Inside Ottawa’s Diplomatic Row With Beijing Over Chinese Police Stations

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn (L) and RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin (R) speak to reporters after testifying at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Oct. 3, 2024. Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

Previously unreported details of how Ottawa dealt with illegal Chinese police stations have been disclosed at the Foreign Interference Commission, showing how Beijing’s assurance that it had closed the stations wasn’t necessarily the case.

A summary of government intelligence and diplomatic information on Chinese overseas police stations was entered as evidence on Oct. 3 at the commission, which is currently examining Ottawa’s capacity to counter foreign interference.

The summary explains how, after Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders published a report on the topic in September 2022, subsequent investigation by authorities confirmed the existence of illegal Chinese police stations in Canada.

RCMP officials testified at the inquiry on Oct. 3. Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn declined to say whether the force was aware of the presence of the stations before the NGO’s report.

The report from Safeguard Defenders had provided addresses for suspected locations in Canada. The government summary provided to the inquiry says the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Public Safety Canada, and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) consulted on the matter and the NGO report on the stations was deemed credible.

A few weeks later on Oct. 7, a senior GAC official responsible for Asia called the Chinese ambassador to Canada to protest the presence of the stations and requested they be shut down. This was followed by a hand-delivered formal diplomatic note on Oct. 28, which requested the People’s Republic of China (PRC) provide an explanation on the stations and their intended purposes.

Canada protested that the stations are a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The senior GAC official also told the Chinese embassy it would deny its longstanding request for the creation of a liaison position for a Chinese Communist Party official.

While the diplomatic track was being pursued, CSIS and the RCMP were holding consultations on how to deal with the Chinese police stations, says the government summary.

CSIS also disseminated intelligence products on the topic and assessed the stations served in part to “collect intelligence and monitor former PRC residents living in Canada as part of the PRC’s broader transnational anti-corruption, repression and repatriation campaign.”

The stations were “established around the world by sub-national PRC authorities, including police forces, to ostensibly provide services to diaspora communities abroad,” such as to renew driver’s licences and assist Chinese tourists abroad, says the government summary. This still constitutes a violation of Canadian sovereignty regardless of the intention, it adds.

“Either by design or through opportunism, some of these stations may have served as conduits for the PRC’s broader trans-national repression and repatriation operations,” the document says.

Chinese Embassy Says Centres Closed

Following GAC’s démarche with the PRC in October 2022, it received formal notification from the Chinese embassy in late November 2022 that “what they referred to as ‘overseas Chinese service centres’ were no longer in operation,” says the summary.

GAC continued to work on the matter in late 2022 and early 2023, engaging with like-minded countries to share information and consult on how to respond to the issue. GAC’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM), tasked with countering threats to democracy emanating from foreign countries, continued researching the topic of overseas Chinese police stations.

The government summary said the RRM began to refer to the centres as “liaison stations” since they offered services beyond what is related to policing.

Following this research, GAC again demanded in February 2023 that PRC officials cease operations of any stations in Canada.

A few months later in April of that year, then-Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told a House of Commons committee the RCMP had “taken decisive action to shut down the so-called police stations.”

Asked by a commission counsel on Oct. 3 to describe what this “decisive action” entailed, Deputy Commissioner Flynn said it related to a “decision to immediately respond, deploy resources to the community, to the locations, conduct the neighbourhood inquiries, interview individuals, and the subsequent follow up investigation that occurred.”

Part of the approach had been to sent marked police vehicles at the stations’ locations, the RCMP has previously said.

Flynn declined to comment on whether the Chinese police stations are still operating. “I’m not going to speak to that,” he said. “That would form part of what we are currently investigating as part of our ongoing investigative effort.”

The government summary introduced at the inquiry says Ottawa “continues to monitor for any indications of additional activity of these stations in Canada.”

Quebec Investigations

Aside from posting uniformed RCMP officers near the Chinese police stations, the RCMP in Québec also took the unusual step in March 2023 of disclosing an active investigation against two community organizations in the Montreal area suspected of hosting Chinese police stations.

No arrests have been made in the case and the organizations have since sued the RCMP for defamation.

Neil Chantler, counsel for the Chinese Canadian Concerned Group, asked the RCMP why the stations have been handled differently than other organized criminal operations. “Why were these overseas Chinese police stations handled with such diplomacy?” he said.

Flynn rejected the premise of the question about RCMP efforts being “diplomatic” and instead called them a “law enforcement investigation into a very serious matter impacting the Chinese community.”

“The focus is on building the trust with the victims of the criminal activity that we are investigating,” he said. Flynn remarked that the RCMP also uses overt approaches when dealing with groups like the Hell’s Angels.

Another overt tactic of the RCMP in Québec this summer involved parking a mobile command centre at the entrance of Montreal’s Chinatown. Uniformed agents went into businesses to talk with shop owners.

RCMP spokesperson Sergeant Charles Poirier told The Epoch Times at the time the initiative was meant to “demystify” what foreign interference looks like in the Chinese community. Poirier said the RCMP’s investigation into the matter are complicated by cultural and language barriers and a “climate of terror that prevails.”

The police force also launched around the same time an online campaign in Chinese language asking for anonymous tips about “any form of threats, harassment or intimidation from the Chinese Communist Party.”