Letters March 20, 2023

Biden visit: committing Canada to enhanced cybersecurity cooperation

Goldy Hyder – President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Canada

Digital Economy and Cybersecurity North America

Letter to the Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau P.C., M.P. regarding enhanced cybersecurity cooperation with the United States.

Re: Commit Canada to enhanced cybersecurity cooperation

Dear Prime Minister:

When you announced that President Biden would be visiting Canada this week you confirmed a top item on your agenda will be discussing progress made in implementing the Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership. To that end, Canada’s business leaders hope that you and President Biden will build on the progress made to date by expanding your commitment on cross-border infrastructure security.

The Roadmap properly “recognized the important economic and energy security benefits of the bilateral energy relationship and its highly integrated infrastructure” and committed to “a Framework for Collaboration on Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector to enhance the security and resiliency of our cross-border energy infrastructure.” We believe world events have made this commitment even more urgent.

Since Russia’s unacceptable invasion of Ukraine, the frequency and severity of physical and cyber attacks on global critical infrastructure has increased dramatically. To better defend all of our integrated economic infrastructure against such threats, we urge you and President Biden to agree to an enhanced cybersecurity cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangement between our two countries.

In our view, an enhanced cybersecurity and intelligence sharing partnership should include the creation of a formal bilateral public-private sector working group to better monitor, mitigate, and respond to threats to our heavily integrated cross-border infrastructure and other critical networks. Rest assured that business leaders on both sides of the border stand ready to work with government to protect two our countries.

Yours very truly,