Power Grids
To the Honourable MP
Hello I am a Canadian Citizen who would like to see our government protect Canadian power grids from threats such as cyber attacks, terrorism, EMP, etc. A lot of public discussion is out there in the United States over this topic but I wonder how vulnerable are our power grids here in Canada and what is being done to protect them? I recently read a book "Blackout Wars" written by experts in the topics of cyber war, power grids etc and they tell of the threat of US power grids being attacked, the catastrophic consequences of such an attack and what could be done to protect power grids from this threat. The threat to America of this kind of attack is very real and because of our close proximity to the US the threat of Canada being affected in a major way is also very high. Most Canadian cities are relatively close to the US border. The book says that power grids can be protected by installing blocking devices, surge arrestors, Faraday cages and other protection devices. It explains that two components in particular, of a power grid, the SCADAS (computers that run grids) and the Extra High Voltage Transformers are especially crucial to the operation of power grids and if extra copies of these components are kept protected and on hand then grids can be repaired much more quickly. I recommend the book as it goes into much more detail than I can in this email. Please take the necessary steps to protect Canadians from this type of potential catastrophe. Thank you.
Shawn Stevens