Chiasson declined to comment on the decision. A statement issued Tuesday by the City of Bathurst said the municipality will "take the necessary time to carefully analyze the decision."

Lawyers for the two officers said they were blamed for an operation that went according to plan until Vienneau hit Bulger.

It's unclear if Vienneau knew Bulger and Boudreau were officers. Vienneau's fiancée, Annick Basque, who was with him that day, testified she didn't know they were police officers when she saw Bulger with a gun in his hand. She thought they were being attacked by "druggies" or terrorists. 

"I think Vienneau acted quickly based on what he expected to see and experience, not what was actually taking place," Michaud wrote of the fear of terrorists. 

Michaud said he had "grave concerns" about the reliability of Basque's testimony because of inconsistencies with her own evidence and that of others, including misidentifying whether it was Boudreau or Bulger who was driving the unmarked car and shot Vienneau.

Boudreau has been a police officer since 2009 and Bulger since 2007. Both officers were described at the hearing by a former supervisor as promising with no previous use-of-force issues.

     A photo of the shooting scene at the Bathurst train station on Jan. 12, 2015. (RCMP)

Michaud did offer some criticism of Bulger's testimony regarding a policy relating to how to conduct a traffic stop. 

"I was unimpressed with the evidence of Bulger, to the effect that he would have been a sitting duck had he remained in the car with only the lower part of his body protected by the engine block," Michaud wrote. "To be blunt, it didn't make sense. I find that Bulger's 'interest in the outcome' and 'motive to deceive' affected his testimony on this point."

While the discipline hearing is over, there are still other proceedings related to the shooting underway. A civil case filed by Vienneau's family against the city and the officers is continuing through court. 

Two years ago, the province ordered a coroner's inquest into Vienneau's death.

Inquest planned

The province has said the inquest will take place following the conclusion of the discipline hearing, though dates have not been set.

Coreen Enos, a spokesperson with the Department of Public Safety, told CBC News the inquest would only be held once "all legal proceedings" related to the hearing, such as any judicial review, are exhausted.

An inquest is a formal court proceeding that allows for public presentation of evidence relating to a death to help clarify the facts and circumstances. 

The coroner does not assign responsibility or blame, but there may be recommendations on how to prevent similar deaths in the future.

The arbitration hearing for two Bathurst officers involved in the fatal shooting of Michel Vienneau almost five years ago willcontinue.

Arbitrator Joël Michaud's 14-page decision released Monday is not a final ruling. It was required as a procedural step to decide if there was enough evidence presented for the hearing to move to a second stage, where the officers can call evidence and potentially testify next month.

The hearing arose after the shooting death of Michel Vienneau at the Bathurst train station on Jan. 12, 2015. Police were waiting for him based on Crime Stoppers tips that the 51-year-old Tracadie man was trafficking drugs. The tips were false.

A complaint filed by the Bathurst police chief with the New Brunswick Police Commission led to the hearing that began Oct. 16 and heard from 11 witnesses. 

Bathurst Police Force constables Mathieu Boudreau and Patrick Bulger each face five counts of violating a code of conduct: that they didn't properly use and carry a firearm, abused authority, were oppressive or abusive to a person, neglected their duty, and acted in a discreditable manner.

Bathurst Police Force constables Mathieu Boudreau, left, and Patrick Bulger deny their actions violated a code of conduct. (Pierre Fournier/CBC)

Boudreau and Bulger denied the allegations. The chief has recommended they be fired. 

The final witness called by the police chief testified Oct. 23. Legislation sets out that the arbitrator hearing the case, Michaud, must decide if there's a "prima facie" case after the chief finishes calling evidence. 

Essentially, Michaud had to decide not whether he believed the evidence, but "whether there is any evidence, if left uncontradicted, to satisfy the reasonable person." The analysis did not assess the credibility of that evidence at this stage. 

The Via Rail train station in Bathurst following the January 2015 shooting death of Michel Vienneau. (Bridget Yard/CBC)

Case law says the arbitrator at this stage had to assume the evidence to be true and assign the most favourable meaning to any ambiguous statements. The written decision called it an uneasy task as much of the evidence the chief called is quite favourable to the officers.

Michaud wrote that the testimony of other police officers involved in intercepting Vienneau that day and a subsequent RCMP investigation of the shooting all suggest Boudreau and Bulger's actions "were beyond reproach."

However, he wrote that even if this evidence potentially leads to an ultimate dismissal of the code of conduct charges, it can't justify dismissing the charges at this point as it would require assessing credibility. 

 Annick Basque, Michel Vienneau's fiancée when he was shot and killed by police in January 2015, testified at the arbitration hearing about what happened. ( Francois Vigneault/Radio-Canada)

Michaud said the prima facie case that they violated the code of conduct was largely established by testimony from Annick Basque, Gerald Jean and Wayne Coster.

He summarized various points that met the low threshold to support a prima facie case, though wrote some of this evidence was significantly weakened on cross-examination or should be disregarded for being at odds with the versions offered by other witnesses.

Basile Chiasson, the lawyer for the police chief, declined to comment.

T.J. Burke, the lawyer for Boudreau, said in an interview Monday he expects his client will testify when the hearing resumes on Nov. 4. 

"He will need to to explain what happened that day, why he went from the police department to the train station, he'll have to explain all of the objective and subjective elements in terms of the investigative tips why they were on at the train station and why, ultimately, he had discharged this firearm in an effort to save his partner's life," Burke said.

Brian Munro and T.J. Burke, lawyers representing Bathurst Police Force constables Patrick Bulger and Mathieu Boudreau, speak Oct. 23 with Basile Chiasson, the lawyer for the Bathurst police chief. (Shane Magee/CBC)

Brian Munro, a lawyer representing Bulger, did not return a request for comment. 

Lawyers have set aside Nov. 22 if a second day for testimony is required.

After the officers finish calling evidence, both sides would present final arguments. It's unclear what day that may occur. Then Michaud would issue a final decision. 

Basque, Vienneau's fiancée, was in the car with him when he was shot.

She testified they had returned from a weekend trip to Montreal to watch a hockey game. When he began backing out of the train station parking lot, she said a car was next to Vienneau's with two men arguing. She said the car moved to block Vienneau's car and she saw the passenger jump out, slip and fall before standing up with a gun. 

She testified she didn't think Bulger and Boudreau were police officers, instead wondering if they were terrorists, or "druggies." She said Vienneau steered the car to avoid them, while he pushed her head under the dash.

She testified she didn't hear them identify themselves as police and did not see flashing police lights on their unmarked car. 

An RCMP report that was entered as evidence found Vienneau "purposely hit" Bulger with his car, though he may not have known he was a police officer. Boudreau then fired four times, striking Vienneau twice.

Larry Wilson, right, testified about leading the RCMP investigation of the Bathurst shooting. A use of force analysis included with the report he wrote called the shooting justified under the circumstances. (Shane Magee/CBC)

A use of force analysis included with the RCMP report concluded the shooting was justified as Boudreau sought to save his partner's life. 

An investigation after the shooting by RCMP found no evidence Vienneau was trafficking drugs or had any criminal links. 

Last week, the federal government formally announced it was rejecting a New Brunswick government request that N.B. Power be allowed to operate Belledune until 2040, 10 years past a national deadline forbidding the generation of electricity using coal. 

It's a decision the utility has said will cost it up to $1.2 billion in financing and new energy expenses, and last week Premier Blaine Higgs said that could force the utility to look for up to $280 million a year more from its in-province customers to maintain service.

"Without Belledune, we could have electricity rates that go up 15 or 20 per cent," said Higgs Friday.

• No extension past 2030 for Belledune coal-fired power plant, Ottawa says
• Analysis: Belledune generating station focus of political jousting in N.B.

Part of that enormous price tag is linked to unretired debt from the original construction of Belledune.

That debt was supposed to be eliminated prior to 2030, but won't be because of an accounting change the utility made several years ago under then-CEO Gaëtan Thomas.

Former N.B. Power CEO Gaëtan Thomas announced the utility made a $12-million profit in the 2016 fiscal year. It had been an $8-million loss until the utility made a controversial accounting change to slow down the pace at which it retired the debt on two plants, including Belledune. (CBC)

Plant initially on schedule to retire debt by 2028

Belledune opened in December 1993 after several years of construction, at a final cost of $1.17 billion.

That expense was to be depreciated, or fully settled, over 35 years and was on schedule to be retired in 2028, until the utility suddenly changed course in 2016.

With only 12 years to go until Belledune was fully paid off, the utility conducted an assessment of the plant's physical condition, determined it could operate until December 2040, and added 12 more years to its accounting life and depreciation retirement schedule.  

• Poor planning at root of failed N.B. Power debt strategy, says expert

The change at Belledune, and a similar one made at Saint John's Coleson Cove oil-fired generating  station, instantly saved N.B. Power $19.8 million per year in finance charges on the two plants at a time the utility's finances were struggling.   

In the 2016 fiscal year the accounting manoeuver suddenly turned what was going to be an $8-million loss at the utility into a profit. That allowed Thomas to announce $12 million in net earnings for the year.

But it also pushed Belledune's debt retirement from 2028 to 2040, a move critics warned at the time would saddle the utility with a steep bill if Belledune was forced to close in 2030.

U.S.-based utility expert Robert Knecht argued at N.B. Power rate hearings held by the Energy and Utilities Board in 2017 that slowing down depreciation at both Belledune and Coleson Cove was a poor idea.

Knecht, who was hired by New Brunswick public intervener Heather Black to evaluate N.B. Power's budget numbers, said that given federal government plans announced in late 2016 to impose carbon taxes and phase out coal, the utility could not bank on either generating station surviving until 2040.

"Given the large uncertainties associated with the recently adopted policy framework, I recommend that the proposed change in depreciation lives be deferred until such time as the economic and legal implications of the new framework for the long-term viability of these facilities is understood," Knecht said in his written evidence at the hearing.

N.B. Power claims closing the thermal generating station in Belledune in 2030, 10 years earlier than it had hoped, will cost it up to $1.2 billion. (Jacques Poitras/CBC News file photo)

Former senior N.B. Power executive Bill Marshall agreed with Knecht, and showed up at a public hearing sponsored by the EUB as part of those hearings to say so.

"I think that the amount of uncertainty there is around the carbon future outgoing, this is not the time to change the lives of those power plants," said Marshall.  

At the time of the accounting change, N.B. Power still had $440 million tied up in Belledune.

Instead of eliminating that by 2028, the new plan was to shave the amount down to $200 million by 2028 and use the following dozen years to retire the rest.

Stretching Belledune's accounting life cut depreciation expenses and boosted the utility's bottom line in the short term, but if Ottawa stuck to its 2030 deadline on using coal the change promised a big bill for unretired debt at the plant down the road.

EUB board member Michael Costello was baffled by the move.

"Extending the life of a coal-fired facility, does it just not strike you as kind of odd in this day and age with what we are heading into," asked Costello.  

N.B. Power argued the move met accounting standards and was appropriate given there was a chance it might be able to operate Belledune until 2040 if it could secure a so-called equivalency agreement.

The utility was hoping Ottawa would allow it to reduce Belledune's annual output of emissions in exchange for spreading them over a longer period of time. It told the 2017 hearing that until it received a firm rejection, it would account for Belledune as being viable until 2040.

"So given that we don't know the what, when or how, this is the best information that we have," N.B. Power senior vice-president Lori Clark said.

The EUB eventually approved the accounting change and, since the 2016 fiscal year, N.B. Power has saved itself $91.7 million in depreciation charges by slowing the retirement of Belledune's debt. But those amounts didn't go away. They are still owed and now due much sooner than the utility planned on.

Green Party Leader David Coon said the legislature's public accounts committee holds some responsibility for keeping the utility in check, but the Energy Act should be amended to give the Energy and Utilities Board the authority to approve the utility's 10-year plans and not just rate increases.

"Without that, you know, they've got one arm tied behind their back and you're not getting the accountability necessary," said Coon.

Adair-Macpherson questioned the business sense of keeping New Brunswick's electricity rates some of the lowest in Atlantic Canada.

Green Party Leader David Coon, Liberal Leader Roger Melanson, and People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin responded to the auditor general's report on this week's political panel. (CBC)

"While maintaining a consistently low annual rate may be advantageous to NB Power consumers, it is likely contributing to its failure to meet the debt to equity target and ever-increasing debt level," said Adair-Macpherson.

Coon said the province should look at amending the Energy Act to deal with industry rates.

"Right now [the act allows] NB Power … to deliver power for less than their cost to heavy industry. So they're losing on revenues there," said Coon.

People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said he believes the utility would benefit from narrowing its focus to providing electricity to customers.

"I've seen lately that NB Power seems to be branching out into other areas, such as, you know, investment in research and development, which I understand there has to be a certain element of," said Austin.

"You go back to, you know, things like Joi Scientific, where you see money literally just, you know, thrown down the drain here for these whimsical ideas."

The Progressive Conservatives were unable to provide someone to take part in the panel this week.

- David Campbell

Another rationale was that while NB Power projects aren't eligible for federal government funding, ventures under the NBESC could be. 

In recent years, NB Power has looked at business deals including an expansion of the Grand Falls hydro dam to sell electricity into the U.S. and new wind farms that would feed Emera's Atlantic Link transmission cable to New England.

Those projects did not go ahead, but Campbell said the corporation would have been the vehicle for any such deals.

So far, the corporation's only transaction was $10 million in research funding for the small modular reactors, or SMRs. The Liberals gave the corporation that amount in June 2018, and the corporation in turn invested the money in ARC Nuclear and Moltex Energy.

NBESC Chair David Campbell said the corporation was supposed to look at energy projects that wouldn't impact NB Power ratepayers. (CBC)

Campbell, who continues to chair the board as an unpaid volunteer, said the corporation produced an annual report that was submitted to Auditor General Kim MacPherson

MacPherson said the audit is still underway, and Campbell said he wasn't sure whether he could release the annual report to CBC News.

But he said other than proprietary commercial information, the corporation should be transparent.

"It should be wide open and public, and then if we get asked how that money is being spent, we should be able to account for that, for all that," he said. "It's public money so it should be very accountable."

There is also an "affiliate code of conduct" in place so that any time NB Power employees devote to the corporation is billed back to the NBESC so it doesn't affect ratepayers. That arrangement is subject to EUB review, Campbell said.

"To a certain extent, there are some accountability measures," Arseneault said.

Future uncertain

The corporation has been largely inactive in the last year pending the Higgs government's decision on its future.

In a recent interview with Future Power Technology magazine, Moltex's Canadian CEO Rory O'Sullivan said the company would be looking for $50 million to $70 million in government and private funding in the next three years. 

On a CBC political panel last month, Energy Minister Mike Holland floated the idea of overhauling the corporation to address concerns that it doesn't have to answer to the EUB for its funding decisions.

"There will be no initiative that goes forward related to anything under the department that I have under the government of Premier Higgs that's going to circumvent anything," he said.

Campbell said the Higgs government has effectively frozen the corporation's activities since taking power in November 2018. (CBC)

"I have no problem ensuring there are checks and balances." He offered to work with Coon if Coon wants to introduce legislation during the current session of the legislature.

"If there is no safeguard or there is an end run that could be done around that, let's change the makeup of that to make sure there's no ability to do an end run," Holland said.

Coon said there's been no movement on that since then.

Holland said in a statement Thursday that the corporation is "not actively pursuing new projects" and that the government is "looking at options" for its future.

Campbell said despite being the corporation being put on hold by the PCs, "we still have an actual organization," and the board had a meeting scheduled in the coming week, its first in more than a year. 

The high-profile chief economist at the Gallant government's Jobs Board is moving to a new position.

David Campbell, an economic development consultant the Liberals recruited in 2015 to help their job-creation efforts, will be the chair of the New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation.

The corporation, a joint venture between the provincial government and NB Power, will look for new customers for electricity generated in the province.

"I am excited to take on this important role and by the potential boost to export revenue from this important sector," Campbell said in a statement.

The province is creating the new company because it will be eligible for federal infrastructure funding that NB Power doesn't quality for as a provincial utility.

Watching over Grand Falls dam

The corporation would oversee the proposed expansion of NB Power's hydroelectric generating station in Grand Falls, a project that aims to market its non-fossil-fuel electricity in New England.

Campbell worked in economic development in the Frank McKenna government and started his own consulting firm in 2008. His blog critiquing government job creation efforts turned him into a frequent media commentator on economic development.

Premier Brian Gallant said when Campbell was recruited to the New Brunswick Jobs Board in 2015 that the secretariat and a new Crown corporation, Opportunities New Brunswick, would work together to help the province "better co-ordinate" job creation efforts.

Premier Blaine Higgs and his ministers traded accusations and counter-accusations with Liberal MLAs over the federal government's decision not to give the Belledune plant a 10-year extension on burning coal.

That decision means the province and N.B. Power have just more than eight years to find another source of electricity to make up for the power generated at Belledune.

But rather than debate those alternatives, the Liberal opposition made accusations that Higgs hadn't even asked Ottawa for the extension.

"There was never any official request in writing to the federal government to extend, by 10 years, the operation of Belledune, using coal," leader Roger Melanson said in question period.

"I want to see it. I do not believe what this government is saying. I want to see it on paper." 

Opposition Leader Roger Melanson said he no longer believes the Higgs government ever asked Ottawa for an extension of the Belledune plant's life span. (CBC)

In fact, in June the province published draft regulations online on capping greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation. It said publicly those rules "will form the basis of the province's equivalency discussions with the federal government."

Those proposals, which would have spread the same cumulative volume of emissions out to 2040, were also reported on at the time by media organizations.

"The leader of the Opposition may think he's got a revelation here, but it really isn't," Higgs said. "It may be in the [newspaper], so we could cut it out and send it to you, or send it online." 

The premier also took his own share of partisan shots at the opposition.

"The Liberal philosophy is always coming at it from the other end: how much money do you have to spend, regardless of how many projects you have that make sense to spend it on?" he said.

  'We could cut it out and send it to you,' Premier Blaine Higgs said to Melanson, suggesting the evidence Melanson was looking for had been printed in local newspapers. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

The contentious exchanges belied the general consensus between the two parties on the broad brushstrokes of climate policy. Both the PCs and Liberals:

• Have accepted that Belledune can't burn coal past 2030.

• Agree on an emissions reductions target of 10.7 megatonnes by the same year.

• Support the "Atlantic Loop" concept that would see a five-province regional power grid share more non-emitting hydroelectric power.

• Have instituted carbon pricing to create incentives to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

• Have subsidized small modular nuclear reactors as another alternative to fossil-fuel based electricity generation. 

Higgs acknowledged the policy congruence but added: "Whether you can ever harness those similarities in a meaningful way is the debate."

On Friday it appeared they could not.

The Liberals also accused the government of concealing when they knew Belledune would not get an extension, an allegation that was harder for the premier to refute. 

The premier told reporters that for months, Ottawa "absolutely told us they're not interested in talking about anything to do with an extension on Belledune" and that a final, definitive "No" came three or four weeks ago.

"They just continued not to even address our suggestions or proposals that we've had around an equivalency agreement. … The 'No' has been consistent from Ottawa."

The premier wasn't able to explain why Environment and Climate Change Minister Gary Crossman was still suggesting a deal was possible as late as Tuesday, if the province has known for weeks Ottawa wouldn't agree to the extension. (CBC)

But the premier couldn't explain in that case why Environment and Climate Change Minister Gary Crossman wouldn't say that earlier this week.

Crossman said Tuesday he met Nov. 19 with his federal counterpart Steven Guilbeault and "did ask about flexibility, and we're looking forward to the next meeting coming up, hopefully in the near future."

Higgs said he wasn't sure why Crossman didn't reveal what the province already knew at that point.

"You'll have to ask him that because I don't know about the conversation on Tuesday. I know Ottawa has never entertained our equivalency agreement discussions or negotiations."

Confirmation of the Belledune decision came Wednesday in response to a question to Guilbeault's office from CBC News.

Higgs said without Belledune operating, N.B. Power could be forced to raise power rates for consumers by 15 or 20 per cent

But he also said that the Atlantic Loop could provide enough electricity to make up for the plant's lost generation.

The loop would link huge power dams in Quebec and Labrador with electricity grids in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, allowing emissions-free electricity to move back and forth between five provinces to meet demand.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Oct. 25, Higgs asked the federal government for $5 billion to help New Brunswick and other provinces upgrade transmission links.

On Friday, the Liberals demanded that Higgs commit at least some of that money to help the economy in the Restigouche-Chaleur region, where the closure of the Belledune plant would cost about 100 direct N.B. Power jobs and even more indirect positions.

The Opposition Liberals are demanding Higgs put some money into the Chaleur region to boost the economy once the Belledune power station closes. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)

Higgs said his government is committed to helping the economy in the area, but he said past governments have made costly mistakes by forcing N.B. Power to undertake expensive projects when a business case didn't exist.

"We may very well be able to invest it, hopefully in the region, for future generation, but it needs to be something based on decision-making criteria that say this makes sense for the taxpayers and the region," he said.

Green Party Leader David Coon said the Chaleur region would be an ideal setting for new clean energy generation, including solar and wind power.

"It's a fantastic opportunity," he said. "We just need the imagination to seize it and the resources to pursue it.".

After the sharp PC-Liberal partisan exchanges Friday, Coon pointed out Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston took "a very different approach" in early October by convening a meeting of all provincial party leaders and federal MPs to discuss the Atlantic Loop.

"It really lands, to me, at the feet of the premier for not inviting everyone in to the circle to let us know what's been going on." 

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices

Mike Holland says the federal government's 2030 deadline for phasing out coal doesn't give the government enough time to put in place alternatives such as small nuclear reactors.

"Give me runway so we can put these things together," Holland said. "Give me some time and we'll put these renewables and non-emitters in place."

Even some of those options remain uncertain.

The province officially submitted draft regulations to Ottawa recently as the next step in negotiating a potential deal to continue burning coal at NB Power's Belledune generating station until 2040.

The proposal would see the province use Belledune only during winter months. The province says that would allow the plant to emit the same total, cumulative volume of greenhouse gases through 2040 as it would operating full-time until 2030.

The Government of New Brunswick has asked that Ottawa allow NB Power to keep burning coal at its Belledune generating station until 2040. (NB Power)

There just isn't enough time to come up with new sources of power by 2030, Holland said.

"The commitment is there to meet that ultimate goal, but the trajectory needs to come in line with initiatives that we've already completed or are in the middle of.

"We're confident we can meet the target but we need that runway. We need runway."

Without a so-called equivalency agreement, NB Power would have to build a new natural gas-fired generating station, a $1.5 billion expense that would have to be passed on to ratepayers.

While natural gas is cleaner than coal, it still emits greenhouse gases, meaning a new plant would be subject to carbon pricing and other climate policies. 

Anticipating new federal generating standards

Environmental researcher Louise Comeau says she expects new federal standards soon on electricity generation that would aim to "drive fossil fuels out of the electricity system" by 2035.

The Belledune dilemma isn't new, but every day that goes by without a solution, or an agreement with Ottawa, is a day closer to the plant's shutdown.

And the timeline is even more pressing in light of new, even more aggressive greenhouse gas emissions goals from the federal government.

They would require New Brunswick to get emissions from electricity generation down to a cumulative 54.2 megatonnes between 2021 to 2040.

Previously, Ottawa's modelling would have allowed a maximum of 63 megatonnes during those two decades.

The old requirement worked out to 3.15 megatonnes per year. In 2019, the most recent year with records available, emissions from electricity generation in New Brunswick were 3.3 megatonnes, down from 3.7 in 2019.

Under the regulations proposed to Ottawa, the province would cap the emissions at an average of 2.9 megatonnes a year from now until 2025, and then at annual averages of 2.8, 2.4 and 2.3 megatonnes in each five-year period after that.

Another option for making up lost generation at Belledune is small modular nuclear reactors.

But NB Power doesn't expect them to be generating as much electricity as Belledune until the mid-2030s, says Brad Coady, the executive director of business development and strategic planning at the utility.

And it's not clear there'll be a viable business case for the reactors.

"History doesn't tell us that that's how it's going to go, necessarily," says Comeau, citing the huge debt NB Power accumulated from the Point Lepreau generating station.

"We need something that's affordable and reliable, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I'm not convinced that's going to be the saviour for them." 

Louise Comeau a climate-policy researcher at the University of New Brunswick, says she expects federal regulations will drive fossil fuels out of the electricity system by 2035. (CBC)

In fact, so far NB Power's projections don't rely on any electricity from SMRs.

It is expecting to get more of the output from the Bayside natural gas generation plant in Saint John, which it bought two years ago.

Bayside will reach the end of its natural design life in 2026 unless NB Power spends $144 million to extend it into 2038, according to the utility's most recent integrated resource plan. 

That's also factored into the projections, as is the time the plant would be down for its upgrade.

Another potential substitute is hydroelectric power that New Brunswick will import from Hydro-Quebec under an agreement signed last year.

The utility says in its 2020 integrated resource plan that non-emitting solar and wind power present "an interesting challenge" because it relies on weather, making it "varied and largely unpredictable."

In 2017 the province's three largest wind farms operated at less than one-third capacity during more than half the year, the report says.

Because conventional generating stations can't be easily turned on and off based on whether it's sunny or windy, "this highlights the challenges of balancing intermittent resources such as wind or solar," it says. 

Holland says reducing demand for electricity is another potential piece of the puzzle.

The province has already looked at and discarded two other ideas to convert Belledune.

One would have used a new hydrogen technology, but it was revealed to be flawed. A second would have seen the plant burn byproduct gas from an iron plant that would have been the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the province.

Canada's latest emissions-reductions goal is 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

New Brunswick emitted 12 megatonnes of greenhouse gases in 2019, which was 38 percent below 2005 levels, exceeding reductions called for in the Paris climate agreement.

But the province's official reduction target in its climate change law is to reach 10.7 megatonnes by 2030. That's 47 per cent below 2005 levels, which would surpass the new federal target.

Green Party Leader David Coon said the legislature's public accounts committee holds some responsibility for keeping the utility in check, but the Energy Act should be amended to give the Energy and Utilities Board the authority to approve the utility's 10-year plans and not just rate increases.

"Without that, you know, they've got one arm tied behind their back and you're not getting the accountability necessary," said Coon.

Adair-Macpherson questioned the business sense of keeping New Brunswick's electricity rates some of the lowest in Atlantic Canada.

Green Party Leader David Coon, Liberal Leader Roger Melanson, and People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin responded to the auditor general's report on this week's political panel. (CBC)

"While maintaining a consistently low annual rate may be advantageous to NB Power consumers, it is likely contributing to its failure to meet the debt to equity target and ever-increasing debt level," said Adair-Macpherson.

Coon said the province should look at amending the Energy Act to deal with industry rates.

"Right now [the act allows] NB Power … to deliver power for less than their cost to heavy industry. So they're losing on revenues there," said Coon.

People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said he believes the utility would benefit from narrowing its focus to providing electricity to customers.

"I've seen lately that NB Power seems to be branching out into other areas, such as, you know, investment in research and development, which I understand there has to be a certain element of," said Austin.

"You go back to, you know, things like Joi Scientific, where you see money literally just, you know, thrown down the drain here for these whimsical ideas."

The Progressive Conservatives were unable to provide someone to take part in the panel this week.

About 9,000 members of the New Brunswick Nurses Union began voting last week, with votes being counted Monday at the Delta Hotel in Fredericton.

By late afternoon, union president Paula Doucet confirmed the results of the three bargaining units' votes — with a combined vote of 92 per cent in favour.

"Our nursing home nurses voted 89 per cent in favour ... Our Part 3 nurses — so all of Vitalité, Horizon and [Extramural] — was  91 per cent  and our nurse managers and supervisors 96 per cent," Doucet told CBC News, noting the mood was "very jubilant."

• Nurses say working conditions have reached 'crisis'

The union and the province are to return to the bargaining table on Tuesday, the first time they have done so since late September.

Doucet declined to comment Monday on what the union will be seeking during bargaining, citing a media blackout. 

"But I think anybody just has to look at recent media reports of working conditions" across the province, she said.

"Right now for a nurse in New Brunswick, it hasn't been great."

Doucet has often warned of the pressures of nursing shortages and the increasing reality of burnout, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

No job action planned at this time

Doucet noted no strike or other job action is planned at this time.

"We would have to give seven days notice before we take any job action," she said. "In the spirit of going back to the table, that would be where we would want to get our deal, is at the table and not out on the sidewalk."

Erika Jutras, communications manager for the province's Finance and Treasury Board, told CBC News that the province would likewise not be making any statement while talks are ongoing.

The union represents 9,000 licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners. They have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2018, and members have twice rejected tentative agreements.

Monday's vote comes just weeks after a strike vote by provincial workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

More than 20,000 public servants, including school bus drivers, educational support staff and workers in transportation, corrections and the community college system, went on strike in late October for more than two weeks. 

The province ordered striking health-care workers, which did not include nurses, back to work using an emergency order. CUPE is challenging the order in court.

The other locals remained on strike. All but one local voted to accept a contract proposal worked out during the strike.

As of 9:40 a.m. Tuesday, N.B. Power was reporting 7,254 customers affected by outages. Salisbury Elementary and JMA Armstrong High, west of Moncton, are closed because of a power outage.

The majority of the outages are in the Salisbury and Norton areas in southern New Brunswick. The Fredericton and New Maryland areas also have outages affecting more than 1,300 customers.

According to the Government of New Brunswick, some areas in the province saw between 23 and 28 millimetres of rain on Monday, including the Saint Quentin and Musquash areas.

The Moncton airport recorded gusts of up to 80 km/h early Tuesday morning, according to Environment Canada.

The warning is contained in briefing documents drafted for Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault in preparation for a meeting he had with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this year.

That meeting focused on the rise of foreign interference in Canada — something CSIS says has become "more sophisticated, frequent, and insidious."

One way foreign states — including the People's Republic of China (PRC) — try to exert pressure on other countries is through media outlets, say the documents, obtained through an access to information request.

"In particular, PRC media influence activities in Canada have become normalized," it reads.

"Chinese-language media outlets operating in Canada and members of the Chinese-Canadian community are primary targets of PRC-directed foreign influenced activities."

CSIS director David Vigneault holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, July 16, 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

CSIS spokesperson John Townsend said foreign states target both mainstream media outlets — print publications, radio and television programs — and non-traditional online outlets and social media channels to pursue their goals.

"Mainstream news outlets, as well as community sources, may also be targeted by foreign states who attempt to shape public opinion, debate, and covertly influence participation in the democratic process," he said.

"Considering Canada's rich multicultural makeup, foreign states may try to leverage or coerce individuals within communities to help influence to their benefit what is being reported by Canadian media outlets."

China has an effective influence network, report finds

It's a tactic former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu said he knows all too well. He said he was targeted during the recent federal election by a misinformation campaign run through Chinese language media outlets and social media.

"If that's the normal behaviour, then we should really become concerned," he said. 

Chiu said he was attacked online as anti-Chinese after introducing a private member's bill that would require agents of foreign governments to register and report on their activities. He lost the B.C. riding of Steveston-Richmond East to Liberal Parm Bains by almost 3,000 votes.

"I just felt, first of all, very sad. I feel ridiculous. I feel sad because some of my fellow Canadians of Chinese descent, why would they even believe in this information?" he said.

Former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu says he felt targeted by misinformation during the last election campaign. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Earlier this year, Alliance Canada Hong Kong — an umbrella group for Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in this country — released a report alleging the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) runs a sophisticated network that inserts Beijing-friendly narratives into various media outlets.

The report says China has been exploiting a lack of oversight in short-staffed newsrooms to push the party line abroad.

It says China sometimes pushes those narratives in the open — through sponsored posts or advertorial inserts written by Chinese party-state media — while groups closely tied to Chinese authorities buy digital or print ads parroting party rhetoric.

"It's meant to portray that it's indicative they're the group that speaks on behalf of all Chinese folks, all the Canadian Chinese, which is just not true," said Ai-Men Lau, an adviser with Alliance Canada Hong Kong.

China also uses its toehold in Canadian ethnic Chinese media to keep journalists in line, she said. 

"For years, reporters in ethnic media are often required to self-censor themselves or face uprisings. We've seen journalists being fired. If they take a certain line, they don't get their columns posted anymore in ethnic media," she said. 

Alliance Canada Hong Kong's report says Beijing influences voices in mainstream media outlets as well.

"In the mainstream media, vocal supporters wooed through elite capture deliver Beijing's messages in op-eds and media appearances, helping to sway popular perceptions," says the report.

The CSIS briefing note said a number of countries (their names are blacked-out in the note) work to undermine Canada's political processes at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, and within Indigenous governments.

'Persistent targeting' ongoing says CSIS

The heavily redacted document says that politicians and party riding associations are targeted by these foreign influence operations, along with members of Chinese-Canadian communities.

Earlier this year, CSIS reported that foreign states were looking to bribe or blackmail voters and politicians. That same report said some such operations also rely on flattery, money and even romantic entanglements to push their agenda.

Ai-Men Lau said she expects to see China's harassment of dissidents abroad continue.

"You see out of Hong Kong, people are leaving and they're leaving because of the national security law. It's kind of like baggage — whether you want it or not, it follows you," she said.

"So that's something that I think Canadian officials or decision makers and policymakers and politicians need to think of when we talk about addressing these issues ... It's going to stay with us for a while."

Townsend said CSIS is reaching out to communities under pressure.

"While I cannot speak in detail about the specifics of our assessments and investigations, I can say that CSIS has observed persistent targeting of specific communities here in Canada, both in person and through the use of online campaigns, by foreign state actors," he said.

'Sunlight' policy needed: Vigneault

In his meeting with Trudeau, Vigneault said Canada has a role to play in calling out media influence tactics in public.

"Canada can make use of a policy that is grounded in transparency and sunlight in order to highlight the point that foreign interference should be exposed to the public and clandestine practices are not equivalent to public diplomacy," the CSIS briefing documents said.

"Various state actors are currently using foreign interference activities with limited impunity to undermine Canada's interests."

Chiu said he wants to see a stronger approach from the federal government.

"The Chinese government controls WeChat, has a monopoly on many Canadians' lives and their ears and their brains ... we need to find a solution to that," he said.

"We also need to monitor and make sure that our regulators ... make sure that ... broadcasters and the commentators are held responsible for this information they help spread, especially during the election or before the election."

Ai-Men Lau also called for more oversight to make sure China isn't manipulating media and threatening journalists.

CSIS said it recently increased its investigative efforts and triggered threat reduction measures — a term referring to its broad legal powers to reduce threats to the security of Canada.

The main restriction on CSIS's threat reduction powers is that the service can't intentionally — or by criminal negligence — cause death or bodily harm, violate sexual integrity or willfully obstruct justice.

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.

"The traditional state-to-state threats that we have seen in the past are no longer [exclusive]. Things like pandemics and COVID-19, things like climate change, those do have national security dimensions."

The report calls on the federal government to build a better "strategic framework." It recommends the establishment of a new cabinet committee on national security chaired by the prime minister, which would have input from the public safety, defence and global affairs departments.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces help with pandemic response at a long-term care home in Montreal on May 16, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Some would say that's what election campaigns are all about. Seasoned pols will tell you there are no votes to be won in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with talk about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

But many experts say the reluctance of Canada's campaigning leaders to address the changing geopolitical landscape and the threats it may produce is myopic and dangerous — especially now, with the country slowly recovering from a foreign-spawned global pandemic that brought life as we knew it to a standstill.

'The world is a pretty angry place'

Those experts say they'd hoped the alarming world events of the past 18 months would force the campaigning parties to think and talk about national security and how Canada can protect its interests globally. It didn't happen.

"We're coming to this realization that the world is a pretty angry place," said Aaron Shull, managing director and general counsel at the Centre for International Governance and Innovation.

"Countries don't have friends. We have alliances and strategic interests, but we are now coming to the realization that we have to make our place in the world."

     A nuclear-powered Type 094A Jin-class ballistic missile submarine of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seen during a military display in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. (Reuters)

Shull and University of Ottawa historian Wesley Wark are co-leading a project that hopes to re-imagine Canada's national security strategy.

Wark is one of the country's leading intelligence experts and has been a vocal critic of Canada's failures in pandemic preparation. He examined the foreign policy planks of each major party and found all of them wanting.

Vague, scattershot approaches to foreign policy

The Conservatives produced the most exhaustive list of promises but they were scattered and unfocused, said Wark. 

"None of the parties have a central coherent statement on national security. What is it? What does it mean to us?" said Wark. He summarized the Liberal government's position as status quo, while saying the NDP made some general pledges without a lot of specifics.

The Liberal platform contained no dedicated national security section — a puzzling omission, given the fact that the previous Trudeau governments spent enormous amounts of time and energy dealing with the fallout from external events: the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the pandemic.

     A health worker takes a nasal swab sample of a Kashmiri to test for COVID-19 in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. (Dar Yasin/Associated Press)

Still, said Wark, a lot of thought is being given within government to reorganizing the national security framework. He said there is some "enthusiasm" on the part of senior bureaucrats for the project.

He said he hopes that revamped framework includes climate change and pandemics in a new definition of what represents a threat to this country's interests.

Reacting after the fact

Shull pointed out that, unlike other nations, Canada does not have a permanent cabinet committee to deal with national security matters.

"We tend not to treat national security issues with seriousness at the political level in the public discourse," he said.

"The pinnacle of national security in this country is the incident response group. It's an ad hoc committee of cabinet that meets on a periodic basis, but here's the thing — incident response by definition means you're already on your back foot. It means something is happening and you're responding."

Put simply, Shull said, what he and Wark are proposing is a new national security council, or some other body that would allow Canada "to lean into the world and not always be responding."

Afghan refugees are shown in an Italian Red Cross camp in Avezzano, Italy, on Aug. 31. (Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press)

He said the Trudeau government needs to ask itself what Canada's "core interests" are and how best to protect them.

Canada has not had a national security strategy since 2004. Shull said that means Canada doesn't have a current strategy.

AUKUS might be the catalyst that starts those discussions in Ottawa, Wark said — but first they'll have to overcome the widely-held belief in government circles that the Canadian public doesn't care about national security.

"It is a belief that is convenient to political cadres because national security discussions are often hard and complex," he said.

But COVID-19 itself was an external threat in the beginning. If anything, the pandemic might serve to convince Canadians that the time to have this conversation is now, Wark said.

It could take up to seven years for the Canadian military's recruitment efforts to recover from the fallout of both the sexual misconduct crisis and the pandemic, says the country's acting chief of the defence staff.

Speaking Monday at the Kingston Conference on International Security, Gen. Wayne Eyre said he's increasingly worried about the decline in the size of both the regular and reserve forces. He said he's particularly alarmed at the number of experienced leaders — officers and noncommissioned officers — who are putting in their release notices and quitting the service.

The matter was discussed as late as last week at a command-level gathering. Eyre said he's encouraging his senior leaders to stay and asking them to urge others to do the same.

"We need our mid-level leaders to dig deep and do this for the institution, to put service before self, not to retreat into retirement but to advance forward and face the challenges head-on," Eyre said in answer to a question about leadership during the virtual forum.

While leading during good times is relatively easy, Eyre said, the military now faces the challenge of rooting out a culture of misconduct and leadership impunity.

Eyre's remarks suggest he's had encounters with low morale among officers — the people he said he needs to rebuild the institution in the wake of the sexual misconduct crisis.

"Many of our senior leaders are looking up and saying, 'Yes, I don't want to be there.' But we need them," he said.

Eyre's predecessor as chief of defence staff, retired general Jonathan Vance, was charged by military police in July with one count of obstruction of justice in relation to an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Recent months have seen an almost relentless series of allegations of sexual misconduct touching the most senior ranks — including Eyre's predecessors, Admiral Art McDonald and retired general Jonathan Vance.

Nearly a dozen leaders have been accused of either sexual impropriety or of downplaying abhorrent behaviour. That's left many military officers and non-commissioned officers looking for the exit.

Eyre has described the brain-drain an "existential crisis" and a matter of national security.

The 'missing middle'

Compounding the problem for the Armed Forces is the COVID-19 pandemic, which has constrained both recruiting and training.

Eyre presented the defence conference with figures on Monday that show the full-time military is 7,500 people short of its required strength — an enormous gap in a regular force of around 70,000.

"And these are the heart of our command structure, the 'missing middle'– master corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, majors, master sailors, petty officers, lieutenant commanders," he said. "All vital leadership roles, both in the field and as we address the existential imperative of changing our internal culture."

Stefanie von Hlatky, associate professor of political studies at Queen's University, said recruiting and retention were already major challenges for the Armed Forces before the pandemic and the latest episode of the misconduct crisis.

It doesn't help, she said, that two of the leaders who were supposed to oversee policies related to growing the Armed Forces have been either removed or sidelined because of misconduct claims.

"Leadership churn in the command tasked with overseeing recruitment and retention obviously isn't helping solve these broader personnel strains," she said, referring to the cases of Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson and Lt.-Gen. Steve Whelan.

Eyre said he's working on a recruitment plan and Von Hlatky said it seems tailored to address urgent personnel shortages.

There will still be challenges, she said.

"In convincing service members to stay rather than retire, Gen. Eyre will have to provide some compelling incentives because there is this dual challenge," she said. "The CAF is in crisis internally and out there, the competition for talent is fierce."

The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 2,400 employees working in cryptography, applied mathematics, advanced language analysis and cybersecurity at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). PSAC announced the results of the vote Wednesday.

"They perform vital work protecting Canada from foreign cyber and attacks, foreign hacking attempts," Alex Silas, PSAC's regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region, told CBC News.

"For example, things that we saw this past July, there was an attempt to hack Canadian COVID-19 research. These are the workers that stopped that."

CSE, one of Canada's key intelligence agencies, employs about 2,900 people and is responsible for foreign intelligence and cybersecurity.

The vote comes nearly two years after talks stalled on a collective agreement. At issue is a change to the market allowance —  a wage supplement negotiated to close pay gaps with workers doing similar work in the private sector. It's a benefit often used to attract employees into highly technical jobs in the public service.

"CSE management is refusing to apply a wage increase to the portion of workers' salaries that is made up of market allowances," said Silas.

"To give you an idea, for some of these workers [that] represents as much as 10 per cent of their annual income. So it's a significant financial loss."

The vote does not mean workers are heading for the picket lines.

"We are now ramping up preparations and coordinating with our members to determine the precise actions that will be taken and their timing. But we emphasize that strike action can still be avoided if CSE management comes back to the table and steps away from its concession or agrees to arbitration," said PSAC spokesperson Alroy Fonseca.

CSE says services will continue

Christopher Williams, director general of CSE public affairs and communications services, said CSE's executive management team continues to work toward a resolution with the union.

"However, we can tell you that essential service agreements are in place to ensure that all areas of CSE have the people at work necessary to continue to provide for the safety and security of the public in the event of a strike," he said in an email to CBC News.

CSE has been sounding the alarm about the threat of cyber attacks on research facilities and the health care sector during the pandemic. It was one of the intelligence agencies that stated a hacker group backed by Russia "almost certainly" tried to steal COVID-19-related vaccine research in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.

Late last year, CSE warned that state-sponsored actors are "very likely" trying to shore up their cyber capabilities to attack Canada's critical infrastructure — such as the electricity supply — to intimidate or to prepare for future online assaults.

While the lights will remain on, the union says the agency will lose workers if it doesn't offer competitive salaries.

"What does it say about how we prioritize national security?" said Silas. "If CSE as an employer, as management, doesn't recognize the need to pay these workers a fair market rate, how are we going to attract and retain the talent needed for the important work of keeping Canadians safe from cyber attacks?"

"As physical infrastructure and processes continue to be connected to the internet, cyber threat activity has followed, leading to increasing risk to the functioning of machinery and the safety of Canadians," says a new national cyber threat assessment drafted by the Communications Security Establishment.

"We judge that state-sponsored actors are very likely attempting to develop the additional cyber capabilities required to disrupt the supply of electricity in Canada."

Today's report — the second from the agency's Canadian Centre for Cyber Security wing — looks at the major cyber threats to Canadians' physical safety and economic security.

The CSE does say in the report that while it's unlikely cyber threat actors would intentionally disrupt critical infrastructure — such as water and electricity supplies — to cause major damage or loss of life, they would target critical organizations "to collect information, pre-position for future activities, or as a form of intimidation."

Such preliminary attacks have happened already.

The report said Russia-associated actors probed the networks of electricity utilities in the U.S. and Canada last year and Chinese state-sponsored cyber threat actors have targeted U.S. utility employees. Other countries have seen their industrial control systems targeted by Iranian hacking groups and North Korean malware was found in the IT networks of an Indian power plant, it said.

The threat grows as more critical infrastructure goes high-tech.

Commercial espionage is already happening across a range of fields, says the CSE. (Shutterstock / Motortion Films)

In the past, the operational technology (OT) used to control dams, boilers, electricity and pipeline operations has been largely immune to cyberattacks — but that's changing as manufacturers incorporate newer information technology in their systems and products, says the report.

That technology might make things easier and lower costs, but it comes with risks, said Scott Jones, the head of the cyber centre.

"So that means now it is a target, it is accessible and it's vulnerable. So what you could see is shutting off of transmission lines, you can see them opening circuit breakers, meaning electricity simply won't flow to our homes to our business," he told reporters Wednesday.

While the probability of such attacks remains low, Jones said the goal of Wednesday's briefing is to send out the early warnings.

"We're not trying to scare people. We're certainly not trying to scare people into going off grid by building a cabin in the woods. We're here to say, 'Let's tackle these now while they're still paper, while they're still a threat we're writing down.'"

Steve Waterhouse, a former cybersecurity officer for the Department of National Defence who now teaches at Université de Sherbrooke, said a saving grace for Canada could be the makeup of its electrical systems.

"Since in Canada, they're very centralized, it's easier to defend ... while down in the States, they have multiple companies all around the place. So the weakest link is very hard to identify where it is, but the effect is a cascading effect across the country ... And it could impact Canada, just like we saw in the big Northeastern power outage, the blackout of 2003," he said.

"So that goes to say, we have to be prepared. And I believe most energy companies have been taking extra measures to protect and defend against these type of attacks."

In the future, attacks targeting so-called smart cities and internet-connected devices, such as personal medical devices, could also put Canadians at risk, says the report. 

Earlier this year, for example, Health Canada warned the public that medical devices containing a particular Bluetooth chip — including pacemakers, blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps — are vulnerable to cyber attacks that could crash them.

The foreign signals intelligence agency also says that while state-sponsored programs in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea "almost certainly" pose the greatest state-sponsored cyber threats to Canadian individuals and organizations, many other states are rapidly developing their own cyber programs.

Waterhouse said he was glad to see the government agency call out the countries by name, representing a shift in approach in recent years.

"To tackle on and be ready to face a cyber-attack, you have to know your enemy," he said.

"You have to know what's vulnerable inside of your organization. You have to know how ... vulnerable it is against the threats that are out there."

Commercial espionage continues

State-sponsored actors will also continue their commercial espionage campaigns against Canadian businesses, academia and governments to steal Canadian intellectual property and proprietary information, says the CSE.

"We assess that these threat actors will almost certainly continue attempting to steal intellectual property related to combating COVID-19 to support their own domestic public health responses or to profit from its illegal reproduction by their own firms," says the "key judgments" section of the report.

"The threat of cyber espionage is almost certainly higher for Canadian organizations that operate abroad or work directly with foreign state-owned enterprises."

The Communications Security Establishment Canada is pictured in Ottawa on October 15, 2013. The agency's latest threat assessment report looks at the major cyber risks threatening Canadians' physical safety and economic security. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

The CSE says such commercial espionage is happening already across multiple fields, including aviation, technology and AI, energy and biopharmaceuticals.

While state-sponsored cyber activity tends to offer the most sophisticated threats, CSE said that cybercrime continues to be the threat most likely to directly affect Canadians and Canadian organizations, through vectors like online scams and malware.

"We judge that ransomware directed against Canada will almost certainly continue to target large enterprises and critical infrastructure providers. These entities cannot tolerate sustained disruptions and are willing to pay up to millions of dollars to quickly restore their operations," says the report.

Cybercrime becoming more sophisticated 

According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Canadians lost over $43 million to cybercrime last year. The CSE reported earlier this year that online thieves have been using the COVID-19 pandemic to trick Canadians into forking over their money — through scams like a phishing campaign that claimed to offer access to a Canada Emergency Response Benefit payment in exchange for the target's personal financial details.

Online foreign influence activities — a dominant theme in the CSE's last threat assessment briefing — continue and constitute "a new normal" in international affairs as adversaries seek to influence domestic and international political events, says the agency.

"We assess that, relative to some other countries, Canadians are lower-priority targets for online foreign influence activity," it said.

"However, Canada's media ecosystem is closely intertwined with that of the United States and other allies, which means that when their populations are targeted, Canadians become exposed to online influence as a type of collateral damage."

According to the agency's own definition, "almost certainly" means it is nearly 100 per cent certain in its analysis, while "very likely" means it is 80-90 per cent certain of its conclusions. The CSE says its analysis is based off of a mix of confidential and non-confidential intelligence and sources.