Telecom Infrastructure is Security Infrastructure and what might be done after "The Speech"

In what we can refer to as "The Speech", Prime Minister Carney set out his views on the current rupture in the western alliance and compellingly argued that the great powers have become unrestrained and that the middle powers, like Canada, must band together in response. I don't believe that anyone can argue that "The Speech" was anything other than a generational moment in Canada's geopolitical position.

"The Speech" came about due to a number of factors no doubt, but one of those factors must have been the imperialistic outbursts of the President of the United States threatening Canada's sovereignty and Greenland's current status as a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, at least in part, because of what the United States deems to be its security interests in the North. If you take the President at face value, which would be a gigantic if, the United States appears to have broken faith with the free world and Mr. Carney has suggested, in that event, that Canada would forge its own path and urged others to follow. Stirring stuff.

The Prime Minister has already signalled some of the elements of his plan. One element is Canada's signing on to the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) investment pledge that should see Canada meeting the 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) target as its NATO commitment by March 2026 (the longstanding target that Canada has refused to meet until now) and 5% of GDP by 2035. To put this in real terms, the 5% of GDP target would, according to the Prime Minister, take Defence spending to $150 billion over ten years. Of that 5%, 3.5% or $107 billion would be invested in core military capabilities (e.g., planes, ships and submarines etc.) and the remaining 1.5% or $43 billion would be spent on defence-related infrastructure (e.g., the Port of Churchill and the Contrecoeur container facility at the Port of Montreal).

The latter two examples make one pause however. These infrastructure investments seem more like election spending announcements than solely defence-related investments. There is a great peril in that kind of thinking if that is the case. While Churchill and Contrecoeur are no doubt necessary investments, they are by no means the most obvious ones. Telecom infrastructure is both security and defence infrastructure, and rather than reinvesting in the core connectivity requirements of that infrastructure, the government has determined it won't renew funding for programs like the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF).

Rather than broadening the funding envelope of the UBF to include more broad-based and significant mobile network expansions in rural and remote areas, and investing in national scale 5G applications to aid in securing the North, these existing programs and worthy upgrades have been ignored. Taking Churchill as an example, there needs to be a significant railway upgrade to Churchill, Manitoba and electrification of the vast adjacent areas to properly meet the challenge the Prime Minister has laid down. No further details have been provided. Laying before the Davos invitees the Prime Minister's thoughts on the "rupture" in the alliance and the need for a "new world order" or a breaching of the old will not secure our borders nor will will it defend our sovereignty. While defence-related infrastructure will do that in part, there will need to be investment in telecom infrastructure too, because it is a key and necessary component of security infrastructure.

I would hope to see a reimagining of the UBF program, funding from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and other Provincial programs and an alignment of those coordinated programs with defence-related infrastructure projects in the Arctic economic and security corridor. I would hope to see meaningful progress in filling connectivity dead zones, particularly in large portions of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, aligned around a collective priority of national defence and achieving a near ubiquitous connectivity layer.

We need to have more ambition and with the significant and perpetual funds guaranteed by meeting the 5% pledge, we should consider a transatlantic fiber link through the Northwest Passage linking Asia and Europe. This could anchor and secure terrestrial fiber connectivity across the Arctic security corridor and provide redundancy and added capacity.

Previous iterations of the government's connectivity plan involved declaring ubiquitous coverage utilizing low earth orbit satellites (LEOs) and the government made contingent capacity promises to Telesat in the event it realized its Lightspeed Constellation. Various Provincial governments (e.g., NS, QC and ON) committed to provide broadband service to some premises in their Provinces with Starlink. Starlink, according to news reports from Reuters, temporarily ceased providing connectivity in some regions of Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion thereby making Starlink, in the eyes of some observers, an unreliable partner. QC and ON have subsequently determined not to re-sign with Starlink.

This underscores the need for a reimagined national satellite strategy for Canada and in meeting the 5% pledge to NATO we will have the fiscal room to accomplish it. A national satellite strategy in tight collaboration with Telesat would contribute to giving meaning to Prime Minister Carney's words. Alternative scenarios for a national or transnational satellite strategy have been realized for example in the European Union where its IRIS2 constellation of 290 satellites will enable initial communications in 2029 with an encrypted backbone and linked to high speed WiFi for European citizens. Perhaps it is not election-worthy as an announcement, but it is necessary to consider and imagine similar things. I would urge federal policy makers and those considering the projects and opportunities for utilizing the expanded fiscal room to start from the premise that "telecom infrastructure is security infrastructure".