Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale confirmed reports that a decision regarding Huawei will not be made until after the federal election in October.
Goodale told The Canadian Press that more information is needed from the U.S. and that he intends to also look at what other countries in the Five Eyes intelligence group have to say.
The group recently held a meeting to discuss Huawei and whether or not the China-based company should provide 5G telecommunications equipment.
Federal Members of Parliament in Ottawa have noted though that U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has been unhelpful in recent days.
The U.S. most recently banned the telecommunications giant from working with any U.S. based companies, and then in June reduced the pressure by allowing some companies to work with Huawei as long as it doesn’t pose a national security threat.
The U.S. charged Huawei, its subsidiary Skycom and Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou, with 13 counts of bank and wire fraud. The charges are yet to be proven in court. Meng was arrested in December in Vancouver and her extradition case to the U.S. might not wrap up until October 2020.
Huawei Canada told MobileSyrup that while 5G is important, it “is not everything.”
“First of all, 5G is not everything, but I would say that 5G is important to Huawei,” Chris Pereira, Huawei Canada’s director of public affairs, said. “5G is one of our goals, but we want to be number one in smartphones and enterprise as well. Huawei sets big goals.”
He added that if Huawei was banned from providing 5G equipment it wouldn’t affect the company given it will still be able to provide 3G and 4G LTE equipment as well as grow its enterprise business.
Source: The Canadian Press
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