Canada faces a narrower window than most institutions realize to protect its most sensitive digital secrets from a coming generation of quantum computers.

"The biggest and scariest threat is that we don't upgrade our public cryptography before these threats become relevant," Michael Murphy, a researcher with Queen's University's Centre for International and Defence Policy, told Vanguard.

A cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) is one that can compute fast enough, with or without full error correction, to challenge current encryption protocols like RSA. Once that threshold is crossed, Murphy said, such machines will be able to crack into data considered secret across Canada, the European Union, and other advanced democracies.

No CRQC exists yet, and estimates on when one will vary widely. That uncertainty is precisely the problem: information requiring long-term protection needs to be secured proactively, well before a working CRQC arrives, not after.