MPs Ask Why Chinese Diplomat Who Spied on Falun Gong, Uyghurs Not Expelled Sooner

Conservative MP Michael Cooper rises during question period on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 28, 2023. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

Opposition MPs are again asking why expelled Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei wasn’t sent packing sooner, given new revelations that the federal government knew for several years he was spying on Chinese dissidents in Canada, on top of targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong.

“For three years, this government knew that a diplomat in Beijing’s Toronto consulate was spying on Chinese Canadians and sending information back to Beijing’s secret police,” Conservative MP Michael Cooper said in the House of Commons on May 12.

Earlier that day, The Globe and Mail reported that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has a “significant counterintelligence file” on Zhao, a consular officer who was involved in spying on various Chinese communities in Canada.

Zhao was declared persona non grata on May 8 for his involvement with a Chinese spy service in targeting Chong and his family.

CSIS produced an assessment on the matter in 2021 and shared it with other relevant departments, but the prime minister and the minister of public safety said it didn’t come to their attention until the Globe broke the story on May 1.

As for the latest report by the Globe, it says that CSIS started physical surveillance on Zhao in 2019, and shared related information with Global Affairs Canada in 2020.

A national security source told the newspaper that Zhao was responsible for keeping tabs on Chinese dissidents in the Greater Toronto Area, including Falun Gong practitioners, Ughuyr human rights activists, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, and supporters of Tibetan and Taiwanese independence.

Zhao and his proxies would also monitor events held by these groups, photograph participants, and send the information back to a Chinese spy service, the Ministry of State Security, reported the Globe.

“For three long years, this government did nothing,” Cooper said in the House, suggesting the prime minister has failed to protect Chinese Canadians.

Vance Badawey, parliamentary secretary for indigenous services, responded: “While Conservatives try to politicize and play partisan games, we’re taking real action to keep Canadians safe.”

Cooper added that the government only expelled a single diplomat after getting “caught doing nothing,” and noted other revelations from the Globe.

Two national security sources reportedly told the newspaper that Global Affairs has a list of diplomats who could be considered for expulsion due to their involvement in “threat” activities and foreign interference.

“How many names are on that list? How many more warnings from CSIS is this government ignoring?” asked Cooper.

Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure said the inaction on Zhao for several years shows that the Liberals are “unmasked, they clearly don’t want to act on Chinese interference, nor shed light. When will we have a public and independent inquiry?”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly responded that her government has appointed former governor general David Johnston to look into the matter and that the minister of public safety is “following this closely.”

“Based on the facts that have been discovered, we decided to declare the diplomat persona non grata,” she said.

Joly previously testified before committee that no diplomat had been expelled by her government because they were not involved in nefarious activities.

“If there are ever Chinese diplomats that flout the Vienna Convention, then we will take action,” she said on March 9.

‘It’s Troubling’

Members of the communities targeted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) say all this is nothing new, having experienced their intimidation first-hand for years.

Joel Chipkar, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association in Canada, says the interference is “ongoing and well known.”

“For over 20 years, reports have detailed how the CCP’s United Front Work Department disguised as ‘Chinese business associations’ have attacked Falun Gong and others in Canada, to hide their human rights crimes in China,” he told The Epoch Times.

“It’s troubling how the CCP can get away with this here in Canada.”

Chipkar noted the last expulsion of a Chinese diplomat was in 2006. The Epoch Times, which broke the story at the time, reported that Wang Pengfei of the Chinese embassy was declared persona non grata for spying and harassing Falun Gong practitioners.

Mehmet Tohti, an advocate for the Uyghurs, an ethnic and religious minority in China’s Xinjiang region also persecuted by the CCP, says he’s “really angry” after reading the latest report by the Globe.

Tohti, the executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, went as far as calling the government “complicit.”

He says the threats his community faces have been widely reported since 2007, but there hasn’t been “any single steps from the government or other ways to introduce any measures for the protection of Uyghur Canadians and others [as they face] the transnational repression by China, even [though] we live in a free country.”

The federal government has launched consultations on establishing a foreign agent registry, after a number of national security leaks appeared in the press, painting a picture of widespread Beijing interference in Canada.

A bill to establish such a registry was tabled by Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos in 2021, but the government has not supported it.