Photo: Radio-Canada / Sylvain Roy Roussel.
Québec is dismantling its Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs (Ministère de la Cybersécurité et du Numérique, MCN) and handing the security of the State to a minister with no experience in cybersecurity, IT or information security… in the middle of a cyberwar against cities, energy and food giants.
The ministry was dismantled without a bill. No vote in the National Assembly, and its 2,038 employees now report to the Treasury Board Secretariat (Secrétariat du Conseil du trésor, SCT).
The minister who inherits the State’s cybersecurity, Alain Therrien, is an economist. He has NO experience in IT, cybersecurity or information security. Except for 5 months as an opposition critic in 2015, when he criticized how budgets were managed. Let’s be honest: every government project has a budget problem.
But ransomware couldn’t care less about your government calls for tenders.
We’re not asking for a minister who codes. We’re asking for someone, somewhere, with ten or so years of experience in the field, who knows what they’re talking about.
Sources
Most sources are in French.
- The dismantling of the MCN radio-canada.ca ↗
- The role of the chief information officer legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca ↗
- Alain Therrien’s background assnat.qc.ca ↗
- His remarks on IT in 2015 (Committee on Public Finance)
- Session of May 15, 2015 assnat.qc.ca ↗
- Session of October 23, 2015 assnat.qc.ca ↗
- His statement on IT contracts moncarnet.com ↗
- “Keeping the purse strings tight” lereflet.qc.ca ↗
- The CAI no longer publishes the list of privacy incidents gowlingwlg.com ↗
- The CAI considers its resources insufficient cai.gouv.qc.ca ↗
- Recommendation no. 1 of the Gallant report lapresse.ca ↗
