Canada is rebuilding its defence and critical infrastructure economy. New security and compliance obligations come with it.
ascio gets Canadian companies ready for them: CPCSC certification, customer security reviews, ISO management systems, and AI oversight. Every service delivered with us, or self guided at your own pace.
Where do you sit?
Pick your situation. You get the obligation, the clock, and the first step. Five situations cover most of the Canadian economy, statutes and customer contracts alike.
CPCSC clauses in federal defence contracts. Requirements flow down from primes to subcontractors, so they reach you even when Canada is not your direct customer.
Level 1 is mandatory in select contracts now. Level 2, with 98 controls and external assessment, is expected in select contracts spring 2027.
Run the free Level 1 readiness check against the self assessment criteria. Five minutes, and the report shows what an assessor would ask next.
The Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act: a cyber security program, supply chain duties, incident reporting, and binding directions for designated operators in finance, telecommunications, energy, and transportation.
In force since June 15, 2026. Designation starts a 90 day program clock, and incident reporting will be capped near 72 hours.
Check your readiness against the four duties of the Act before your class appears in the schedule.
The governance the national AI strategy expects and the signaled legislation will formalize: policy, risk assessment, oversight, and records. Applies to AI you buy as much as AI you build.
AI for All live since June 4, 2026. The transparency consultation closed July 2026, and legislation is signaled behind it.
Inventory your AI, then run the ISO/IEC 42001 readiness assessment to see what a working management system would take.
No statute, but the same controls arrive by contract: security questionnaires, audit clauses, and flow down requirements from enterprise and government customers. This is how most Canadian businesses meet this economy.
Set by your sales pipeline. Usually it is the deal that is waiting on your answers.
A readiness assessment against ISO 27001 or CyberSecure Canada, sized to what your customers actually ask for rather than the whole catalog.
Probably at least one of the above. Most Canadian organizations sit under something here, through contracts if not statutes, and the overlap is where money gets wasted.
Cheap to find out now. Expensive to find out inside a bid, a customer review, or an incident.
A discovery call. Twenty minutes, and you leave with a straight answer about what applies and what does not.
Start with the requirement
Whether the pressure is coming from a defence contract, customer, insurer, certification requirement, or your board, Ascio helps you build the evidence and readiness they expect.
CPCSC Readiness
For defence and federal supply chain suppliers facing certification clauses: Levels 1, 2 and 3.
- Level 1 readiness and attestation support, available now
- Level 2 early scoping and evidence architecture
- Level 3 readiness, quoted after scoping
Buyer Assurance
For any company whose customers, insurers, or board want security proof.
- Buyer Assurance Pack: reusable security evidence
- Cyber Evidence Pack for insurance renewals
- Questionnaire Rescue for the deal that cannot wait
ISO Readiness
For organizations told to certify, by a customer, a market, or their own risk position.
- Information security management
- Business continuity and disaster recovery
- AI management systems
AI & Data Governance
For organizations running AI, holding personal data at scale, or answering boards and regulators.
- AI governance and data assurance
- Privacy and automated decision readiness
- Data and cloud sovereignty reviews
Two ways to work
Same method, same evidence. The difference is how much of ascio is in the room.
Your team drives
You get the programme for your obligation: the steps in order, the templates, the evidence checklist, and ascio reviewing your work at fixed points. The lower end of every price range.
ascio drives it with you
We do the assessing, the drafting, and the evidence assembly alongside your team, through to a finished evidence set. The upper end of every range.
Both routes end in the same place: evidence that holds up when someone checks it.
Governance & Compliance Review
Latest developments in Canadian cybersecurity certification, AI governance, and regulatory compliance.
OpenAI Halts Its Largest Frontier Training Run After Internal Models Approach Critical Cyber Capability
The upcoming Astra model may reach the top cyber capability tier of OpenAI's Preparedness Framework, so the company paused its flagship training run, hardened research clusters, and added token level monitoring that raises inference costs by about 20%. AI capability is now a board level cyber risk, not a research topic.
Read more →Medusa Ransomware Tops 500 Victims as an Updated Federal Advisory Flags Exploits Used Before Public Disclosure
The updated CISA and FBI advisory reports more than 200 new victims in a year, heavy targeting of healthcare, and exploits in use up to a week before public disclosure. The defensive bar it sets: patch latency in days, monitored remote access tooling, and exercised response.
Read more →Anthropic Moves Toward Gigawatt Scale Canadian Compute, and the Governance Questions Arrive With It
Job postings for a Canadian compute lead and an Alberta community engagement manager point to a domestic frontier compute buildout, joining Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta's Alberta plans. Data residency, energy planning, and social licence arrive with it.
Read more →Ready to begin?
Tell us which obligation you are facing, a contract clause, a designation risk, or an AI adoption plan, and we'll schedule a discovery call.
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