Oops, Did We Do THAT, Again?!

"If this is really a police station from China, they can use the funds to expand their network and their connections."

"This is also one way to monitor the many international Chinese students that are here [on a study visa in Canada]."

Benjamin Fung, McGill University professor

"[Beijing uses the United Front Work Department] to stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities and multinational corporations."

Public Safety Canada 2021 memorandum

"Getting funding in Canada legitimizes the group and provides it more of a foothold."

"It can obviously strengthen it, it can obviously get it closer to fundraising activities and give it more opportunities for influencing people."

Dennis Molinaro, former national security analyst

The Centre Sino-Québec in Brossard denies the RCMP's allegation that it could in fact be operating as a kind of police station for the Chinese government. (CBC)

 

Service a la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montreal (SFCGM), a charity based in Montreal advertising itself as a social resource from Chinese immigrants to Canada, is under investigation by the RCMP to clarify whether it is, as suspected, hosting a secret Chinese 'police station'. These police stations have been popping up all over the world, wherever expatriate Chinese have immigrated and taken out citizenship, from Europe, to North America. 

Those that were discovered in the United States have been summarily shut down by US authorities. Those in Canada are being monitored, some but not all shuttered by government. It has now been revealed that Canada's Liberal-led government has seen fit since 2020 to support the charity financially. Funding, according to experts on Chinese foreign interference that may certainly have aided those acting on behalf of Beijing to expand the network of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada. And in the process 'legitimizing' it.

According to the RCMP, the charitable organization may be the host of one of two secret Chinese 'police stations' in Quebec. Billing themselves as promoting initiatives for the Chinese community in Canada's well-being, it is also understood that these police agents aggressively harass Canadian-Chinese citizens who are critical of Beijing, attempting to bully them to return to China to face charges of treason. These are Canadian citizens who live in fear of being watched, who receive threatening messages. And who are obliquely informed their families back in China may suffer.

The RCMP, Canada's national police force, has an investigation underway of the organization, part of a large probe whose purpose is to "detect and perturb criminal activities supported by a foreign state that can threaten the safety of people living in Canada". Because of its charitable status, the SFCGM is legally required to file financial records which reveal that the government of Canada funded a total of $200,000 in public funds in the last reported fiscal year.

 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick (Justin Trudeau) and AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File (Xi JingPing

 

This funding is tracked through the auspices of a federal government grants and contributions database listing contributions from Employment and Social Development Canada as well, as far back as 2018, meant to support summer program youth employment. Other contributions support the organization's New Horizons for Seniors program meant to train seniors in Quebec's Chinese community in the use of online communication tools "in order to maintain their contact with the community and their families".

All of which sounds innocent enough on the surface, yet an analysis by pro-democracy group Action Free Hong Kong maintains that the programs are a means by which secret Chinese police stations build their networks. Critics of the Chinese Communist Party, according to Professor Benjamin Fung of McGill University, have been aware for years of an "underground" influence network in Canada for the Chinese Communist Party.  He was himself, he explained, a target of harassment.

For its part, the charity leadership questioned why the RCMP "would publicly name two community centres serving the Chinese communities in Quebec, causing serious and potentially irreparable harm to the community", calling for respect of the "presumption of innocence". Senator Yuen Pau Woo called on the RCMP to "provide information, clarity, and in the meantime, don't create more problems for the community".

A recent expose in the Toronto Star cited Chinese media reports in 2015 that the charity in question was designated an Overseas Chinese Service Centre by China's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (which itself  is part of China's controversial United Front Work Department, a designation that generally accompanies Chinese government funding). Dennis Molinaro, expert on Chinese foreign interference, pointed out that organizations acting at Beijing's behest often seek foreign government funding for optical legitimacy.

In the last three reported fiscal years, SFCGM reported over $4.46 million in government funding, the bulk from Quebec's Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration. The department, according to a spokesperson, "recently decided to halt all remaining contracts with SFCGM". The same department cut close to $1 million in reoccurring funding to the organization, resulting from an audit that examined SFCGM's governance, "sound management" and reporting.

According to the Spanish human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, the police stations, of which Safeguard identified over 100 in over 50 countries, serve to "persuade" people whom Chinese authorities claim are fugitives, to return to China, to face charges.

A view inside the Service à la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montréal, one of two Montreal-area locations under investigation by the RCMP for being possible “police stations” run by the Chinese government. Photo by Allen McInnis/Postmedia