It seems as if hardly a month goes by without another revelation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infiltrating or influencing companies and orders of government within Canada.
This month is no exception. It has been exposed that the RCMP had contracted an Ontario-based company with ties to the CCP to provide equipment related to police radio communications. The security and encryption of communications within a national police force should be rather important considerations. A company providing services related to anything so sensitive should be thoroughly vetted, yet somehow the ties between Sinclair Technologies and the CCP were overlooked when sourcing services.
While the connection may appear minor, when it comes to something as important as the security of communications within our national police force, there shouldn’t be any connections whatsoever with the CCP.
The security of information provided by people seeking visa applications is now questionable due to Canada’s use of VFS Global for visa services in 83 countries. VFS uses subcontractors for their services. Beijing Shuangxiong Foreign Service Company is one of those subcontractors and it operates the Canadian visa application centre in Beijing. Beijing Shuangxiong is owned by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau. In other words, its owned by the Chinese police.
It shouldn’t be that difficult to avoid these controversies, yet they keep happening. These stories aren’t odd, occasional outliers. They are becoming a pattern, and citizens should be concerned.
Foreign espionage is nothing new and every country has practiced it. The way it’s done has changed, though. The CCP has been aggressively infiltrating countries around the world for years. They are skilled at using corporate proxies to gain access to sensitive information in foreign nations. While it is an effective way to mine data and meddle in the affairs of other nations, it is also one of the most easily traceable methods of spying. Corporate connections are documented and searchable. It shouldn’t be hard for government agencies to research prospective contractors to find potential ties to hostile entities such as the CCP.
Procurement policies calling for background checks on prospective government contractors and the rejection of bids from companies with any connection to the CCP should be easy enough to create and follow. Could it really be that tough to find companies without those connections?
Unless the Liberals fundamentally strengthen their handling of the China file and take action against the CCP’s sophisticated approach to intelligence gathering and incursions into Canadian affairs, we are bound to see more of the same in the future.