The row over China’s global spy network continues with the Canadian Government facing pressure to investigate claims of espionage, targeting local Falun Gong practitioners and democracy activists and costing Canada up to $1 billion every month through industrial espionage.

Canada Press reported that Jillian Ye, a database consultant from Toronto, was the subject of a September 2004 report to officials in China who monitor the banned Falun Gong, a practice of meditation and exercises with roots in traditional Chinese culture.

The document entitled “Intelligence 274(2003), series nkf03292” was released to the Epoch Times last week by Hao Fengjun, who defected to Australia after working in China’s security system as a “610 officer”. The report contained detailed information of Ye’s plans to start a communications company. At that time, Ye says, she had not even started the company, but had only talked about the idea privately.

“It makes me wonder where they are getting their information and how closely they are watching us” said Ye, who came to study at the University of Western Ontario in the early 90’s and has since become a Canadian citizen.

Ye, 39, is a slight, cheerful and soft-spoken Chinese woman. She has no history of involvement in Chinese politics or even community organizations. That is, of course, if you ignore that she practices Falun Gong.

Falun Gong was banned in China in 1999, with Amnesty International reporting widespread cases of torture and abuse against its practitioners.

Meanwhile the Canadian Prime Minister is facing pressure from the Conservatives to address Chinese espionage, claiming the theft of industrial secrets is draining billions of dollars from the Canadian economy.

“Did the prime minister explicitly raise this violation of our sovereignty when he met with leading Chinese government officials in Beijing earlier this year?” asked Conservative leader Stephen Harper.

The claims of Chinese spies operating in the West surfaced three weeks ago when Chinese consular diplomat Chen Yonglin, 37, revealed that there are 1000 such informers in Australia. He says the spies are directed to monitor the activities of Falun Gong practitioners, other dissidents and democracy movements.

The document about Ye was among eight such records obtained by The Epoch Times from Hao Fengjun. The former security officer says he was inspired to speak out after hearing Chen’s public statement at a rally in Sydney in early June.

Hao has smuggled hundreds of documents on a digital recording device, many containing information about the activities of Australian and Canadian citizens, as well as inside information from China’s security system.

While in China he worked at the notorious ”610 Office,” which he says routinely authorized the monitoring, harassment, and even beating, torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners. The “610 office” also dispatched thousands of spies to overseas countries.

Hao estimated that the spy network in Canada might be very similar to the one in Australia described by Chen. He said that operatives spying on Falun Gong, coded “F101” agents, keep a list of practitioners, tap their phones, and wage campaigns of threats and harassment.

Both Chen and Hao are now awaiting the Australian government’s decision to grant them political asylum. Their actions of leaking state secrets and sensitive information is punishable by the death sentence if they return to China.