Bill C-8 would set Canada’s first cybersecurity standards for finance, telecom, energy and transport. Hospitals and municipal water, where a breach can cost lives, sit entirely outside the bill.
A very good article, Mike. Notwithstanding constitutional responsibilities, I cannot fathom how hospitals, water infrastructure and other areas are left outside this legislation. Question: do standing committees engage with subject matter experts during formulation of bills or are they consulted after the majority of work towards same is conducted?
I checked the House of Commons legislative process page. Government bills are drafted by the the government before introduction. Standing committees hear subject matter experts only after second reading, once the bill is referred for detailed study and clause-by-clause work. The route where a committee itself prepares the bill is available but rare.
Mike, I have been watching this pattern build across policy file after policy file, and I will be honest: it is exhausting.
Bill C-8 doesn't cover hospitals. Not because anyone forgot them. Because hospitals are provincial jurisdiction. A constitutional fact that keeps showing up like a wall at the end of every corridor we try to walk down.
Housing strategy. Food policy. Critical infrastructure cybersecurity. The same structure. The same gap. The same answer: sorry, that's provincial.
Canada's division of powers was designed for a 19th-century federation. Hospitals were local concerns. Defence was national. Nobody in 1867 anticipated that a ransomware attack on a Hamilton hospital would be simultaneously a local emergency and a national security event.
The categories have collapsed. The constitutional structure has not.
We keep drafting national ambitions on provincial foundations and then acting surprised when the floors don't hold. This is not a C-8 problem. It is a design problem, one we have somehow never seriously put before the public, and it is costing us.
This piece names part of it clearly. That matters. Restacking with that thought.
A very good article, Mike. Notwithstanding constitutional responsibilities, I cannot fathom how hospitals, water infrastructure and other areas are left outside this legislation. Question: do standing committees engage with subject matter experts during formulation of bills or are they consulted after the majority of work towards same is conducted?
I checked the House of Commons legislative process page. Government bills are drafted by the the government before introduction. Standing committees hear subject matter experts only after second reading, once the bill is referred for detailed study and clause-by-clause work. The route where a committee itself prepares the bill is available but rare.
Pardon the French but that sounds ass backwards…
Agreed, you would think having the experts in prior to drafting would be better.
Mike, I have been watching this pattern build across policy file after policy file, and I will be honest: it is exhausting.
Bill C-8 doesn't cover hospitals. Not because anyone forgot them. Because hospitals are provincial jurisdiction. A constitutional fact that keeps showing up like a wall at the end of every corridor we try to walk down.
Housing strategy. Food policy. Critical infrastructure cybersecurity. The same structure. The same gap. The same answer: sorry, that's provincial.
Canada's division of powers was designed for a 19th-century federation. Hospitals were local concerns. Defence was national. Nobody in 1867 anticipated that a ransomware attack on a Hamilton hospital would be simultaneously a local emergency and a national security event.
The categories have collapsed. The constitutional structure has not.
We keep drafting national ambitions on provincial foundations and then acting surprised when the floors don't hold. This is not a C-8 problem. It is a design problem, one we have somehow never seriously put before the public, and it is costing us.
This piece names part of it clearly. That matters. Restacking with that thought.
Thanks Leni, important points!