Huawei received millions from feds, Ontario
Debate rages over tech giant’s 5G network role
As it fights for the right to be part of Canada’s future 5G wireless network, Huawei Technologies often cites the fact it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this country.
But government statistics show the largesse has flowed the other way, too, underlining the close relationship the Chinese tech giant has forged with at least one province and Ottawa.
Canadian governments have provided millions in funding to Huawei and academic researchers collaborating with it, most of the grants designed to enhance the company’s 5G prowess, records indicate.
The support includes a $16-million handout from Ontario’s former Liberal government to Huawei in 2016, augmenting money the company said it would spend on enhancing 5G research in the province.
A Mcgill University engineering professor is receiving $740,000 from a federal funding agency over five years for cutting-edge work with the firm on next-generation wireless.
“Huawei Technologies Canada will benefit from this project through the development of technology and proof-of-concept demonstration platforms,” notes the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) in its description of the project.
The Mcgill grant is among almost $7 million NSERC has provided researchers collaborating with Huawei since 2016-17. About $1.3 million in new grants were awarded just this fiscal year, after the arrest in Vancouver of a Huawei executive and alleged retaliatory actions by China. There is even an NSERC/HUAWEI research chair at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, costing the federal government $295,000 a year, and another reportedly being considered for Laval University.
Funding bodies say the grants have helped create jobs and scientific know-how that benefits all Canadians. Indeed, jointly financing private-sector projects is a long-standing practice of most governments and common in university research.
“To build a strong economy and improve the lives of all Canadians, we need a research environment that is open and collaborative,” said NSERC spokesman Martin Leroux.
But some critics opposed to Huawei taking part in Canada’s fifth-generation wireless on national-security grounds say the funding makes little sense from a security perspective.
“We are using our money to enable them to have decades’ further ability to turn around and threaten our own country and our own citizens,” charged Ivy Li of the group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong. “That is actually a very, very bad deal.”
Others are not so concerned.
Canadians widely encouraged Chinese investment until very recently, while Huawei itself provided employment when Ottawa-based Nortel Networks collapsed in 2009, noted Hugh Stephens, a distinguished fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation.
“We have this research capability, we don’t have that global champion any more,” he said, referring to Nortel. “People are looking around for who are the willing investors.”
The federal government is expected to announce its decision soon about whether to allow Huawei to supply equipment for 5G wireless networks, an upgrade that will make possible dramatic new applications of mobile-communications technology, integrating everything from driverless cars to power plants.
The British government gave Huawei the green light to build part of its 5G network last week.
But critics warn there is a serious risk that Huawei will build “back doors” into the technology allowing China access to Canadian private information and critical infrastructure. The United States and Australia have already banned it from their next-generation systems.
Huawei has said such fears are baseless and rooted in the U.S. trade war, Ren Zhengfie, its founder, saying he’d rather close down the company than have it used for spying or sabotage.
Meanwhile, the corporation has built a major Canadian presence in just a decade, investing $600 million in various research facilities and the work of university scientists.
The financial support it has received from government is less well known.
It includes a $16-million grant announced by former premier Kathleen Wynne in 2016 to help create 250 new company research jobs centred around 5G development. The firm promised to chip in $300 million. The funding agreement lasts until 2021, said a spokesman for Ontario’s Economic Development Ministry.
The province had provided Huawei $6.5 million in 2010 for another job-creation initiative, part of what Ontario called a strategic partnership.
From the same 201617 fiscal year to 2019-20, NSERC has provided 43 grants totalling $6.9 million to university researchers working in partnership with Huawei, online government databases and figures provided by the council to the National Post indicate.
The grants went to universities in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and B.C., the descriptions often explaining how the corporate co-funder would benefit.
Charles Burton, a former diplomat to China and professor at Brock University, in St. Catharines, Ont., said NSERC should assess such funding requests partly on national-security grounds, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
But NSERC’S Leroux says the council works with universities and security agencies to manage the risks, and defended the grants as good for the country and innovation here.