In our inaugural episode of Season 2, Ian L. Paterson sits down with Carey Frey, Chief Security Officer at TELUS, who leads security for one of Canada's largest telecommunications providers. Drawing on nearly two decades at the Communications Security Establishment—including roles as Director General of Cyber Defense and Director General of Cybersecurity Partnerships—Frey brings a rare dual perspective on critical infrastructure protection from both sides of the public-private divide.
He unpacks why collective cyber defense remains largely aspirational, how legal and fiduciary obligations pit corporate interests against national security, and why safe harbor provisions are essential to meaningful threat intelligence sharing. The conversation also tackles Canada's exposure to nation-state pre-positioning campaigns like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, and what it would take to apply hard-won emergency management lessons from natural disasters to a national-scale cyber event.
Essential listening for CISOs, infrastructure operators, and security policymakers navigating the realities of defending critical systems in an era of great-power competition. ■
