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The United States is escalating a fight against Chinese espionage in the wake of two wide-ranging indictments of Huawei Technologies Co. and they’re calling on Canada and other allies to join the battle.
But the federal government is signalling it will not accelerate a decision over whether to ban Huawei from providing equipment for 5G cellular networks in Canada. Ottawa’s deliberations come as a Canadian court examines a request from U.S. prosecutors to extradite Meng Wanzhou, the company’s chief financial officer.
Canadian Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said Canada will not be rushed into deciding about Huawei’s role in 5G, a massive upgrade to the infrastructure that powers the internet and mobile phone networks. Before Monday’s revelation of U.S. criminal charges, Telus and BCE were aggressively lobbying federal regulators to keep Huawei as a supplier, warning that a ban on the company would translate into higher customer costs and a slower 5G rollout.
The United States, Australia and New Zealand have already announced restrictions on the use of Huawei equipment.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
The federal government is creating a team of senior bureaucrats to unilaterally warn Canadians if they feel a general election is being compromised by foreign actors or hackers. Members of the team will not have to obtain the approval of elected officials or members of cabinet to make their concerns public.
The Canadian government has announced a plan to spend an extra $114.7-million to help pay for temporary housing for asylum seekers. The Ontario government is criticizing the amount as being hundreds of millions short of what is needed.
The government is also looking to offer asylum to Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who spent eight years on death row on charges of blasphemy.
Quebec is calling on Ottawa to loosen the rules that govern temporary foreign workers as part of an ongoing dispute over the best way to deal with the province’s labour shortage.
Voters in Nanaimo head to the polls Wednesday to decide if B.C’s New Democrats and their Green allies will continue to govern with a majority in the legislature. A by-election loss by the NDP to the Opposition Liberals would result in a tumultuous shift, with a perfect balance of votes.
Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is accusing Premier Doug Ford’s government of undermining an independent inquiry into the hiring of Ron Taverner, Ford family friend, as police commissioner. Ms. Horwath comments come after the province’s Community Safety Minister told The Globe and Mail she believes Mr. Taverner will become the province’s next police commissioner.
Politicians in Fort McMurray have voted to prohibit new oil sand facility work camps and deny renewals for existing camps within 75 kilometres of the urban centre. Mayor Don Scott was elected in 2017 on a promise to reduce the region’s reliance on fly-in-fly-out workers.
And a burst sprinkler pipe has flooded several levels of the newly renovated West Block building, the temporary new home of the House of Commons. “I haven’t seen it, but I can smell it,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as he left his office.
John Ibbitson (The Globe and Mail) on the dangers posed by Donald Trump stoking tensions with China: “The Chinese are not blameless – far from it. Fair-minded observers have concluded that the Middle Kingdom has manipulated trading rules to its advantage, while the Justice Department’s allegations appear on their face to be both serious and credible. Nonetheless, the Chinese are not seeking to launch a new Cold War. That’s America’s doing.”
Gary Mason (The Globe and Mail) on the racism inherent in Canada’s First Nations water crisis: “While some headway has been made, there are still too many Indigenous communities that can’t tap into the same safe resources that the rest of us can. Access to a dependable water supply is a fundamental right that many in this country have been denied for far too long.”
Marina Adshade (Special to the Globe and Mail) on the lack of credible polling about social trends in Canada: “In the absence of good data and analysis on public opinion, we have become overly dependent on social media to help determine the public sentiment. Reliance on those spaces to glean public opinion creates a very biased sample; our social groups are hardly representative of the overall population. This only contributes to polarization of beliefs, and allows us to ignore the existence of those who would disagree with our views.”
Barbara Kay (The National Post) on the return of former New Democrat MP Svend Robinson: “From 1979 until 2004, Robinson went from strength to strength within the NDP. Suddenly, his career imploded over his theft of a valuable ring, an action he attributed to mental illness. That’s water under the bridge for me. What isn’t is Robinson’s extreme, career-long animus against Israel, which continues to this day”
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