Sovereign backup service keeps Government of Canada cloud data in Canada – available now to federal departments
TORONTO, October 13, 2026 – Think On, Inc. (ThinkOn), the only Canadian-owned sovereign cloud provider approved under the Shared Services Canada framework today announced the availability of its sovereign backup service for Government of Canada cloud data. The service copies Microsoft 365 and hyperscaler cloud data onto ThinkOn’s Canadian-owned and operated infrastructure, keeping it under Canadian control no matter where the originating workload runs.
Departments can run Microsoft 365 and hyperscaler workloads hosted in Canada and still have that data subject to the U.S. CLOUD Act, which lets American authorities compel a U.S.-owned provider to hand it over wherever it is held. As Canada focuses increasingly on nation-building initiatives, it raises new questions about where government data is stored and ThinkOn’s service separates where a department’s data physically sits from who can be compelled to hand it over.
Sovereignty is about who can reach your data. Backup is about who can restore it, and the two are easy to conflate. Microsoft 365 runs on a shared responsibility model: if something outside Microsoft’s responsibilities happens to your data, ransomware, retention-policy gaps, disabled accounts, or accidental deletion – recovering it is the department’s problem, not Microsoft’s. ThinkOn’s sovereign backup closes both gaps at once, keeping a recoverable copy under Canadian control.
“Residency tells you where your data sits. Sovereignty tells you who can be forced to hand it over,” said Craig McLellan, CEO of ThinkOn. “Government departments shouldn’t have to change where their systems run to change who’s answerable for their data.”
ThinkOn launched the service in 2025 with early previews and a Government of Canada proof of concept. It requires no change to where a department’s production applications run – only where the backup copy of that data lives and is available now to all federal departments and agencies through ThinkOn’s Government of Canada Cloud Framework Agreement.
To learn more about how your department can get sovereign back up, reach out to our team at sales@thinkon.com
About ThinkOn
Think On, Inc. is the Canadian-owned cloud provider that modernizes and protects government workloads. We serve 40+ federal departments across 5 Government of Canada Contract Security Program approved Data Centres in Canada, hold Vendor of Record status in Ontario, and deliver on the Government of Canada Cloud Framework Agreement – true data sovereignty for the Canadian public sector.
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