Canada orders Hikvision Canada Inc. to wind up operations and bans federal procurement of its products

Mechanism

The order was issued under section 25.3 of the Investment Canada Act (ICA) — the same national-security-review authority Canada used in November 2022 to force divestiture of Chinese stakes in three lithium juniors (2022-11-02-canada-ised-critical-minerals-chinese-divestiture-orders). This is a materially harder instrument: rather than ordering divestiture of a minority stake, it orders a wholesale wind-up of Hikvision's Canadian operating business within a fixed 120-day deadline, covering sales, marketing, after-sales support, staffing and contracts. The government determined Hikvision Canada's continued operation would be "injurious to Canada's national security," following review of intelligence-community input — consistent with the US, UK and Australian rationale for restricting Hikvision/Dahua equipment (undisclosed backdoor and data-exfiltration risk in networked camera systems tied to a PRC-linked vendor).

The federal procurement ban is a separate but coordinated instrument: it bars all federal departments, agencies and Crown corporations from buying or using Hikvision products going forward, and triggers an audit-and-removal exercise for equipment already installed in federal facilities — extending the action's reach beyond the single company to the government's own supply chain.

Hikvision filed a legal challenge to the wind-up order in July 2025; a stay motion was later dismissed by the Federal Court, leaving the order in force.

Downstream implications

• First forced full-exit ICA national-security order against a Chinese

surveillance-technology vendor in Canada (the 2022 precedent only compelled divestiture of minority mining-sector equity stakes).

• Aligns Canada with the US (NDAA §889 procurement ban), UK, and Australia in

restricting Hikvision/Dahua equipment from government-linked infrastructure — reinforcing a cross-Five-Eyes pattern of China-linked ICT/surveillance-vendor exclusion.

• 120-day wind-up deadline (from June 27, 2025) sets a hard timeline for

Hikvision Canada's market exit, contingent on the outcome of its legal challenge.

Open questions

• Outcome of Hikvision's Federal Court challenge to the underlying order.
• Whether provincial/municipal governments or private critical-infrastructure

operators follow Ottawa's lead with their own procurement restrictions.