Canada’s public safety minister Ralph Goodale has said that the Canadian people will have to wait until after the federal election later this year before it is determined that Huawei can provide equipment for the country’s next-generation 5G wireless network.
Canada requires more information from the US regarding the potential security threat the latter believes Huawei poses, he said.
Goodale told The Canadian Press: “I think at this stage, with the amount of time that's left between now and the issuing of a writ that it is unlikely for that decision to be taken before an election.” He further said that the country will continue a vigorous and on-going review of which organisation is ideal for providing the equipment for Canada’s new 5G technology, which is considered as the ‘spine’ for the forthcoming wave of transformative AI tech.
Britain too has expressed that it is not yet ready to finalise the decision on Huawei, but said that stricter industry-wide security controls will be introduced. As this publication reported earlier this month, presently the UK has Huawei equipment scrutinised at the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre in Banbury.
Three UK CEO, David Dyson, said at the time: “We've already started to deploy equipment for when we launch 5G in the second half of the year. So if we had to change vendor now, we would take a big step backwards and probably cause a delay of 12-18 months.”
In March, it was reported that Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was suing Canadian authorities for alleged unlawful conduct following her arrest in the country last December. According to Meng’s lawyers, the Canadian Border Services Agency delayed executing her arrest warrant in a bid to extract added evidence from her before she was arrested.
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