Trudeau: Canada's decision on whether to allow Huawei coming

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will decide within weeks whether to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei into the country’s next-generation 5G wireless networks

TORONTO -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada will decide within weeks whether to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei into the country’s next-generation 5G wireless networks and noted that major telecommunication companies have already started to remove Huawei from their networks.

Canada and its security agencies have been studying whether to use equipment from Huawei as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology, which is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to facilitate medical devices, self-driving cars and other uses.

Two of Canada’s three major telecommunication companies have already said they’ve decided not to use Huawei for their 5G networks. Bell Canada has said Sweden-based Ericsson will be its supplier and Telus Corp. has said it has selected Ericsson and Nokia. Rogers already has a longstanding partnership with Ericsson.

“We have actually seen that many Canadian telecommunications companies, if not all of them, have started to remove Huawei from their networks and are moving forward in ways that doesn’t involve them as a company,” Trudeau said at a news conference.