Trust is the new currency: How François Guay quietly built a national cyber movement 

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For executives and boards, the takeaway is clear. Identity has become the most targeted attack surface and trust must be verified before action, not justified after the fact. In practice, that means named approvers for high‑risk actions, verified call‑backs to numbers on file for sensitive requests and a culture that rewards a short pause in the face of manufactured urgency. 

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How CCN ‘sees’ what others miss 

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“Proximity,” Guay says. “We have feet on the street.”  

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CCN is designed to listen where decisions are actually made, close to practitioners who carry both accountability and ambiguity.  

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“We don’t try to predict the future. We surface signals, patterns across near‑misses, awkward decisions, quiet failures, then reflect them back to leaders early, sometimes uncomfortably early.” 

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That structure is intentional. “Most organizations work with companies and universities, which matters,” he notes. “But they often miss the most essential audience, the practitioners. Those voices bring balance. They create trusted signals. They are not paid. They are not there for revenue. They show up because they care about people, about Canada and about having a purpose beyond their job title. CCN exists to connect those voices and help that purpose travel further.” 

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The community’s field sense now has a dedicated outlet, CCN Insights, a concise intelligence series that turns early practitioner observations into clear, usable context leaders can act on, delivered quickly through national and global publications and briefings. The aim is clarity and speed, so that signals do not go stale before they can shape action. 

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Recognition you can see, and must keep 

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Values only matter if they are visible in practice. In the coming months, CCN will introduce two forms of recognition. 

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The Digital Trust Symbol will signal alignment with human first principles and responsible collaboration. 

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Next, the Digital Trust Pin will be reserved for rare, earned recognition of sustained conduct under pressure. Governance will be intentional, with an advisory board guiding decisions. Awarding a Pin requires a full vote and it may be withdrawn if standards are not upheld.  

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“Trust isn’t something you receive once and keep forever,” Guay says. “It has to be upheld every day.” The aim is not certification theatre, it is culture and conduct that people can recognize and rely on. 

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Security you practice, not something you buy 

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“Businesses are already on the front line,” Guay says. “The most meaningful security decisions are increasingly being made inside organizations themselves.” His Monday‑morning move is intentionally simple. Pick one high‑risk action, for example, changing supplier banking details, and add a trust-at-the-moment-of-action routine, a verified call‑back to a number on file, plus a second named approver before any funds move. Practice it until it becomes muscle memory. Then pick the next action. 

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That is a small act of agency, the difference, he says, “between using systems and being governed by them.” Agency means understanding how automated systems decide, which assumptions they rely on and when a human can intervene. Organizations that bake agency into everyday workflow reduce risk, and they also build the confidence to move faster when it matters. 

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A country of waterways and a community of shared weight 

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Guay’s view of community was shaped far from conference halls, on the lakes and forest trails of Temagami. He recalls travelling routes known as Nastawagans, Indigenous knowledge systems of travel maintained by Algonquin knowledge keepers long before roads existed, with paths literally worn into the rock by generations of footsteps.