The RCMP has suspended a procurement contract with a company that has links to China.
The office of Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino confirmed to CBC News that the RCMP has suspended a contract with Sinclair Technologies for radio frequency (RF) equipment. Sinclair’s parent company, Norsat International, has been owned by Chinese telecommunications firm Hytera since 2017.
The Chinese government owns around 10 per cent of Hytera through an investment fund.
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blacklisted Hytera in 2021. The FCC says the company is one of several Chinese firms that pose “an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.”
Both Mendicino and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that the government would examine the contract.
Trudeau said Wednesday the government “will have some real questions for the independent public service” about the contracts. He said the government will look at changing its procurement rules so that contracts don’t always have to go to the lowest bidder.
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) previously told Radio-Canada that security concerns and Sinclair’s ownership were not taken into consideration during the bidding process. The contract, awarded on October 6, 2021, was worth $549,637.
Sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed to Radio-Canada that the difference between Sinclair’s bid and that of its competitor, Quebec-based Comprod, was less than $60,000.
CBC News has reached out to the RCMP and Sinclair for comment.
Radio-Canada reported Thursday that the federal government did not seek a risk assessment from the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s electronic spy agency, on the contract.
CSE’s mandate allows the agency to carry out cybersecurity and supply chain integrity risk assessments or business ownership reviews on request.
Michael Barrett, the Conservative critic for ethics and accountable government, called on the government to make changes to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
“[There are] a lot of concerns, but it really comes down to … the government put the fox in charge of the hen house, and we need to find out how this happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Barrett said in a media scrum Thursday.
“We, Canadians, need to have confidence that the government is making the right decision the first time.”