John de Boer
Vice-President, Government Relations, BlackBerry
As Canada raises the bar on critical infrastructure security through C-8 and CIREN, sovereign, certified, mission-critical communications are becoming essential in the nuclear sector.
Critical infrastructure — from energy and transportation to financial services, telecommunications, and more — is becoming increasingly digital, and dependent on software. In the context of advanced AI-powered cyber threats, building resilient digital infrastructure that you can trust and control is a must.
Canada recently passed Bill C-8, new legislation that establishes a cybersecurity framework for designated operators in Canada’s federally regulated critical infrastructure sectors.
“Bill C-8 is significant because it recognizes that cybersecurity is no longer simply an IT issue,” says John de Boer, Vice-President of Government Relations at BlackBerry. “It is an economic security, public safety, and national security issue.”
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security also launched the CIREN (Critical Infrastructure Resilience and Escalated Threat Navigation) initiative earlier this year to encourage operators to prepare for severe, prolonged disruptions caused by cyber incidents.
Nuclear facilities are unusually complex and safety-critical. For nuclear operators, digital resilience must be about both preventing attacks and keeping critical operations and communications functioning if a disruption occurs.
Shifting the focus from compliance to resilience
Today’s critical infrastructure operators, especially those in high-stakes sectors such as nuclear energy, must think beyond regulatory compliance and focus on broader digital and operational resilience.
“Compliance establishes a minimum standard,” says de Boer. “Resilience determines whether an organization can continue operating when something goes wrong. For nuclear operators, success is not measured solely by preventing incidents, but by maintaining safe and secure operations during disruption, recovering quickly, and ensuring critical communications and decisions can still be made under pressure. In today’s environment, resilience has become as important as cybersecurity itself.”
Public-private partnerships can help deliver the critical infrastructure protection and business continuity needed through collaboration, technological innovation, and information sharing.
“Governments cannot secure critical infrastructure alone, they need industry,” says de Boer.
Strengthening resilience through collaboration
Building resilience within Canada’s infrastructure sectors will require collaboration between the public and private sectors, along with secure supply chains, trusted technologies, operational preparedness, and business continuity planning.
Operators must be discerning about who they build partnerships with and which technologies they adopt.
“Organizations should look beyond features and cost,” says de Boer. “They should assess who developed the technology, how it is maintained, whether it has undergone independent certification, how vulnerabilities are managed, and whether the supplier can support long operational life cycles. They should also be asking fundamental questions about control, transparency, and assurance: Who built the software? Who maintains it? Who has access to it? And will it remain available and trustworthy during a crisis?”
Trusted supply chains depend on trusted software, trusted partners, and transparent governance. “For sectors such as nuclear energy, assurance and trust are becoming strategic requirements,” says de Boer.
Opting for sovereign, mission-certified communications
During a cyber incident, operators may lose visibility, access, or confidence in their normal systems, but leaders must still communicate, make decisions, and coordinate their response.
“We’ve learned repeatedly that when communications break down, the impact of an incident worsens,” says de Boer. “Resilient communications are therefore not merely a cybersecurity requirement. They are a business continuity and digital resilience requirement.”
Sovereign and certified communications technologies contribute to that resilience. “Sovereign communications solutions, such as those offered by BlackBerry, provide organizations with assurance around where data resides, who controls the data and the infrastructure, and how security is maintained and verified,” says de Boer. “Certified communication solutions are purpose-built for high-assurance environments where reliability, security, confidentiality, and continuity are essential.”
BlackBerry: A trusted solutions provider
BlackBerry’s approach is rooted in resilience, trust, and operational continuity. BlackBerry SecuSUITE helps organizations maintain encrypted and trusted communications and is designed for “environments where communications must remain private, verified, continuous and controlled.” BlackBerry UEM helps organizations securely manage and protect the devices, applications, and endpoints their people rely on to stay connected and productive. BlackBerry AtHoc coordinates personnel and emergency response activities, even during periods of disruption, while QNX’s mission is to provide the most secure real-time operating system trusted for mission-critical infrastructure, where reliability, safety, and operational continuity are essential.
“QNX is already deployed in energy, industrial, transportation, aerospace, and defence systems where failure is simply not an option,” says de Boer. “For nuclear operators, resilience ultimately depends on maintaining operational control, trusted communications, and safe, reliable system performance during disruption. BlackBerry Secure Communications solutions help protect critical infrastructure by enabling organizations to coordinate and communicate securely through events such as wildfires, cyber incidents, or man-made disasters. Those capabilities become especially important when organizations are operating under pressure, responding to an incident, or restoring critical services.”
For de Boer, the focus comes back to continuity and resilience during disruption. “Ultimately, resilience is not just about preventing attacks,” he says. “It is about ensuring that critical systems, critical communications, and critical decisions can continue when they matter most.”
Learn more about BlackBerry Secure Communications at blackberry.com/secure-communications.
