Canada looks to U.K for guidance

OTTAWA Industry Minister Navdeep Bains says the government is studying Britain’s decision to grant Chinese telecom company Huawei partial access to its next-generation 5G network, but has yet to make its own decision.

The update, or lack thereof, comes after Britain said Tuesday it would attempt to limit “highrisk” vendors’ access to the new upgraded network — coded language for Huawei.

The Liberal government has said the safety and security of Canadians is its top concern, a talking point Bains reiterated without offering any timeline on when the government will decide. “They (Britain) are an ally; we’re engaged with them,” Bains said in Ottawa. “So, of course, we’re looking at what decisions they’ve made and how they plan to implement those decisions.”

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair stressed that “very significant” considerations are “unique to the Canadian environment.” He declined to specify what he meant.

However, the government is already at loggerheads with China over its ongoing imprisonment of two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were arbitrarily detained on spying charges more than a year ago. That came after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant.

Asked if the fate of the two Canadians is a consideration in deciding whether Huawei should be involved in the development of Canada’s 5G network, Blair said: “I will tell you I think it’s very important that we get the two Michaels back but it’s not directly tied to that.”

Like Britain, Canada has been under pressure to ban Huawei from the United States, which deems the Chinese tech giant to be a national security threat — a charge the company denies.

In a statement Tuesday, Huawei Canada welcomed Britain’s move to allow the firm partial access to its 5G network and urged Canada to make its own decision, “based on technology and security, not politics” or pressure from the U.S.

“It is important to remember that in our 10 years of operation in Canada, there has never been a security incident or a lapse of any sort. Not one,” the company said in a statement from Alykhan Velshi, the vice-president of corporate affairs.