Canada’s security environment is being shaped by simultaneous pressure across borders, critical infrastructure, and democratic institutions—while the federal government is also operating at unprecedented delivery speed. This opening keynote sets the shared operating picture for 2026 and clarifies the priority decisions leaders must make in the next 12–18 months to strengthen national resilience across physical and digital domains.

• Align on national priorities and what they mean for operational focus across public safety, intelligence, border, and cyber
• Translate strategy into next 90‑day moves by identifying the highest-leverage capability gaps to address first
• Strengthen democratic resilience by understanding the latest signals on foreign interference and influence-transparency measures
• Accelerate collaboration without duplication by clarifying where coordination is essential vs where agencies should act independently

Border modernization and security operations modernization are converging around the same building blocks: data, identity, analytics-driven triage, mission-continuity delivery, and privacy-by-design trust. This spotlight distills one “end-to-end” modernization story into patterns leaders can reuse across mandates.

• Case context: what was failing (risk, throughput, service levels, tooling, approvals/assurance) and what “good” looked like
• Design principles: privacy-by-design, program integrity, and measurable outcomes
• Data + identity: how data sources were integrated, what decision points changed, and how trust was protected
• Delivery under mission constraints: governance, sequencing, pilot-to-scale, and continuity safeguards
• What moved the needle: 3–5 repeatable moves other agencies can apply in 90 days

Threat actors are moving faster, blending tactics across physical and digital domains, and exploiting seams between mandates. This moderated plenary stress-tests what readiness actually means in 2026—and focuses on the practical operating model leaders need to collaborate without duplication or compromise.

• Spot the fastest-moving risk areas across people, process, technology, and geopolitics
• Define readiness in practical terms (capabilities, thresholds, response expectations) that teams can execute against
• Pressure-test “information sharing with constraints”: what can be shared, with whom, and under what safeguards
• Explore “detect + disrupt” in practice across cyber disruption, cybercrime coordination, border-enabled crime flows, and foreign interference
• Align on collaboration patterns that work (roles, decision rights, escalation paths) and where they are breaking down

Roundtable One - Agentic AI & Machine Based Decision: Are You Ready?

Roundtable Two - Continuing the Conversation: Securing Canada’s Critical Infrastructure – Embedding Mission-Critical Cyber Defence

Roundtable Three - Stay Ahead of the Threat: Operationalizing Real-Time Intelligence for Government

Roundtable Four - Sharing and Operationalizing Data

Roundtable Five - Staying Left of Boom to Reduce Canada's Threat Risk Profile

Roundtable Six - AI Frontier: Harnessing GenAI and Delivering Trustworthy Public Service Delivery

Roundtable Seven - The Road to Mobile PBMM: Operationalizing Compliance and Overcoming the Policy Hurdles for a Secure Mobile Workforce

National resilience is built long before an incident occurs; through procurement choices, workforce capability, interoperable systems, and trusted partnerships. This keynote focuses on the capability engine Canada must accelerate so that prevention, response, and recovery improve year over year.

• Identify the capability bottlenecks most likely to slow readiness (workforce, procurement, data, interoperability)
• Accelerate delivery safely by adopting practical patterns for building capability under security constraints
• Increase reuse and reduce duplication through interoperable approaches that scale across agencies
• Strengthen partnership models that improve outcomes without weakening safeguarding and assurance

Collaboration is necessary, but unmanaged collaboration creates risk. This panel focuses on the operating models that let government and industry work together to improve security outcomes while protecting sensitive information, mandates, and mission integrity.

• Adopt collaboration patterns that work (clear roles, decision rights, safeguarding rules) across agencies and partners
• Improve information sharing safely through practical share-more, expose-less approaches
• Reduce duplication by clarifying when to centralize, federate, or coordinate efforts across organizations
• Strengthen mission assurance by understanding what collaboration without compromise looks like in real operations

A strong agenda only matters if it changes what happens next. This closing keynote turns the day into a 12‑month action plan—what to prioritize, how to measure progress, and what success by next year should look like for leaders responsible for Canada’s security outcomes.

• Commit to a 12‑month priority set that balances prevention, readiness, and resilience building
• Define success measures leaders can track (capability delivery, readiness thresholds, resilience outcomes)
• Align stakeholders early on roles, decision rights, and collaboration expectations
• Leave with next steps you can take immediately—what to start, stop, and accelerate