Saskatchewan NDP Wants SaskTel to Review its Relationship with Huawei

In a statement to Global News earlier this week, opposition leader Ryan Meili said that he wants Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe to review SaskTel’s ties with Huawei in order to ensure that the privacy and security of people and businesses in the province are protected.

“I have written to the premier to outline our concerns over Huawei having backdoor access to our essential communications infrastructure,” said Meili while adding that he wants Moe to “place an immediate moratorium on any further contracts between the Crown corporation and the Chinese telecoms giant and also inform the public of Huawei’s involvement with SaskTel.

Meanwhile, SaskTel has said they have been working with Huawei since 2010 and have never had any issues with the Chinese company.

“The security of our customers and our network is our highest priority, Huawei equipment is tested to ensure there are no malicious holes in there hardware or software,” SaskTel’s chief technology officer Daryl Godfrey said.

SaskTel added that there has been no evidence of anything malicious in Huawei products but they will abide by any measure put forward by the federal government.

“Huawei has operated for more than 10 years across Canada without a single security breach or incident. We’re proud to play a role in connecting the people of Saskatchewan to wireless services,” Huawei Canada’s chief security officer, Olivera Zatezalo, said in a statement.

Huawei Canada has also said time and again that it welcomes any scrutiny by the government and that it is willing to do whatever it takes to safeguard the security of the wireless networks it supports