Opinion: Canada Post should be given a mandate to protect our digital sovereignty - National Post

Photo by Postmedia FilesArticle contentCanada has faced moments before when the country’s economic security could not safely be left entirely to market forces or foreign capital. In those moments, governments built institutions capable of promoting and developing essential national interests and capabilities while allowing private enterprise to flourish around them.

The Trump administration has demonstrated its determination to try to bend Canada to its will using all the tools of economic statecraft in the toolkit — tariffs, making market access contingent on aligning with U.S. policies and unbridled (even unhinged) threats, such as bans on imports of some Canadian products and attacks on major Canadian companies like Bombardier.

While much of the headline action is about traditional manufacturing sectors, Washington has unceasingly challenged Canadian policies governing digital services, data and technology. In an economy increasingly built on intangible assets, national power will depend on three things: who controls the data, who sets the standards and who owns the intellectual property. Canada is dangerously exposed on all three, since U.S. policy characterizes any Canadian initiative in this area as a trade irritant to be attacked.

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This is not the first time Canada has confronted an environment in which its sovereign interests and capabilities in the essential infrastructure of the age were at stake. The bankruptcies of several private rail carriers in 1918 led to the creation of what would become the Canadian National Railway, a Crown corporation formed through the amalgamation of the bankrupt carriers to preserve essential services.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was created in 1936, while Trans-Canada Air Lines, which later became Air Canada, was created in 1937 as a subsidiary of CN, which also operated the constitutionally required ferry service between Newfoundland and the Canadian mainland. The latter was spun off as Marine Atlantic in 1986, following the spin-off of Via Rail in 1978 to handle CN’s passenger business.

Today’s challenge lies not in transportation or basic communications infrastructure, but in the digital infrastructure that mediates an increasingly large share of Canadian communications, social intercourse, political discussion and commerce.