In September 2024, the Government of Canada published a document outlining Canada’s intelligence priorities. Marking the first time such a document has been released to the Canadian public, Canada’s Intelligence Priorities 2024 will direct the efforts of Canada’s intelligence community—including CSE, CSIS, RCMP, CBSA, and FINTRAC—in the coming years.
Among the intelligence priorities in the document is an emphasis on cybersecurity for Canada’s digital economy.
As Canada’s first publicly available set of intelligence priorities, the document provides the Canadian public with an overview of threats and security issues the Government of Canada deems critical to the Canadian intelligence community. It provides significant context and strategic guidance on Canada's major cyber threats for Canadian cybersecurity professionals and students planning to enter the field.
Fostering a strategic-level understanding of these threats can help to make Canada’s cybersecurity industry nimbler and more responsive to developments in the cyber threat landscape.
In an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world—subject to rapid technological advancement, as well as instability and insecurity—Canada’s intelligence community will need to guard its institutions, economy, and wider society against malicious actors. The Government of Canada has significantly focused on securing Canada’s public and private digital systems, critical infrastructure, and information environment from security threats.
Indeed, cybersecurity is the red thread that ties Canada’s national security and intelligence priorities together.
The document prioritizes monitoring and countering “sabotage and cyber threats” to Canada and its “economic security, cyber security, civil society, critical infrastructure, research security, and democratic institutions.” It calls for the Canadian intelligence community to monitor and counter “plans, intentions, and capabilities of state actors (or their proxies)” that threaten to harm Canadian interests in cyberspace.
This includes protecting government systems, private digital systems, and critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks, as well as safeguarding the individual privacy of Canadians. The document also highlights the need to combat the theft or misappropriation of Canadian academic research and commercial R&D.
Cybercrime is highlighted as a top national security concern. The document calls for the intelligence community to monitor “the activities, capabilities, and intentions” related to “organized crime, cybercrime,” and illicit border activity. At the international level, the document identifies the need for Canada’s intelligence community to monitor “international cyber, technological, and infrastructure security environments, which could have an effect on Canadian interests.”
One in six cybersecurity positions go unfilled: ICTC research
A 2022 ICTC study on Canada’s cybersecurity workforce found a notable talent deficit, with about one in six cybersecurity positions going unfilled. Investing in cybersecurity talent is essential so Canada can respond to threats as productively and proactively as possible.
ICTC seeks to address Canada’s cybersecurity talent gap through innovative programming such as CyberTitan, Canada’s largest national cybersecurity skills competition for middle and high school students, as well as through training and work-integrated learning opportunities for women+ and non-binary post-secondary students in cybersecurity—both initiatives to diversify and grow Canada’s future cybersecurity talent pipeline.
Canada’s Intelligence Priorities makes clear that Canada must continue to invest in cybersecurity talent to ensure the ongoing security of Canadian institutions, the digital economy, and broader society.
Erik Henningsmoen is a research and policy analyst with the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC).
