Kinda difficult this week to write about something topical without starting with the election in the United States and the rather surprising outcome. And, I’m sure you’ve already heard, but on the night of the election, Canada’s immigration website crashed from too many visits.

The idea of Americans wanting to move to Canada because of the election results is, in my mind, simply following a trend that I’ve noticed recently in the privacy industry. Case in point: Microsoft and Amazon both have recently committed to building server storage in Canada.

To be clear, we don’t have many laws that prohibit the flow of information to the United States (with the exception of British Columbia's and Nova Scotia’s public sector laws), so there is more to the decision to build data centres in Canada than legal requirements. I think there’s a growing sense that Canada has a lot to offer and having operations up here is good for a good many reasons.

I know I harp about the need for Canada’s laws to modernize and grow up, but, this week, I’m glad my country exhibits those characteristics that distinguish us.

This is why I hope that the CSIS story this past week on the over collection and retention of metadata doesn’t fall on deaf ears. We need to uphold Canadian values now, more than ever.