OTTAWA -- The Trudeau government has long characterized it as a dispassionate policy exercise drawing on expert evidence.
But the political drumbeats are growing louder -- at home and abroad -- as the federal Liberals come closer to deciding whether to let a Chinese telecom firm help build Canada's next-generation mobile networks.
The development of 5G, or fifth-generation, networks will give people speedier connections and provide vast data capacity to meet the ceaseless demand for emerging applications, like virtual reality and autonomous driving, as more and more things link to the internet.
In Canada, China-based Huawei Technologies, Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia are among the leading candidates to help telecommunication firms such as BCE and Telus build their 5G networks.
The opposition Conservatives are pressing the Liberals to deny Huawei a role in assembling the country's 5G infrastructure, alleging it will allow Beijing to spy on Canadians more easily.
Some security experts say Huawei's participation could give it access to an array of digital data gleaned from how, when and where Canadian customers use their electronic devices. In turn, the theory goes, Chinese security agencies could pressure the company into handing over the personal information.
