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The House

Midweek podcast: Battling cyber attacks and responding to the Rohingya crisis

On The House midweek podcast, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talks to Chris Hall about cyber security, growing tensions with Russia and Canada's potential involvement in Iraq. We also sit down with Bob Rae to discuss the recommendations he has for Canada's response to the Rohingya crisis.
CBC Radio ·
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says cyber attacks blur the lines between peace and war. (The Associated Press)

NATO's secretary general says he is "confident" Canada will continue to play a large role internationally, especially when it comes to responding to cyber attacks and terrorism.

Canada's expertise, provided to NATO's relatively new intelligence division, has been helpful in adapting the alliance to a shifting digital landscape, Jens Stoltenberg told CBC Radio's The House.

However, NATO nations still need to do more to stay ahead of cyber threats and terrorism, he added.

"It means that we need higher readiness," he said. "We have to be able to react very fast when we see that we're under attack."

Nations need to guard against online attacks but real-world terrorism by extremist groups like ISIS remains a potent threat, Stoltenberg said.

In March, NATO's chief military policy adviser sounded out Canada on the kind of commitment it might make to the alliance's expanded training mission in Iraq.

The Canadian military has a handful of combat engineers in the war-ravaged country under the NATO banner, training Iraqi soldiers in the finer points of bomb disposal. Canada also has troops contributing to the U.S.-led coalition.

But Stoltenberg said Canada could afford to expand those efforts.

"I hope that Canada can play an important role in providing trainers and expertise," he said.

"I'm confident that Canada will continue to do more in the alliance."

Canada needs to up its game on the Rohingya crisis: analysis

Canada should take a leadership role in responding to the Rohingya crisis, Bob Rae, Canada's special envoy to Myanmar, says in his final report. (Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

Bob Rae's final report on the Rohingya crisis got a lot of attention this week — most of it focused on his call for Canada to increase humanitarian and development aid to the nearly one million refugees who have fled violence and persecution in Myanmar.

There's good reason for that.

The monsoon season approaches. The camps inside the border of neighbouring Bangladesh, now home to hundreds of thousands of people, are squalid as it is. Aid workers say the bamboo-and-plastic shelters aren't built to withstand torrential rains. They warn disease — already a constant presence in the camps — will claim more and more lives.

"All I know is, and I say this in the report, if we don't make the effort, things will be even worse," Rae said in an interview for the podcast edition of CBC Radio's The House. "So let's get at it."

But Rae's report, culminating his work as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's special envoy to Myanmar, is more than a call for immediate action.

It's also a long-term plan. The goal is to ensure a persecuted minority survives in a country hostile to its very presence, to ensure that those responsible for what Rae bluntly calls crimes against humanity are held to account — and to create the conditions that would allow the Rohingya to return home.