Quantum computers capable of breaking widely used public-key cryptography do not yet exist (at least publicly), but the migration away from vulnerable algorithms has already begun. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could eventually defeat RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography, which protects digital certificates, software signatures, virtual private networks, secure web sessions and many other enterprise systems. Post-quantum cryptography, or PQC, uses algorithms designed to resist attacks from both conventional and quantum computers. The issue facing Canadian organizations is therefore less about predicting when a cryptographically relevant quantum computer will arrive and more about completing a complex migration before existing protections become unsafe.
Waiting for the quantum breakthrough creates a second problem: harvest now, decrypt later. An adversary can collect encrypted traffic today, retain it and decrypt it in the future when the necessary capability becomes available. This is especially important for Canadian government information, health records, legal files, intellectual property, financial information, critical-infrastructure designs and personal data that must remain confidential for many years. If information needs ten or twenty years of confidentiality, the organization’s effective migration deadline may arrive long before a practical quantum computer does.
Canada has moved beyond general warnings and established a federal migration roadmap. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security directed federal departments to develop initial PQC migration plans by April 2026, report progress annually, complete migration of high-priority non-classified systems by the end of 2031 and complete remaining migrations by the end of 2035. These dates apply to Government of Canada systems rather than every Canadian business, but they will influence procurement requirements, regulated sectors, government suppliers and customer expectations. The complete federal roadmap is available at https://www.cyber.gc.ca/sites/default/files/itsm.40.001-e.pdf
The first challenge is discovering where cryptography exists and creating an inventory. Most organizations do not maintain a complete cryptographic inventory, and encryption is often buried inside existing products; for example, the Cyber Centre’s roadmap identifies network services, applications, code-development pipelines, cloud services, laptops, phones, printers, hardware security modules, smart cards and security tokens as potential locations. Organizations must also examine TLS certificates, VPN gateways, SSH configurations, email encryption, code-signing systems, public-key infrastructure, backup encryption, API authentication, document-signing platforms and machine identities.
A useful cryptographic inventory should record more than the name of an algorithm. For each system, it should identify the protected business service, data classification, required confidentiality period, cryptographic protocol, algorithm, key length, certificate authority, key owner, vendor, product version, hosting location and system dependencies. It should also document whether the product can support new algorithms through configuration or software updates, whether hardware replacement will be necessary, and when the associated contract or asset reaches renewal. This information allows the organization to distinguish a short-lived public website certificate from a legacy system protecting information that must remain confidential for decades.
Canadian organizations can begin with the following actions:
- Appoint an accountable migration lead. Establish executive sponsorship and bring together security, infrastructure, architecture, application development, privacy, procurement, legal and business-continuity representatives.
- Build an initial cryptographic inventory. Start with internet-facing services, VPNs, identity infrastructure, certificate authorities, code-signing systems, critical applications and systems containing long-lived sensitive information. An incomplete inventory that improves every quarter is more valuable than waiting for a perfect discovery project.
- Prioritize harvest-now-decrypt-later exposure. Identify information transmitted across public or untrusted networks that must remain confidential beyond the expected migration period. These systems should receive earlier attention than information with a short, useful life.
- Require cryptographic agility in procurement. Ask vendors how and when their products will support standardized PQC, whether upgrades require new hardware, and how legacy algorithms will eventually be disabled. Contracts should address standards compliance, interoperability, testing, updates and transition support.
- Test hybrid implementations. Early migrations may combine established public-key algorithms with post-quantum algorithms to maintain compatibility while reducing risk. Test performance, certificate sizes, network behaviour, application compatibility, rollback and operational monitoring before production deployment.
Integrate migration with normal technology renewal. Align PQC work with cloud modernization, identity transformation, network replacement, application redevelopment and certificate-management initiatives. Replacing quantum-vulnerable components through planned lifecycle spending will cost less than an emergency enterprise-wide retrofit.
The technical standards are now sufficiently mature for planning and controlled implementation. In August 2024, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology published FIPS 203 for ML-KEM, FIPS 204 for ML-DSA and FIPS 205 for SLH-DSA. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has incorporated post-quantum recommendations into its current cryptographic guidance for unclassified and Protected A and B information. Canadian organizations should follow recognized standards rather than adopting proprietary “quantum-safe” products whose security and interoperability have not received independent validation. Relevant sources are available at https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography/Post_Quantum_Cryptography-Standardization and https://www.cyber.gc.ca/sites/default/files/itsp40111-cryptographic-algorithms-e.pdf
Post-quantum migration is not a single software upgrade. It is a multi-year transformation involving discovery, risk classification, architecture, procurement, testing, deployment and eventual retirement of vulnerable cryptography. The organizations best prepared for the quantum transition will not necessarily be those that purchase new technology first. They will be the ones that understand where cryptography protects their business, know which information must remain secure the longest and can replace algorithms without rebuilding every dependent system. For Canadian organizations, the most valuable first step is straightforward: begin the inventory now.
