgment
we we don't we don't regulate we don't
examine every app so it's a personal
decision and businesses can absolutely
there's a there's a section in the
document to look at businesses sorry
that's cater two businesses that we
invite them to look at and assess what
is the rest of the business for apps who
who's behind the app who has access to
the data and make a judgment call based
on that the risk to the business could
be a risk to Canadians just before we go
to help our viewers at home who heard
you say look at the settings on your
apps what should they specifically be
looking for that might suggest there's a
risk or they they might want to decline
that on their app when they're
downloading it and it asks for
permissions many of the apps ask for
access to the contact list to the
calendar to your
coordinates your geo coordinates where
you are you ask yourself the question
why do they need that information right
some of it is to deliver a more
personalized so if you're an Ottawa it
will fire an ad because you're in Ottawa
but can you live without this so ask
yourself a question why does the app
request access to that and if there's a
legitimate reason if the calendar
request access to your contact that
makes sense but if an app request access
to your geo coordinates you might want
to wonder why is it that they need
access to my geo coordinates and we've
we've issued again there's some
information on our website that we
invite anybody to go and look at and
look at how best to configure or look at
the privacy setting on their phone
great advice and for your wisdom today
we appreciate it thank you Mercedes
happy to be here
up next as the house breaks for the
summer taking stock of what did and
didn't get done during the last session
of Parliament
foreign
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s has wrapped up for the summer and
despite a lot of heated debate on the
government's response to foreign
interference among other things the
Liberals say they accomplished a lot
it marks a period of time that despite
the noise often that's in Parliament the
Canadians can look at what their
Parliament and government achieved and
see enormous progress
did the Liberals manage to emerge
Victorious did the opposition hold them
to account here to break down the
session that was in the coming political
season is former Calgary mayor nahed
nenshi and Lisa rate former conservative
cabinet minister and vice chair of
global investment banking at CIBC great
to see you both
Lisa let's start with you you know
former cabinet minister looking back
remembering what it was like for your
government perhaps eight years into
power when things get a little bit hairy
how do you things think things went for
the government and the opposition in
this session
starting with the government I think
they did one really good thing and that
is at least somewhat of a response to
the United States inflation reduction
act that is something that's needed not
only in the short term but in the long
term for economic growth so they had a
good Fair number of measures in their
budget they passed their budget and now
at least there's a signal to the
business community and to corporate
Canada that they are serious about
making sure that they reduce emissions
but they're there to help it and that I
think was a really important win for
them on the opposition side I think the
opposition has done a really great job
of trying to Rattle the government and
really take a look at whether or not as
a whole there's something or they're The
Entity that you want to be the
government in the long term and what I
would point to is I think Pierre poliov
is performing very well in the House of
Commons he gets really good questions in
and you've got a couple couple of the
ministers who are actually on the ropes
and as a result the opposition would
call that a win for the season as well
nahid what's your take on how this
session went you know I I think about
these things a little bit differently
sitting here in Calgary I don't pay as
much attention to the cut and thrust of
the daily work and try and really look
at how are things that are happening
really going to impact people on the
street every day I'll tell a story in a
sec I think well maybe I'll tell it now
I was in Ottawa a couple weeks ago and
it was I was near Parliament Hill and it
was two o'clock and I thought isn't this
one question period is I've never been
to question period I'm gonna go check it
out so I stood in line with all the
school children and went in to watch
question period and it was the day when
the Prime Minister said I can't remember
what it is that Pierre pauliev did
before politics and Pierre pauliev said
something uh quite rude about the prime
minister's previous Life as a teacher
and I was embarrassed for everybody I
was embarrassed for the children on the
floor of the House of Commons I was
embarrassed for the school children
sitting with me uh in the gallery
because
I know that's not an original thought
but you know it kind of shocked me when
I was watching it for the first time
live that they weren't talking to one
another they were talking to the cameras
that when Mr pauliev asked his last
question he didn't stick around and wait
for the answer he just fist bumped his
colleagues good job good job on the way
out and walked out rather than taking
two minutes of his life to at least
pretend to listen to the answer so I
kind of wonder if when we talk about
this sort of thing we're talking about
stuff that doesn't resonate in any way
with Canadians people don't watch
question period And so what I'm
interested in is what was actually
accomplished and for me one of the most
interesting things is there were three
things done that massively increased the
social safety net in Canada whether or
not you agree with these things this is
probably the largest expansion of social
programs in Canada that I've seen you
know since the 80s and that is the
expansion of dental care to children and
seniors the expansion of 10 a day child
care and something we haven't talked
about at all which just passed last week
unanimously in the House of Commons the
creation of the Canada disability
benefit and so regardless of the Heat
and the fire that we talk about day to
day in politics this is actually a major
shift in how government and community
and citizens work together and I think
that the Liberals have done a pretty
decent job whether you agree with them
or not on pushing this agenda push
forward by their agreement with the NDP
I have to take a moment there to get on
my hobby horse here as a news person I'm
sure viewers at home wonder why we don't
show things like that like Pierre polio
getting up and walking out of the house
instead of listening to the end of his
question and the answer is because the
House of Commons actually controls the
cameras and they are only on the person
speaking so we're not able to show you
the stuff that you saw there or that we
see sitting up at the gallery about how
much of this is is performance and it's
something Aaron O'Toole talked about on
the show last week and he talked about
it in his his final speech to the House
of Commons too that people need to stop
using it as just a way to come up with
clips for their social media and their
YouTube channels it's losing that back
and forth debate and thrust but you know
Lisa there was a lot of debate and
thrust around foreign interference it
looks like maybe we will have an inquiry
now the government basically had to do a
180 on that after this imploded on them
your thoughts on how that unfolded for
the government and and whether it's
going to jeopardize them in the long
term or if this is something that people
are going to forget about over the
summer I don't think they're going to
forget about the fact that we're calling
an inquiry whether or not the government
will be penalized for taking such a long
time to get there probably not I think
the inquiry is extremely important
because at the very least Canadians
should have some assistance in actually
sifting through all of the accusations
that have been coming over the past
number of months and all of the
unveiling of different pieces of
information that seems to be coming
almost on a weekly basis through you
know a national newspaper and some and a
handful of Television outlets and I
think that is something that is
important for as I said the Canadian
public writ large to try to get a sense
as to what is really going on protecting
our democracy is incredibly important
and quite frankly I mean what it comes
down to for me and how I explain it
simply when when somebody asked me what
this is all about in any other country
if you had a report that A Member of
Parliament or a member of your
legislative Authority or assembly was
targeted so that they would be pressured
to change their minds on how they
advocated for a certain issue close to
their heart there would be an uproar and
there should be enough work in this
country for the same thing either Jenny
Quan or Michael Chong or Aaron O'Toole I
mean three sitting members allegedly
being pressured in order to stop them
from Talking negative things about the
Chinese government and as a result we
really need to get to the bottom of it
and had your thoughts on that
I very much agree with Lisa that this is
a very big deal and full disclosure I
know and admire David Johnson very much
I sit on a non-profit board of directors
with him and Michael Chong actually
um and so this is
um uh you know I know that I know the
parties involved and I think the problem
here is that everybody the government
and the opposition acted in a deeply
unserious way when these allegations
were raised uh the opposition saw it as
an opportunity to attack the government
to attack Mr Johnston man it was ballsy
am I allowed to say that on TV Andrew
Scheer and Pierre pauliev to come by
afterwards and say how dare the Liberals
ruin David Johnson's reputation when
they had spent weeks attacking the guy
um when you read his report I'm not sure
we need a public inquiry because he's
done most of the work we actually do
know based on the secret stuff that he
was able to see what happened it's just
we have to trust him and the opposition
and the government together managed to
destroy that trust so I think the best
way forward is as Lisa says do another
airing of the same thing and hopefully
this time we won't try to destroy the
messenger and we'll actually listen to
what was said because this idea for an
interference whether China Russia India
this is critical to our democracy we've
got to take it seriously and as much as
it sounds naive I'd like to take the
partisanship out of it and take the
whole thing seriously as a threat to our
democracy
at least I know you you looked like you
didn't agree with part of that
the only thing I didn't agree with is I
do think that burden information came
after Mr Johnston submitted his finished
report and I think those were important
things like to
um exactly so that stuff does need to be
put into the whole mix as well
last question for the two of you polls
show that the liberal government is in
trouble to some degree people are ready
for change but they're not ready for
Pierre polia they're not willing to hand
over the Reigns of power Lisa I want to
ask you why do you think it is that
Pierre pauliev can't convince people to
vote for him if they are ready for a
change in government
I think it's really hard for Canadians
to vote for somebody if they don't know
them and when we talk about this period
of time where you have to get out there
and Define your leader and the
opposition wants to get out and Define
the leader in a very negative way at the
same time and that's because Canadians
really need to warm up to an individual
that takes time and in a minority
government you don't really have a lot
of time so I would save for the summer
and for the next session that Mr pauliev
is going to have to get out there and
somehow figure out how to show himself
to Canadians in a light that causes them
to get to know him a little bit better
because you're right Mercedes in order
for that change vote to crystallize they
need to be comfortable where they're
going to put their change vote and as a
result the the conservatives will
probably have a path to walk this year
and they'll figure that out we just have
a few moments left but nahid do you
think that the liberal government is in
trouble
well you know we've seen a remarkably
static situation in the polls which will
show that if an election were held
tomorrow the conservatives would get the
largest percentage of the popular vote
as they did in the last couple of
elections they may get the largest
number of seats they probably would not
be able to have a stable government
unless they were completely backed up by
the block which is not impossible but
for pierpal you have to actually break
through and win he needs to do something
else and I've been saying for some
months now that you can look at the
example of Alberta you know this kind of
very hard edged conservatism I've been
saying probably was just enough for
Danielle Smith and it was just enough
for Danielle Smith I'm not sure it'll be
enough for Pierre polio and if I was
going to be really snarky about it I
would say that when you're working on a
local campaign you know whether getting
your candidate to more and more doors
will help because people like them when
they meet them and sometimes you know
that maybe you don't want your candidate
in those one-on-one situations because
people like them less when they meet
them and so if I'm I'm thinking this
summer not just about getting myself out
more but also what message am I taking
particularly to women and to young
people and is it the same guy we see on
the floor of the House of Commons or is
it a more thoughtful guy who seems more
plugged into what people are really
worried about and that's really what I'd
be thinking about this summer if I was
him has he hit his ceiling with the ACT
he's got going on right now and is there
another act that'll do better for him
well that's all the time we have but
thank you both for wrapping our final
show with this panel and our political
analysis we'll see you back in the fall
thank you have a happy summer
up next why I think it's going to be an
interesting summer in federal politics
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[Music]
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and now it's time for our final one last
thing of this season Parliament has
risen and party leaders are hitting the
road for this summer they'll be shaking
hands and schmoozing while the Liberals
in the conservatives will be presenting
two very different visions of Canada
they do share a common challenge a trust
deficit Justin Trudeau and Pierre
pauliev both need to convince voters
that they are in politics for Canadians
not just for their own party or for
themselves we'll see if they can
accomplish that that's our show for
today thanks for hanging out with us all
season and thank you to our crew for an
amazing show and season have a great
summer and we'll see you back here in
September
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thank you foreign
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