OPINION: Ottawa is spending billions on defence while leaving our critical infrastructure undefended

As Canada commits five per cent of GDP to defence spending, it risks leaving the physical infrastructure that powers our daily lives exposed to anyone with a backhoe, bolt cutters, or bad intentions. We’ve heard it too many times; thieves cut through what they thought was valuable copper cable only to find it was fibre. It may be worthless to them, but it takes down internet service for thousands and can sever data links between critical systems or data centres. Fibre cuts can be caused by theft, construction accidents, or deliberate sabotage, but the framing is always the same — we treat it as a telecom problem, when it’s actually a national security problem. Last year, Canada committed to NATO’s Defence Investment Pledge — five per cent of GDP by 2035, with 1.5 per cent earmarked for “critical defence and security-related expenditure,” including telecommunications, emergency preparedness, and dual-use infrastructure. The goal is to build capacity in artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, and space through “modern and secure digital infrastructure.” Canada’s recently-announced defence industrial strategy reinforces this commitment, as Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that “a strong defence industry is essential to our national security and economic prosperity.” But that strategy overlooks one important thing. The most sophisticated defence capabilities mean nothing when someone can physically cut the fibre that carries military communication, disrupt the power grid feeding critical systems, or interrupt communication between them. Right now, fibre cable spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometres runs alongside powerlines, water mains, and wireless towers, but it sits unprotected. For example, Bell operates over 240,000 kilometres of fibre in Canada. Meanwhile, there are 73,000 kilometres of federally regulated pipelines, 430,000 kilometres of power transmission lines, and over 13,000 wireless towers. At the moment, we’re vulnerable to tampering with fibre infrastructure, battery theft from tower sites, copper theft from substations, and damage to pipelines from unauthorized construction. Every kilometre is a potential point of failure, and we have almost no way to know when someone’s tampering with it until service goes dark. And, when a fibre line is cut, it almost always affects more than one service. The cascade starts with the loss of basic internet, as well as voice and entertainment applications, but then people can’t access ATMs, emergency services lose connectivity, and the cloud goes dark. Now, imagine a deliberate and coordinated attack on multiple infrastructure points. Not only is it possible, but we have no early warning system in place. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has identified 10 critical infrastructure sectors at risk from cyber threats, including energy, utilities, ICT, government, water, and transportation, but their guidance focuses on digital security while the physical infrastructure remains wide open. Digital security is important, but you can’t cyber-secure a water main that someone just cracked with an excavator. What we’re missing is the opportunity to use fibre for more than just connectivity. The fibre we’ve already buried for communications can double as a security system. Fibre sensing technology turns those cables into a nervous system — detecting intrusions, damage, and service disruptions in real time. It can identify vibrations from digging, leaks along pipelines, unauthorized access to substations, and tampering with fibre assets. In effect, the infrastructure we built for connectivity can also become the infrastructure that protects itself. Other countries have already acted. The U.K.’s defence ministry and major telecom providers have experimented with Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) systems in the North Atlantic and North Sea to monitor subsea infrastructure, including fibre-optic and power cables. The U.K. was also among the first countries to publicly acknowledge DAS as part of its homeland defence and cable protection strategy. Meanwhile, the European Union’s Horizon 2026 Program has allocated additional funding for fibre-optic sensing to protect critical infrastructure The technology exists and is already being deployed in some regions to protect critical data centre interconnect fibre, and for border security and pipeline monitoring. It’s not a science project. What we haven’t done is treat our domestic fibre networks as the sovereign security assets they actually are. Canada’s NATO funding should mandate fibre sensing on critical routes, like key power corridors, long-haul fibre routes, and subsea landing stations. The same level of perimeter security being deployed at land borders should protect wireless tower sites and water treatment plants. If we’re installing new fire for broadband expansion, it should be instrumented and mandated for dual use from day one. If we’re serious about digital sovereignty and our NATO commitments, we have to stop treating fibre infrastructure as a sunk cost of connectivity. It’s a sovereign, instrumented security asset — but only if we fund it and protect it that way. The question isn’t whether we can afford to do it, but whether we can afford not to. Jason Presement is the founder and Principal of Verity Aptus, an advisory practice that helps forward-thinking communication service providers and tech companies with market development and infrastructure strategy. He also publishes Jason's Industry Insights, a weekly newsletter covering broadband, telecom, and critical infrastructure. The positions and opinions expressed by The Wire Report columnists and contributors are solely reflective of the author’s perspective and do not necessarily reflect The Wire Report’s views or values.

OPINION: Ottawa is spending billions on defence while leaving our critical infrastructure undefended

Opinion |
By Jason Presement
|February 20, 2026

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OPINION: Ottawa is spending billions on defence while leaving our critical infrastructure undefended

Opinion | By Jason Presement |February 20, 2026

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