Canada must ‘be vigilant’ of foreign actors targeting technology: minister

Defence Minister David McGuinty says Canada must “be vigilant” of foreign actors targeting the country’s technology, pointing to artificial intelligence and intellectual property as potential targets.

McGuinty had been asked by a reporter what the government is doing to protect technology being stolen from competitors like China.

“That’s a very, very big question. The government has seized with this responsibility nowhere more obviously than I think in the field of artificial intelligence where Canada is becoming a major player,” he said.

“We’re going to have to be vigilant. We have experience with this issue of the loss of intellectual property over time, for example, of Nortel previously.”

McGuinty added: “The safeguards that we’ve got in place now are significant. Our security and intelligence organizations have more than a watching brief on these kinds of activities,” he said on Thursday, announcing over $20 million in funding towards Canada’s third defence innovation secure hub dedicated to quantum technologies.

Canadian telecom giant Nortel dominated the global fibre optics industry for years before filing for bankruptcy in 2009 and liquidating in 2017.

Chinese espionage and hacking has been cited as a critical factor in the company’s demise by former company employees and media reporting.

Chinese hackers are alleged to have had a wide array of access to the former telecommunications giant as far back as 2000, which included downloaded business plans, research and development reports, employee emails, among other documents.

As Nortel Networks declined, Chinese multinational technology corporation Huawei grew to become one of the more dominant telecom equipment makers.