On August 18th, 2025, SSC issued a request for information for something the Canadian market believed never would actually exist. A fully sovereign public cloud. Not a Canadian region of an American tech oligarch — a full-on Canadian infrastructure, owned and controlled uniquely by Canadian persons.
Why “in a Canadian region” stopped being enough
For decades, data residency was the answer to every Canadian procurement question. As long as it was in Toronto, Montreal, or Calgary, the box was checked. It was controlled by Canada. But the US CLOUD Act authorized US law to compel any US company to produce data as long as it's in its possession, custody, or control — regardless of where it is globally.
It's simple in practice, impossible when originally published. Canner is 100% Canadian-owned and 100% Canadian-controlled. We're still one of very few Canadian enterprises that are fully sovereign and offer such a tall stack of services. We don't just forward email. From the metal to the endpoint, Canner is a full Canadian dev tech, but we only appeared in 2026.
The three testing questions
Who owns and controls you?Must be Canadian persons, no US parent, or controlling interest. For Canner that's a check.
Where does the data live and move?For Canner that's Canadian-owned infrastructure in Montreal, with no foreign edge or transit. Check.
Are you subject to a foreign access law?For Canner that's a loud no. There's no entity or affiliate attached to US law in any way. You can read the full mechanism on our sovereignty page.
If you're a vendor like us
The same question is coming down your own pipeline: is your hosting subject to the CLOUD Act? But you'll probably hear it in this manner: is your hosting "fully" Canadian or "Canadian-owned"? You can answer this question with a data processing agreement, which holds you to your section of the tech stack. But be warned: anyone above you in that chain — a host reselling OVHcloud (French, with a major US entity) or LeaseWeb (Dutch, with major US stakes), the way WHC does — could poison the entire stack with a silly omission or error.
So when you're asking or answering this question, don't forget to start at the metal, and work your way up.