RCMP Taking On Beijing Interference With Public Campaign in Quebec

A screen grab from an RCMP Quebec video about harassment by Beijing. RCMP Video

RCMP in Quebec are taking the fight against foreign interference into the open by launching a public campaign calling for tips about illicit Chinese regime activity.

“We are actively investigating allegations of criminal activity related to Chinese interference in Quebec,” the force said in Chinese in a July 9 video post on the platform X, alongside French and English versions. “Anonymous reports of any form of threats, harassment or intimidation from the Chinese Communist Party are welcome.”

The Chinese version ends, “Let’s work together to fight foreign interference.”

In a related press release on July 9, the RCMP said the campaign is intended to raise awareness about acts of foreign interference, such as “threats, intimidation, or harassment by the People’s Republic of China.”

Along with asking for tips, RCMP officials and municipal police are scheduled to meet with community members on July 10 in Montreal and the suburb of Longueuil to provide additional information.

The country has been seized with the issue of foreign interference over the past two years, with intelligence leaks in the press and investigations into illegal Chinese police stations operating in Canada.

In March 2023, Quebec RCMP took the unprecedented step of disclosing their investigation into two locations suspected of housing secret Chinese police stations. The announcement followed allegations that several other Chinese police posts were operating in different parts of Canada.

The two locations were identified as office buildings for Chinese community service organizations: Le Service à la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montréal  (Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal) located in the city’s Chinatown neighbourhood, and Le Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud (South Shore Sino-Quebec Centre) in nearby Brossard.

The organizations have denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit against the RCMP in December 2023. The two have not returned requests for comment.

Le Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud in Brossard, Quebec, is seen on March 9, 2023. RCMP say they are investigating the organization, along with the Chinese Family Service of Greater Montreal, for allegedly serving as clandestine overseas Chinese police stations. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

In response to the lawsuit, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme said in a March interview with Radio-Canada that the force relied on “credible” information in its investigation of the two Montreal Chinese organizations alleged to have operated as Chinese police stations. Following the disclosure of the investigation, the RCMP reported receiving at least 15 “serious tips” about Chinese police stations.

The human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, which brought the issue of overseas Chinese police stations to public attention in two reports published in September and December 2022, warned that the stations are part of the Chinese Communist regime’s long-arm policing and transnational repression campaigns that contributed to the forcible repatriation of 230,000 Chinese nationals living abroad over 2021 and 2022.

Efforts to forcibly repatriate its nationals, which Beijing refers to as “persuasion to return” to China, are part of the regime’s broader operations to combat telecommunication fraud committed by Chinese living abroad, according to Safeguard Defenders. The NGO warned that operations like “Sky Net” and “Fox Hunt” have also engaged in intimidating and even kidnapping Chinese dissidents, with the campaigns facilitated by the secret Chinese police stations worldwide.

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.