Ottawa: Over 250 national security experts, including former high-ranking government officials, are calling on Ottawa to re-think its approach to security threats to confront new sources of peril — from fast-spreading disease outbreaks to natural disasters driven by climate change.
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) released a report today — the culmination of more than a year of work — that examines Canada’s security posture in the face of new dangers like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 42-page assessment draws together research, interviews and public comments from senior security officials. It argues that virus outbreaks and destructive climate change events represent a whole new field of national security threats — one that demands more than an ad-hoc approach from the federal government.
“There is an expanded definition of national security out there that we should all be looking at,” said Vincent Rigby, who was until recently Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser.