About Critical Infrastructure Protection

Canada's critical infrastructure consists of those physical and information technology facilities, networks, services and assets which, if disrupted or destroyed, would have a serious impact on the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians or the effective functioning of governments in Canada.

Our national critical infrastructure is made up of ten sectors:

1. Energy and Utilities (e.g. electrical power, natural gas, oil production and transmission systems)
   
   
2. Communications and Information Technology (e.g. telecommunications, broadcasting systems, software, hardware and networks including the Internet)
   
   
3. Finance (e.g. banking, securities and investment)
   
   
4. Health Care (e.g. hospitals, health care and blood supply facilities, laboratories and pharmaceuticals)
   
   
5. Food (e.g. safety, distribution, agriculture and food industry)
   
   
6. Water (e.g. drinking water and wastewater management)
   
   
7. Transportation (e.g. air, rail, marine and surface)
   
   
8. Safety (e.g. chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear safety, hazardous materials, search and rescue, emergency services, and dams)
   
   
9. Government (e.g. services, facilities, information networks, assets and key national sites and monuments)
   
   
10. Manufacturing (e.g. defence industrial base, chemical industry)

An all-hazards approach to protecting critical infrastructure
Canada's critical infrastructure could potentially be affected by both physical and cyber threats. For example, electricity supply can be severely disrupted by a tornado (physical threat), a major accident (physical or cyber threat) or a computer hacking attack that disables an essential control system (cyber threat).

Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada operates the Government Emergency Operations Coordination Centre which monitors physical and cyber threats 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Information from a number of sources is used to conduct threat, incident and vulnerability analysis including the identification of national critical infrastructure elements and their dependencies. Alerts, Advisories and Information Notes are issued to help public and private sector stakeholders protect key infrastructure systems.