Canada’s Critical Infrastructure
Critical infrastructure (CI) refers to processes, systems, facilities, technologies, networks, assets and services essential to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians and the effective functioning of government. CI can be stand-alone or interconnected and interdependent within and across provinces, territories and national borders. Disruptions of CI could result in catastrophic loss of life, adverse economic effects and significant harm to public confidence.
The Government of Canada uses a risk-based approach for strengthening the resiliency of Canada's vital assets and systems such as our food supply, electricity grids, transportation, communications and public safety systems.
- The National Strategy establishes a collaborative, federal-provincial-territorial and private sector approach built around partnerships, risk management and information sharing and protection.
- The Action Plan is the blueprint for how the Strategy will be implemented to enhance the resilience of Canada's CI.
Enhancing Critical Infrastructure Resilience
Enhancing the resilience of CI can be achieved through the appropriate combination of security measures to address intentional and accidental incidents; business continuity practices to deal with disruptions and ensure the continuation of essential services; and emergency management planning to ensure adequate response procedures are in place to deal with unforeseen disruptions and natural disasters.
Learn more about legislative approaches, best practices, and information products by referencing our Critical Infrastructure Information Resources.
Contact us to find out more about any of our programs or services.
CI Talks: What is Critical Infrastructure?
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Critical Infrastructure Talks! You are probably wondering what is CI and why is it so important?
What is CI? Critical infrastructure refers to "processes, systems, facilities, technologies, networks, assets and essential services to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians and the effective functioning of government". There are 10 CI sectors that are identified by the Canadian Government that include Water, Safety, Health, Finance, Transportation, Energy and Utilities, Food, Manufacturing, Government and, Information and Communication Technology.
What does CI have to do with everyday life? Critical infrastructure involves most aspects of everything that Canadians experience during their daily activities. Such as turning on the lights when you wake up, opening your faucet to have a warm shower and jumping on the internet to do your online banking, which are all reliant of various CI sectors. The Government of Canada uses a risk-based approach for strengthening the resiliency of Canada's vital assets and systems such as our food supply, electricity grids, transportation, and public safety systems. Canada's Critical infrastructure uses this approach, recognizing that the actions required to mitigate the effects of emergencies are essentially the same, regardless of the nature of the event.
The risks are increasingly complex and frequent. They include natural, intentional and accidental hazards. Recent events illustrate the importance of protecting critical infrastructure from all types of hazards: flooding, ice storm, the terrorist attacks, power blackout, pandemic, hurricane, bombing etc. The risks and vulnerabilities are heightened by the complex system of interdependencies among critical infrastructure, which can lead to cascading effects expanding across borders and sectors.
Canada's National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure Document and supporting Action Plan establishes a collaborative federal, provincial, territorial approach to strengthening critical infrastructure resilience across ten critical infrastructure sectors. The Strategy promotes three strategic objectives: building trusted partnerships, protecting and sharing information, and implementing an all-hazards approach to risk management. Our branch is divided in 6 sections that support these strategic objectives. CI Partnerships, CI Exercises, CI Cyber Partnerships, Regional Risk Assessment Program, Virtual Risk Analysis cell and CI Policy.
What have we learned so far? CI can be interconnected and interdependent or stand-alone within and across provinces, territories and national borders and is vital to public and private life, all levels of government, corporations and individuals. Critical Infrastructure involves most aspects of everything that Canadians experience during their daily activities. For further information the Canada's National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure Document and supporting Action Plans explains these links.
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