(OTTAWA) After years of dithering, the Trudeau government has finally decided to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the 5G network in Canada.
Posted at 4:06 p.m.
The announcement will be made Thursday afternoon in Ottawa by the Ministers of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, and his colleague at Public Security, Marco Mendicino.
The news was first reported by English media, including the American news agency Bloomberg.
Huawei’s fate had been up in the air for several years.
Former Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale promised to settle this thorny issue in 2018. “Within a few weeks,” he told reporters, as the “Five Eyes” decreed one after another that Huawei posed a threat to their national security. The United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are part of this group set up to facilitate the sharing of information collected by the intelligence agencies of allied countries.
But China’s decision to jail two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, in retaliation for the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in December 2018 at the request of the United States has forced the Trudeau government to postpone any decision.
The two Michaels were finally released last October after more than 1,000 days of detention in harsh conditions. Their release and that of Meng Wanzhou, after the abandonment of the extradition request by the American authorities, clears the way for Ottawa to finally decide the question.
Canadian spy experts were unanimous: Huawei posed a national security threat and Canada needed to follow in the footsteps of its “Five Eyes” allies. The Conservative Party was calling for it just as loud and clear.
“When they try to make us believe that Huawei is not linked to the Chinese government, it’s window dressing. It’s sham, ”maintained in particular Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former agent at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Giving Huawei access to the development of 5G was letting the wolf enter the fold, he insisted in an interview with The Press. “You can’t operate in China in such a strategic company as communications and not be tied down. Let’s see! China does not even allow free access to the internet”.
And the path of the Chinese giant in terms of intellectual property theft is not very good, insists Mr. Juneau-Katsuya.
“Huawei stole technology left and right! Canada has things to lose. Canada is a knowledge-based society, which does a great deal of research and is at the cutting edge of technology in many fields,” he argues.