[LINK] "Canada won’t say if security exemption shuts China's Huawei out of contract"

[rfmcdonald]

The repercussions of the negative findings by a US Congressional report for Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei that I mentioned in yesterday's blog roundup are making it up to Canada, it seems. Mark Kennedy and Jameson Berkow's Ottawa Citizen article does highlights likely possible directions, i.e. the Canadian government's blocking of Huawei to preserve close links with the United States despite the Harper government's desire to boost trade with China.

The federal government is invoking a “national security exemption” as it hires firms to help build a secure communications network for Canada.

However, it refuses to say if that exemption — which allows the government to discriminate against companies and nations considered security risks — will be used to block the Chinese company, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, from getting a contract.

[. . .]

On Tuesday, questions were raised in Ottawa about whether Canada planned to heed the warning from the U.S. lawmakers about Huawei, which has a Canadian operation.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke cautiously when asked about the government’s plans to upgrade its communications network.

“The government is going to be choosing carefully in the construction of this network and it has invoked the national security exception for the building of this network,” said Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s director of communications.

In a later interview, MacDougall said that Shared Services Canada announced as far back as last year, when it was moving ahead with its new communications network, that it would invoke the national security exception provision.

“There’s an authorized exception under our trade agreements for the building of infrastructure that the government deems critical for national security. And it overrides our normal trade deal provisions.”

[. . .]

MacDougall did not say Tuesday whether this policy will exclude Huawei from winning bids for federal contracts.

“I’m not going to comment on any one company in particular,” he told a news conference. “I’ll leave it to you if you think Huawei should be a part of the Canadian government security system.”