Overview
- The government released The Plan for a Stronger Canada on Thursday, presenting a 13‑page framework that will guide five detailed policies on defence, foreign affairs, economic security, public safety and intelligence.
- Ottawa says it will boost sovereign intelligence by strengthening the Communications Security Establishment, CSIS and defence intelligence and by broadening partnerships beyond the Five Eyes network.
- The strategy names eight priority sectors — emerging tech (including AI), critical minerals, defence, energy, transportation, pharmaceuticals and biotech, food security, and financial/payment systems — where Canada must build domestic capacity to reduce vulnerability to coercion.
- Officials stressed they will expand existing collection and analysis capabilities rather than immediately create a new overseas human‑intelligence agency, and they plan a First Ministers’ meeting on national security to improve federal‑provincial coordination.
- The plan frames threats as linked and growing — from frontier AI and cyberattacks to climate shocks and possible interstate conflict — and signals near‑term actions: a new foreign policy in about a month and legislative modernization within a year.