Sinclair Technologies was awarded a CA$500,000,000 contract for a land radio communications system for the Canadian Federal Police in October 2021 after winning a Canadian government tender.
The Ontario-based company has been controlled by the Chinese company Hytera Communications since 2017. And it turns out that the Chinese state owns about 10% of Hytera through a mutual fund.
Under the process initiated by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the lowest bidder could provide the RCMP with equipment to meet the need for new RF filters. This technology is designed to ensure that no one but RCMP members can eavesdrop on conversations taking place on its mobile land radio systems.
Radio-Canada also announced Thursday morning that the federal government has failed to use the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) to assess the risks posed by new equipment acquired by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and for their mobile land radio system.
On the American black list
In doing so, Ottawa has also ignored many warning signals sent to it several months earlier to prevent and mitigate the dangers associated with these types of alerts.
For almost two years now, US authorities have considered the Hytera Group to pose an unacceptable risk to national security or the safety of American individuals.
The Hytera name appeared on a Washington blacklist and the company faces 21 charges in a major espionage case. According to the US Department of Justice, the Chinese company conspired to steal trade secrets from Motorola.
The RCMP has confirmed to Radio-Canada that initial installation work has taken place without specifying the number of these new devices operating on its network. However, she assured that she does not see this as a security issue for the present and the future.
For now, Minister Mendicino has only announced that the RCMP has suspended the contract with Sinclair Technologies, without giving any information about the work already underway.
What I said in my Indo-Pacific strategy is that we need to make sure we have a national security perspective in everything we do, especially when it comes to contracts and procurement,” Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly responded.
“So this contract should never have been signed by the civil service. Point. »
— A quote from Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly
“It is extremely worrying,” the opposition said
This is extremely concerning, said La Prairie Bloc member Alain Therrien during Question Time in the House of Commons. We know the contract has just been cancelled, but the government has nevertheless given a Chinese government company access to the RCMP’s secret frequencies. […] No one felt the need to carry out security checks. How can the Prime Minister explain this to us?
“We are very concerned about this situation,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau replied. That is why we have asked ministers and officials to follow up on two elements: first, what we should be doing to ensure the integrity and security of our telecoms now, but also how we can improve the system to ensure that such problems do not exist gives the future.
With information from Marc Godbout and Louis Blouin