(OTTAWA) Canada is interpreting the concept of national security very broadly, condemning China’s foreign ministry in response to Ottawa’s suspension of an equipment contract for the RCMP tied to a company close to Beijing.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Thursday awarded a $550,000 contract through October 2021 to Canada-based Sinclair Technologies. An investment fund.
This equipment is intended to protect RCMP terrestrial radio communications. China’s potential access to sensitive data revealed by Radio-Canada earlier this week was dismissed by the opposition in Ottawa.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said this was a wrong decision.
“Both China and Canada are beneficiaries of economic globalization and should collectively reject politicizing economic issues or overstretching the concept of national security,” he told a press conference.
An inquiry was conducted into these grievances Global TimesA mouthpiece of Xi Jinping’s regime, where the government has been criticized for modeling its policies on those of the US – Hydera Communications products have been banned from sale by Washington.
Observers said the unjustified ban shows Ottawa’s clear ‘politics over trade’ approach — one that blindly follows the United States and poses new risks to economic ties and Sino-Canadian trade relations,” it said.
The contract should “never be signed.”
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly reiterated Friday that the deal in question should never have been initiated by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) officials.
“Indeed, this is very worrying. Indeed, our independent public service should not have signed this agreement. […] National security issues are expected to be central to all the decisions we make,” he said during Question Time in the House of Commons.
“Why does Beijing’s interference matter when it’s in the media? Conservative Luke Berthold opened, asking earlier if the mistake was evidence of “willful blindness” or “the result of China’s influence in the prime minister’s office”.
Even defense contracts
The Canadian Department of National Defense has awarded Sinclair several contracts over the past decade, including one last year to supply antennas to Canada’s two major naval bases: Halifax and Esquimalt, British Columbia.
Other contracts were awarded prior to Hydera’s acquisition of Norsat in 2017.
Sinclair’s spokesman Martin Cardozo declined to comment on the matter Thursday, other than to say Aurora’s business is a “completely independent entity.”
China of all debates
China’s intervention in Canada is the subject of much debate on Ottawa Hill these days.
About a month ago, Global News Network reported that the Chinese government had unleashed an extensive campaign of domestic foreign interference through an underground network of at least 11 federal candidates in the 2019 federal elections.
Global News reports that a Canadian intelligence agency has found that the Chinese Embassy in Toronto was running a scheme to funnel funds to at least 11 election candidates — Liberals and Conservatives — and a network of Beijing operatives involved in their campaign work.
The issue of secret police stations on Canadian soil also continues to cause a stir.
With Agence France-Presse and The Canadian Press
