The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Canadians process tens of billions of payments transactions every day, a constant financial flow that operates on the assumption the money from those card taps and electronic transfers will change hands without interruption. The Globe's Stefanie Marotta and Mark Rendell write that if any part of Canada's payments system were to come to a standstill -- whether by another country shutting off access to critical networks or by a cyberattack causing an outage -- the impact on the economy could be severe. As geopolitical tensions escalate and the trade relationship with the United States becomes increasingly volatile, Prime Minister Mark Carney has added security of Canada's payments system to the top of his to-do list, placing it alongside major priorities including defence and critical minerals. Canada's payments system is made up of multiple parts, both foreign and domestic. The country's debit-card and digital money-transfer system, Interac Corp., is domestically owned and operated. However, Canada depends heavily on U.S. giants, such as Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., for other parts of its payments infrastructure, as well as U.S. banks for crossborder transactions.