Talking Points<\/p>\n
Honor Device Co. is a state-owned Chinese electronics company that spun out of Huawei in 2020 to avoid U.S. security-related sanctions on its parent
\nAttracted by Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s outreaches to China, Honor is knocking on doors in Ottawa, considering whether to sell its phones and tablets in Canada and raising the prospect of a deeper industrial commitment<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the convergence of a lot of different things going on around the world, they said, \u2018Maybe now is the time to look at Canada as one of our next markets,\u2019\u201d Palmer told The Logic. \u201cHonor was at Davos and was impressed\u2014it made an impact. So if you look at an innovation economy with stability, Canada starts to look pretty favourable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company is interested in selling its handsets in Canada through the usual channels like telecom companies and mall kiosks, said Palmer, but is also sounding out potential for a deeper industrial commitment.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n
\t \u201cWhen they go into different markets, they do also tend to look at things like research and development and other ancillary parts,\u201d he said. He compared it to GM, whose Canadian assembly lines might get the most attention but whose Canadian engineering operation is nearly as hefty.<\/p>\n Honor started as a Huawei-owned discount brand, sometimes selling the same devices in different packaging. Huawei sold<\/a> the division to a consortium of other Chinese owners in 2020 to protect it from United States sanctions targeting Huawei\u2019s access to critical hardware components.<\/p>\n The company has diversified: Honor made the robot that recently ran<\/a> a half-marathon faster than any human ever has (which is an achievement in robotics, if not in athletics).<\/p>\n Honor is majority controlled by the Shenzhen Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a creature<\/a> of the Shenzhen municipal government, which led the corporate rescue operation in 2020. Despite that state control, it\u2019s quite different from Huawei, said Palmer: Honor isn\u2019t \u201ca strategic apparatus of the national government\u201d in China.<\/p>\n Huawei makes a wide range of internet-connected products, from phones, smart watches and consumer routers to commercial-grade equipment for telecom companies. Canada spent years studying<\/a> whether those posed a national security risk, on the theory that Beijing might<\/a> spy on data passing through them\u2014a prospect that Huawei vehemently rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n The federal government\u2019s assessment was complicated by Canada\u2019s 2018 arrest<\/a>\u2014at the U.S.\u2019s behest\u2014of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who\u2019s also the daughter of the company\u2019s founder Ren Zhengfei. China promptly arrested<\/a> Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor.<\/p>\n Only after all three had been released<\/a> did Canadian authorities say<\/a> in 2022 that they\u2019d concluded that having Huawei gear in the guts of Canadian telecom systems was a national security risk and that telecoms would have to get rid of it. Telcos started complying even though the Liberals, under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, never quite passed<\/a> the bill that would have given the policy statement its legal force.<\/p>\n Huawei consumer devices were never targeted in Canada; hundreds of them are approved for sale here, with new wireless earphones getting Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada\u2019s permission as recently as January. But you won\u2019t find its phones next to ones from Apple, Samsung or Google in bundles from Bell, Rogers or Telus.<\/p>\n In the United Kingdom, which moved<\/a> to expel commercial Huawei gear from telecom networks before Canada did, Honor phones are available through major providers like Vodafone and O2.<\/p>\n
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