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The decision is expected to be announced later today by Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino.
Publication date:
May 19, 2022 • 7 minutes ago • 4 minutes reading • 257 comments
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OTTAWA – The Canadian government will ban equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from the country’s two wireless 5G and 4G networks after a three-year review.
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“Telecommunications companies in Canada will not be allowed to include in their networks products or services that endanger our national security,” Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told reporters on Thursday.
“Suppliers who already have this equipment installed will need to stop using it and remove it.”
With this move, Canada is in line with its Five Eyes intelligence allies – the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – who have already banned or restricted Huawei’s equipment from its 5G networks.
Liberals promise a decision to ban Huawei for three years. Asked why it took so long, Champagne said “it was never a race. It’s about making the right decision. “
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During this time, major telecoms in Canada were moving to build stand-alone 5G networks using equipment from other vendors, which means that the ban on Huawei and ZTE is largely irrelevant to these networks. The so-called stand-alone 5G networks are integrated with older 4G networks.
Both Bell and Telus will have to remove Huawei’s existing equipment from these older networks. Telus warned the government as early as 2019 that “Huawei’s total ban on 5G will force operators to replace their existing 4G equipment with Huawei – an expensive and complicated proposal for an extended period of time.”
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Innovation Canada stated in a policy statement that telecommunications companies will have to remove 5G equipment and managed services from Huawei and ZTE by June 28, 2024, and “any existing 4G equipment and managed services must be removed or discontinued by December 31, 2027 d.
Champagne said Thursday that the government will not financially compensate telecoms. Earlier, The National Post reported that Bell and Telus had approached the government about the possibility of being reimbursed by taxpayers for the cost of removing the equipment.
In addition to older, previously sold equipment, Huawei has sold equipment worth just over $ 700 million to telecom operators in Canada since 2018, most notably Bell and Telus.
Margaret McQueig-Johnston, an expert on China and a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s School of Public and International Relations, said two and five years to remove all Huawei equipment were too long.
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Although she said it was “completely” in favor of the Liberals’ statement on Thursday, she said she hoped the government would reach out to the United States and outright ban all of the company’s products, such as consumer goods such as cell phones.
“There are other elements of what the company provides that can also be a problem,” she said.
Huawei and ZTE’s ban stems from fears that Huawei’s equipment on Canada’s next-generation wireless networks is a security risk, especially given China’s laws requiring state-owned companies to cooperate with its intelligence services.
This delay only works to raise serious questions at home and among our allies about the Liberal government’s national security commitments.
Innovation Canada said in a statement that the Canadian government was seriously concerned that the two companies “could be forced to comply with extrajudicial instructions from foreign governments in ways that would be contrary to Canadian law or detrimental to Canadian interests.”
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Asked what threat Huawei poses to Canada, Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino said that “the recent review has been in-depth, precise, based on the advice we receive from our national security partners.”
The government will also soon introduce a legislative framework to protect critical infrastructure in the financial, energy, telecommunications and transport sectors, Mendicino said. Critical infrastructure has become more vulnerable to cyber attacks in the last decade as it connects more and more to the Internet.
In separate statements, the opposition Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, essentially said: it is high time.
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“The lack of action by the liberal government on this decision is an international disgrace,” said Conservative MP Raquel Dancho. “In the years of delay, Canadian telecommunications companies have bought hundreds of millions of dollars in Huawei equipment, which will now have to be removed from their networks at great expense.
Brian Mas of the NDP said the decision was “long overdue” and could ultimately damage Canada’s reputation in the eyes of its intelligence allies.
“It took the liberal government three years to make that decision, while the other five-eyed countries announced their positions much earlier. This delay has only raised serious questions in our country and among our allies regarding the liberal government’s national security commitments and hampered the internal telecommunications market.
Bloc Québécois said it welcomed the “late” decision and insisted that no state money would be spent to compensate the telecommunications giants, which already have Huawei technology in their systems.
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