A federal agency is working with huawei to allocate funds to support cutting-edge computer and electrical engineering research at the country’s universities. Critics say the move threatens Canada‘s national security and economic interests.
According to the Globe and Mail, the federal agency, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), is now working with Huawei Canada to fund the research. Many top universities in the U.S. and the U.K. have avoided Huawei for intellectual property and national security reasons when investing in such research.
The committee provided a total of $4.8 million in research funding to research partners, including Huawei. Huawei also did not disclose the total amount of their funding, saying only that it was “more than $4.8 million.
Jim Balsillie, former co-chief executive of Research In Motion and founder of the Centre for International Governance and Innovation, a think tank, said he was pleased that the Voguing grant helped Huawei gain access to He said he was surprised to learn that Ottawa had allocated funds to help Huawei obtain advanced technology that would benefit China.
4.8 million in taxpayer funds
These areas of research are for strategic digital infrastructure, which are the equivalent of the nervous system of today’s economy and security,” he said. It is incredible that in 2021, we are still using taxpayer funds to advance China’s priorities at the expense of our economy, security, and the Five Eyes Alliance partnership.”
Of the Five Eyes Alliance, which consists of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, only Canada has yet to ban or restrict the use of Huawei’s 5G technology.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had asked cabinet ministers to protect Canada’s intellectual property even before the commission announced its plans for research funding. In a letter of authorization to federal Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, he asked him and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to “work closely with Canadian industry and higher Education institutions to preserve Canada’s world-leading research ecosystem and IP-intensive businesses.
In response to an inquiry from The Globe and Mail, Pengfei Shang said the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s grants are kept at arm’s length from the government, but noted that federal agencies should be mindful of national security issues when funding related projects.
Valérie Levert-Gagnon, a spokeswoman for the council, did not explain the reasons for funding the projects, but said it was working with university researchers to raise their “security awareness.
John Townsend, a spokesman for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), noted that Canada has long been a target of funding from companies in other countries that seek “to gain information, intelligence and influence to advance their national interests.
Research projects co-funded with Huawei have included inter-chip communication of heterogeneous structures, intelligent computer memory systems, photonic computing and privacy-protected graphical analysis.
Jim Hinton, a leading Canadian patent lawyer, emphasized, “It makes no sense to support the development of information technology by a company that our allies consider insecure.”
Federal Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole criticized the Trudeau government for using taxpayer funds to support Huawei’s university research projects through a statement Monday.
In the statement, he noted, “It is clear to our allies, national security experts and Canadians that Huawei already poses a direct threat to national security interests, and still the Prime Minister chooses to work with such a company.”
He said, “This shows that Trudeau lacks sufficient judgment to think that spending $4.8 million to work with Huawei is a good idea, and what he needs to do now is to cancel the grant immediately.”
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